The Evan Nagao and Gentry Stein line ups got me thinking about this.
Do you think, from a business perspective, it’s more effective to have a smaller line of yo-yos with more special editions and variations or to have a much wider range of more specialized yo-yos at more varied price points? I can see good arguments either way here.
Now from a consumer perspective what do you prefer?
I personally think it’s better from the business side to have less products with more special editions and iterations as there are less costs involved in creating new yo-yos to add to the line and you’re more likely to get repeat purchases of special editions from people who already know they like those specific yo-yos. That and there’s no guarantee that just because yo-yos 1-3 in a line were a hit that yo-yos 3-6 will be. It’s just more of a risk.
And I also prefer that as a consumer. This is more subjective but I can be overwhelmed when there are too many options to choose from, and I’m definitely the type of person who enjoys limited editions of products i know I like already. I also associate the Shutter with Gentry more closely than the Edge with Evan because I feel like it’s only a matter of time before Evan moves on to the next design, or that some of the stuff in his line was created more to be associated with him than it was for him to use. That’s just my perception though I’m not saying it’s true.
I’d love to hear some contrasting opinions though.
I see these more as “world championship person branded lines”, not so much “Shutter brand” and “Edge brand” it is more “Gentry brand” and “Nagao brand”. That has tons of precedent in consumer products and clearly it works, that is, it sells the products!
(It also helps that both the Edge and Shutter are really quite good designs on top of that.)
I agree with your opinions as far as business goes…but I like having a wide selection of different yos as a consumer. I have a lot of fun ‘online window shopping’…the whole, thrill of the hunt. And collecting new yos is very much a big part of this hobby for me…so I like to have a bunch of different (GREEN!) yos to add.
Flexibility and casting a wide net generally is better than a focused marketing, kinda like why not both.
YYF market shutter with and without gentry’s name, but i guess now that its hard to do any research into yoyoing without knowing of gentry stein (and how dreamy he looks), i guess they are okay just focusing on the person’s brand. This is probably a push by gentry himself, not sure there is much benefit for yyf, and i hope it works. Any way that allows the pros to make a fulltime income doing yoyoing is great for yoyoing.
I think that his retirement is part of the Edgeless branding. It’s completely different than the rest of his lineup, and the correlation between quitting competing and yoyoing more casually and the more organic relaxed shape is great.
Edit: obviously not saying he’s retiring as part of promoting the Edgeless, just saying it’s helpful when marketing the new yo-yo. Like “here’s what Evan uses when he’s not putting together a freestyle.”
Does Evan intend to remain active in the yoyo community on some level? For some reason I’m expecting him to devote himself to music 100% and not really look back. I’m surely just projecting.
Evan hasn’t retired from competition but not yo-yo as a whole. But I honestly couldn’t tell you where I think the Edge line up will go in the future. Basically there is an edge for EVERYONE and EVERYTHING. From everything from edge infinite to edgeless
I’m with twitch on this, I love the “window shopping” part especially! I will spend weeks looking at yo-yos before I ever purchase one. I also say “this is definitely the next yoyo I’m gonna get” probably 10 times before I actually purchase one lol.
Another addition to support the Gentry approach being better from a consumer perspective.
If I want every main yo-yo (not offshoots or one offs like Shu Ta and 66% or Ti Shutter) in the current Gentry line that’s like 120$. You could be really hardcore and get the Super G and metal Replay and G Funk, but I see those as more extra than integral.
If I were to try and snag every current Nagao yo-yo in production that’s like 475$ or 415$ if you exclude the Monster Edge. If you include the soon to be released Edgeless that’s probably another 75$, I’m not sure what the price is.
I don’t know which is ultimately the best business decision but I do know this:
If the goal is for consumers to associate your brand with high quality, it’s much better to have a small stable of yo-yos.
Part of the reason that YoYoRecreation and sOMEThING are known for making top tier throws is because they don’t have a huge selection. What I mean is only the cream of the cop of their designs make it to production, they don’t put anything out there unless they feel it can be considered one of the absolute best throws on the market.
On the other hand, companies like One Drop will release throws like the 1 to 1 for the sake of variety or simply because it’s an interesting design. They are willing to take more risks and try new ideas, but that means they sometimes release a throw which really isn’t ideal from a performance standpoint.
I don’t think one approach is better than the other, I think we need both types of companies.
