Hi guys, I'm fairly new to collecting. I paid some good bucks for some old Hot Toys I really wanted off eBay. Now my question is, what is the best strategy to buy new releases?
Do prices fluctuate up/down soon after release, does it depend on popularity, ... Is it best to make an immediate preorder or should I wait until it shows up on eBay/anywhere else?
Much thanks!
don't listen to the guy above. it all depends how rare the item is. if it's from a small company that produce very limited or on order basis, your best bet is to preorder because they will sell out as each item is made for order so you end up paying alot of premium on 2nd hand market, for example 1000Toys Synthetic human, how high the price goes depends on the demand & quality of the product.
for Hot Toys it depends on which line, if it's something like Marvel or Ironman that you know they will produce a new version everytime a movie comes out or not, you know the supply will be abundant as such the price won't go up much and sometimes they end up in discount bins. unless it's very limited item like expo exclusive or lucky draw versions.
Good thing about Preorder is most shops offer 5-10% discounts because they don't have to keep stock and worry about not selling, downside is the item might be cold and end up with even bigger discounts but you need to wait at least 6 months.
my observation is, if it's a one time release, even if the item is not popular, as long as it's not bad quality or break up in few years time, the price will start to fall over 6 months to 3 years because lack of demand, however, it's value will start to rise again as they slowly gets sold out, for example Hot Toy's City Hunter (Japanese) once fell to $100 because it lacks accuracy, however now their value has gone way beyond their initial launch price due to less availability, buyers who really want them have no option other than pay for the asking price.
in the end it's all about Supply vs Demand. few things affect the supply, many things affect the Demand.