"What do you think of loot crate as a product" Topic

ok, messed that up lets start over..

Just wondered if anyone here does loot crate every month and if so what do you think of it?

Could it be done better with stuff that is not "cheap" like ID cards, temp tattoos, catalogs, ect.

What is Loot Crate?

I presume it's a "great discount, random contents" kind of thing – wargamers are such a subdivided lot that I struggle to see how it could work in our little niche of the consumer world – I'd have thought as minimum it would have to be a specific period and scale, which pretty much undermines the concept.

I never want more than one or two items out of any crate, which has soured me on the concept.

Apparently its also a fairly old Japanese business idea, shops have sales at various holidays where they sell bags of random items for less than the retail value. They call it Fuku-bukuro.

By "loot crate" I'm assuming you're thinking of this:
lootcrate.com

Looking at it, and what past crates have contained
lootcrate.com/past_crates
it's a pretty low buy-in (around 20 bucks shipped) for some fun stuff, but nothing that looked all that amazing. I do have a hard time seeing how it would work for the diverse interests of wargamers.

However, the Mantic Crazy Christmas boxes are a pretty good example of the concept. link
You have some idea of what you're getting, but regardless, you end up with $90 USD+ worth of product for 40

I see it working better if tailored to 28/32mm sci-fi or fantasy wargamers. If you could get enough companies to buy in, you could send out a monthly or bi-monthly box of goodies at a significant discount.

right, I was not thinking of doing it at loot crates level. Just thinking of using it as a way to thin out old inventory.

Hmm,
You're inventory looks to be mostly fantasy and some pulp. I think folks who like what you offer would be interested in such a deal. I don't know how long it would be feasible, but maybe try it for a one-off grab-bag or a few months in a row.

Would it just be your stock or would you be working with other dealers?

I don't have the knowhow to say it would work, but a team of 4 companies or so, each of which puts a figure or two into the box each month sounds pretty cool. Based on what Johnny of Mega Minis has said on his blog, making and shipping alot of one figure or one set of figures is much easier than filling a bunch of differing orders. Would the effort saved be worth getting a much lower profit per-mini?

I was probably going to start with the Ebay stock first, so a box might contain.

A novel, some RPG books, some CCG decks, a bobble head, a die cast car, a board game and some trading card packs. Whatever fills a priority large flat rate box. All would be new old stock.

So no crappy tattoos, or membership cards or anything really cheap.

When I researched these kind of things on-line I found a lot of similar services for all kinds of products, so there must be a demand for it. I just thought they cold be doing it better is all.

If we found there was enough demand for doing this for just miniatures I am sure we could manage something.

I would never buy such a thing. I want what I want and nothing else.

Yes Dynaman, never said it was for everyone. Some of us do not have anyone to buy us gifts during the year, so this is kind of a self gift idea where you still get surprised.

If I get an extra bit of time I will put a box together and see what happens.