Weta - The Hobbit: new Smaug statue

67L88Stingray · Jan 19, 2023

The site is having issues. They tried to have a sale today and nothing is working.

Galacticat · Feb 13, 2023

I wonder what is going on - maybe some of these arrived broken or something. I was notified January 11 to pay up my balance for shipping expected "next week" but that was more than a month ago now and Smaug still not arrived at Weta yet... does anyone else have any better info?

Galacticat · Mar 2, 2023

Okay - just learned (NOT from Weta, thanks guys) that production pushed back to April.

Galacticat · Mar 6, 2023

Aaaaand- he's ready to ship now.

I strongly recommend NOT buying direct from Weta. He costs $324 to SHIP from Weta (making his total cost a whopping $1623). He is only $4 to ship from BigBadToystore. WTH.

FrodoEyes · Mar 6, 2023

Well he’s sold out from Weta, so people can’t buy him from there now anyway.

Galacticat · Mar 6, 2023

FrodoEyes said:
Well he’s sold out from Weta, so people can’t buy him from there now anyway.

Well, maybe good to keep in mind that buying anything huge and heavy direct from Weta is going cost WAY more than you will ever save in other taxes/fees.

I certainly will not be ordering anything further from them direct.

67L88Stingray · Mar 10, 2023

Galacticat said:
Well, maybe good to keep in mind that buying anything huge and heavy direct from Weta is going cost WAY more than you will ever save in other taxes/fees.

I certainly will not be ordering anything further from them direct.

This one was an anomaly, when you factor in Weta Dollars they have still been cheaper for me on most items. That may be changing though if UPS is really gouging us with these prices. I have a hard time believing it actually cost Weta that much though.

Galacticat · Mar 10, 2023

To Weta's credit, they were pretty fast to let me cancel and re-order from BBTS (who charges $4 in shipping). Even with taxes it was significantly less. So maybe even they were surprised by the price.

I don't know why Weta would want to punish collectors who order direct. Maybe BBTS just has a better deal with UPS or something.

They sent along this photo with the email which said they negotiated for the "best deal they could"... maybe they just don't have the volume for much of a bulk discount?