I know many here are complaining about the price, but in reality, the manufacturers are dealing with quite a bit of cost and are not making a huge profit doing this.
First, they have to pay a licensing fee, which takes a significant bite out of that cost.
They have to prototype, machine out parts, doing so in very limited quantities. It is not like high production numbers that get greater discount due to the high amount of items made. Most machine shops will charge an arm and leg and a bit more to do such a project. If, they will do it at all.
They also have to pay for a company/engineer to make custom packaging, again in low numbers. Most packaging companies with charge a minimum of $ 60,000 to do that. Packaging for a delicate or intricate item makes that initial cost very high. And then ANOTHER fee to produce the packaging and having it set to the manufacturer overseas.
They have to pay then for advertising, raw resources, their own highly talented people to design the piece, all the employees that are in the company from the time of deciding what they will make, through a year or two or three to the time they get the item out for sale to the public. You have shipping from the manufacturer, fees for cost and import, storage of the item to the company, shipping out again and if there are any retailers, you have to add in the extra cost of a profit margin for them. Utilities, overhead cost of a company and many many more cost for doing so.
Most across the pond cost have skyrocketed due to inflation and hire labor cost in third world countries that have seen cost rise by 400 percent in the last decade. It's not that cheap to make items overseas any longer.
All of this process at a risk, will it be profitable enough? Will it sell quickly (which is needed to keep overhead cost down).
Frankly, it's a steal at under a thousand dollars when you factor how much costly that entire process. Remember, all the cost at the start from 2 to 3 years ago and in very low production numbers unlike 99.9999999999999999999999999999% of other types of companies. Specialty pieces are far more expensive for items like this. Kudo's to the prop companies making these, it's a very tough thing to do. So much so, many companies are tending to stop manufacturing specialty low number items because it just is not profitable now. For prop companies, they have to be constantly designing and moving product to survive. It is a difficult process for most companies which is why it is so rare and the number of companies doing so gets smaller by the day.
To the complainers, you do not know just lucky to have a company doing so. If you really like and want to see this very very VERY tiny niche market survive, you should be cheer leading support for them. With the way cost keep going up, companies like these are a dying breed. Hats off to all the specialty prop companies out there for doing incredible works!
Does look like it. What’s it all about Alfie?
