NASEDO said:
The exclusives are great. Its really the only way to order direct from Sideshow. And everyone pays the same price. None exclusives all sell way under reatail from ebay and dealers, why would you buy from Sideshow unless it was an exclusive?
Precisely. Sideshow want to have more direct sales and they weren't getting that from selling regulars. The exclusives are more or less guaranteed to sell out. That also gives them a greater ability to add figures to any one line down the track. I personally don't like them because my finances suffer from international shipping charges, something that doesn't, perhaps, affect state siders, in as much that they are getting extra accessories which offset the shipping costs. It really makes it worth it, to buy direct, in that instance, as Tom stated.
As a collector of collectibles, you would want to have the most collectible item. Which is the exclusive. Sometimes the exclusive title isn't that warranted, and those that don't think so will get the regular for a lesser price on the secondary market, most times because they love the item regardless of its limitability. Other times you may forego the item entirely because, without the accessories, the figure looses overall. That is probably my main beef against them. It puts me in a bind, and whatever I feel, I am governed by my expendable dollar.
I don't think exclusives have any bearing on the regular edition sizes at all. Before the exclusive became available, we all still scrambled not to miss out on regulars.
The discussion becomes prone to confusion when there are different types of exclusive, like the SDCC ones, for example the Ultimate Hellboy, and the international ones, like Jaws and Der Kinderstod, and web site ones, like D'Hoffryn. I had to have Der Kinderstod and pre-ordered it, later to cancel, as it became available to my distributor. I missed where it was announced the Ultimate Hellboy was also going to be made available to international distributors, and lost money. I thought D'Hoffryn was a site exclusive, and now I find it available in a UK catalogue, and wonder if it will be made available to my distributor also. If all exclusives were available to my distributor I wouldn't have a problem at all. Why some are, and why some are not, evades me. D'Hoffryn isn't even listed in the Buffy section, till you click on the archives. Had you clicked on 'In Stock Items' it wouldn't have appeared. Once you go there it states "SIDESHOW EXCLUSIVE
This figure is exculsively available direct from Sideshow Collectibles in the United States.", as it does with Der Kinderstod, yet DK is available from my distributor here. Maybe Sideshow can't list all the places it will be available, but it would be helpful to know that it is available outside of Sideshow itself, and in what manner.
I wish I could be more concise, like most here are. I hate reading through long posts, like this one, and I apologise for the repetition of that, which has already been mentioned or stated in another way.
I think the Ex gives the product a little more collectable appeal. If SS didn't do Ex's then regular sales would be up as people would still need the diptiction of the character/creature they were collecting.
I like to air laundry, so everyone can watch the sanitising process. Now, how long should I wait for an answer, before I ignore the request not to slow the process down by using the form and asking the same question again? 
I couldn't find anything on the site, probably because it is a newsletter promotion, and don't know if the newsletter link just remains active or not. As I said, not worried anymore, so no answer required. 
