Has preordering ever been this bad?

I don't remember ever seeing this many figures on preorder for this long. Everywhere I look it is preorder or waitlist. It seems like the norm now is order it a year minimum before it is released. Is this to collect money in advance to help fund things? Is covid to blame? Global warming? Lol! I'm just ranting.

Things are definitely taking longer, but things have also taken a long time too, I remember the Hot Toys Tron Legacy Light cycle took like 3 years to finally ship

Back in the day, it was 6 months tops. I think 99% of the problem is that there’s a 100 companies jockeying for position over a handful of factories instead of two or three

clutch said:

I don't remember ever seeing this many figures on preorder for this long. Everywhere I look it is preorder or waitlist. It seems like the norm now is order it a year minimum before it is released. Is this to collect money in advance to help fund things? Is covid to blame? Global warming? Lol! I'm just ranting.

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the pre-order is the perfect system for a company you are paying part/all in advance which for a new company or kickstarter makes sense but larger established companies should really have confidence in their products & ability to judge production quantities. when i started collecting hot toys in 2017 i preordered but waiting so long & tying up cash was frustrating so now i enjoy the unboxing videos wait for any faults to show & then purchase at the lowest price from hong kong, all the best.

So many companies are growing and taking on more licenses but there doesn’t seem to be any additional factories springing up. So they’re all fighting for time in the few factories they share. You have to wonder at what point it would make sense to have your own factory. I think even Hasbro rents factory time rather than owning their own. Not sure if that’s for legal reasons or cost saving ones but if HT had their own factory, they could probably start to catch up on their backlog. It’s strange we get about 1 new preorder a week but aren’t always seeing one new figure released each week.

Buttmunch said:

So many companies are growing and taking on more licenses but there doesn’t seem to be any additional factories springing up. So they’re all fighting for time in the few factories they share. You have to wonder at what point it would make sense to have your own factory. I think even Hasbro rents factory time rather than owning their own. Not sure if that’s for legal reasons or cost saving ones but if HT had their own factory, they could probably start to catch up on their backlog. It’s strange we get about 1 new preorder a week but aren’t always seeing one new figure released each week.

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Since October last year HT has finally started breaking their trend of announcing more than they release. This year so far, they released 27, with 25 announced.
But of course all that's doing is keeping the status quo, which is a backlog of 1.5 to 2 years between announcement and release.
A guy on OSR on Facebook (Jürgen Schulz) keeps a detailed overview of releases, which is quite insightful.

I received my latest HT (Forever Batman) 26 months after pre-ordering... granted, there is an additional delay to getting it from a European shop, but even without it was nearly a 2 year wait for most.
I fondly remember my second HT, MMS67 Batman, who was announced in May 2008 and released 2 months later in July.

I survived waiting for GOTG2 Gamora for nearly 3 years.

As @Bornz0r mentioned, my patience has been tempered by past preorder windows like Gamora and Hulkbuster 1.0. But PO to waitlist before release and Hot Toys timed exclusives...those things are new to me.

Crazy..I don't want to pre-order,either.. but it's quite expensive on Ebay when they are in stock!

jamescoolber said:

Crazy..I don't want to pre-order,either.. but it's quite expensive on Ebay when they are in stock!

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hi, if you keep checking the sites often mentioned on here you can find many products go in & out of stock or second runs , i am often surprised at getting a figure 1/2 price . all the best.