Why on earth do yoyo companies only man limited runs of some of their best throws then keep producing garbage?
Some of the greatest throws maybe get 2-3 batches that sell out in seconds, then they never make them again… why?? Seriously it’s poop business.
If they sold out super fast, keep making more….
CLYW, YYF, One drop, YYfriends etc.
Cough MYY Katana cough
Tangent to the conversation on the Kuntosh, collaborations evidently always make future runs more tricky.
To be fair to the companies, another factor they probably worry about is genuine interest. Even if you have 10-15 people loudly demanding a restock (which appears like a lot on a relatively small forum), is that enough for a company to safely do another run and know they can sell every item? I can understand where this can be hard for companies to gauge, and they’re not gonna do a small batch when they pump out no less than 60 new yoyos (or hundreds in the case of larger companies) and sell nearly all of them.
With older yoyos, most people that have wanted to try them have, or they at least know about them. Once those few get the restock of what they missed on the first run, more people aren’t likely to grab one a little later. With a new release, there is immediate interest and the word of mouth that builds interest for others in the weeks/months afterward.
All that said, I still hate limited releases.
I could name quite a few off the rip
CLYW - Wooly Marmot 1 or 2
CLYW - Peak 1 or 2
YoYoFactory 44 special w stacks (don’t know how the 888 won out of this)
YoYoFactory - grind machine 2
One Drop - Dietz
Any SPYY throw -legit Steve needs to get back in biz or sell the CADs of them
Yoyofriends - TiNy
The list could go on.
I’m just kinda tired of these lifeless designs and color ways. If it’s a great throw, it will sell 
I mean some of those are obvious.
Company Collabs are usually limited runs because both companies are getting a lesser cut. The margin isn’t worth it but they wanted to do something awesome.
Player signature YoYo’s similar issue. If the player leaves the team then that YoYo’s no longer has a player attached and it feels like a bad move to make more or relaunch said YoYo under a new player.
Some it’s just a passion project but margin wise break even at best and not worth making more even if they sold out instantly.
Some it’s licensing issues or patent issues which we are often not made aware of or its partner disputes within the brand/company that result in
Another big one is passion for the project its self fades. Keep in mind even the largest brands like yyf are a small business and if the folks running the company don’t like the you they made even if it sells well they may not be interested in going forward with it and lack of passion can kill motivation.
One last thing is some of these brands are global and just because it sold out in your country doesn’t mean they aren’t watching dead stock in another region just sit there and don’t feel comfortable moving forward until that dead stock sells
That is a very very good point, I hadn’t even thought of that.
I think another factor is that some people want to make something new instead of re-making their past successes. Because they have more ideas, because they want the challenge, etc.
There are also people who enjoy managing an existing process/product to peak efficiency.
Some companies can do both, but I’m not sure how many yo-yo companies are included.
Looks at Northstar with suspicious blank space in the graphic
Spoiler…they’re doing a run on an updated version…should be coming fairly soon.
New run of the Katana I mean…
People are not entitled to get more batches of yoyos yet they act like they are.
WM - Jensen is no longer at CLYW. Idk original run sizes but the fact they did a sequel at the time shows they were trying to meet the demand though.
Peak - Again, they did a sequel (which I think was quite a big run for a boutique company), they have the P3ak coming soon and they’ve done various spinoff versions over the years.
YYF does reruns of popular designs a lot, I’m sure if they thought there was demand they’d do it for these as well.
Dietz - He isn’t at OD anymore. I also don’t remember the Dietz being in unusually high demand or anything at the time either. OD also tend to do pretty healthy run sizes.
SPYY - think the reason they aren’t doing reruns is self-explanatory.
Tiny - YYFr do big runs and they do reruns. You could always (politely) ask Philip if they’ll do another run of it.
A lot of the companies mentioned so far do big runs and have done reruns/sequels of their popular designs. If you’re interested in a rerun and you think there is demand from others, you can always (very politely!!) reach out to the brand and ask if there are any plans. Just don’t feel entitled to it and be ready for if they say they don’t have any current plans for it.
I think part of it is we need to make a clear distinction between various companies as well.
There are bigger companies like C3, MagicYoyo, Yoyofactory, Duncan etc.
They make stuff for the money.
And for them it’d be weird indeed to make a yoyo, sell it out within a couple of days…and then go “we’re never making this again no matter how popular it was.”
Then as @crackout demonstrated so well with his response, there’s smaller companier like ILYY, Dressel, Motion, Jake Bullock, and a whole bunch of others…that are mainly making throws…because they love making yoyos.
And they like to move on to the next thing after they’re redone it. The whole purpose for them wasn’t to make a bundle…but to make something cool that people liked. The design process etc is for them at LEAST as big as a joy as actually selling the thing.
And when they simply rerun a yoyo the whole design/testing/creative factor is taken out of a release.
It then turns in to a business handling. (Dominik, please correct me if I’m wrong in these assumptions) Basically leaving it a much less fun thing to do.
For these people it can very well be the creative process first and selling yoyo is only the thing that comes after.
Not everyone wants to run a big company…some people just want to make cool yoyos.
Not entitlement. More of a plea for the best designs in the game to return
Great points everyone, didn’t really think of some of them.
I’m also convinced there isn’t all that much money in this hobby. A few standouts can thrive off of the margins and make it work but many brands put more in than they get out and the business doesn’t earn them enough to move focus more than they are. For example many of these brand owners in the small boutique category you listed are have a day job as an engineer or in IT and they earn way more from the day job than yoyo can ever provide them.
If you really look at it many brands (not all) that owners are full time in yoyo actually are located in relatively low cost of living areas or those people also perform and do gig work as well.
Yeah that’s a part of it as well. Even if they make a couple of bucks off a run. It’s not even close enough to live off. And spending their time at work or other pursuits can be more worth it.
Understandable for sure.
All I’m gonna say is now that OD had charted the maximum rim weight yo-yos can handle before they become unstable, I just want a 5kqv Dark Side.
In the case of Onedrop who are a full scale business, they could definitely make some extra money by revisiting certain designs that have stupidly high resale prices right now. A new run of Project 1 would make them a killing, same if they were ever to work with Anti Yo again.
As the world’s smallest yoyo brand I have the world’s smallest perspective on things. But I think a lot of folks hit the nail on the head for the small boutique brands. This is why I ended up releasing my designs as open source and sometimes trade or mail out freebies and never sell.
I design yo-yos that I want to play with, things I haven’t seen anyone else do. After that I have the yoyo I wanted hooray. If I sold that would cut into my free time I want to spend designing. I’m getting those good ADHD brain chemicals from my next design and not from trips to the post office usually lol.
I work as an SDE for a very large tech company. If I hustled all month selling 3d printed yo-yos I doubt I would make one days worth of pay at my day job in exchange for all of my free time for the whole month.
Even though I’m just a weird person making plastic yo-yos I imagine both of these experiences also apply to the razor thin to negative margins of the metal yoyo world.
That’s such a good point. If you look at Duncan’s latest catalog, there’s less than a dozen models, out of a 48 page catalog. There was like 2 total pages, and some of it was redundant or about store displays, and they are like THE big guy (I mean, I guess besides YYF)
