For you manufacturers who are considering a large run or a pre-order run but don’t want to run any risk, I have a magic 8-ball that I’m willing to rent the services of.
It has a solid record, proven to give a correct answer nearly 30% of the time. Always maintained, has paperwork. DM me to discuss rates.
Ivan
I’ve seen a number of these go south and people were left empty handed.
Yes, it’s all the same. In the metro area live in there is a huge refinery south of the cities. All of the gas sold here (and most of the state) comes from there.
Having just went through this, I did a small exclusive pre-order for a prototype run of 10 yo-yos, the manufacturer that I used sent me 7 and offered to refund me for the others OR add 3 additional to a production run. It wasn’t something I factored in. B grades? Sure, but not the option of the YoYo just not existing or being shipped to me. If this were done on a much larger scale for pre-order I could see how that would go south quickly. I know when I do a production run, I will wait till they are all in my hands first. But that was 30% of my order just gone.
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sniper gang
I wonder why yoyo companies don’t do polls on colourways, as these days you can visualise anything with render softwares (ofc the end product will have slight differences in colour than what was rendered). It will act as an advertisement and know the level of demand for future sales.
Let’s not even get started on Funny Fuels.
This depends on a couple things.
Firstly, the market will decide if a business practice is good or bad. If a company wants to stick with small run batches of colors at a higher price it is their choice and the market will decide. If you are not happy with a company’s decision then do not support said company. Knowing Mark personally he is not the kind of person to do this intentionally and odds are there will be more in the future. Right now there are a lot of RBCs left on yoyoexpert and your support might help drive the purchase of a new run of the red RBC in the future.
Second, all of this costs money. A substantial run of yoyos is going to cost a substantial amount of money. Yes, you can make your money back + some if your run does well, but it is always a risk, and many newer companies don’t have the capital to risk to begin with. Using myself as an example, my first run was 55 yoyos of the 5050. My next run of 5050 is going to be close to 400. It takes time to grow and to build enough capital and get comfortable with the process. There’s also the risk of ano and performance b grades, and a design just flat out not working. Community acceptance also plays a great part in it. If the community isn’t hyped by a yoyo it will probably sell less, and vice versa. There are so many good yoyo designs that have gone under the radar because of this. Here is a good example from a now defunct company:
Third, aluminum has gone up over the last few months and supply chain issues are affecting quotes from manufacturers.
This is a well thought out post from someone who’s lived through the designer/brand side of things.
Thank you for the perspective!
Edit: also the Ridgeline and Submerged are amazing yoyos and really should be talked about more
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Yup I’m with you. I enjoy the hunt.
I usually estimate b grade rate to be 20-25% which is a little high but I’d rather order more than less when thinking about b grades.
Big words!
Yeah this is part of the pre order “issue” too. So now everyone that wanted one got one. So you can’t sell the extra a grades or b grades without a large discount. That large discount now undercut all your customers and if they want to sell or trade the yo-yo now it’s value has completely plummeted. Not an issue for those that keep the YoYo. But BSTing is a big fun factor for the yo-yo world.
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@hobbygod great post. very good info for the uninformed and highly opinionated among us. there are so many things that go into this process that those of us who have no manufacturing / business ownership experience don’t think about.
also. very happy to hear of your plans on the 50/50 run. i missed that one. looking forward to picking it up. are you doing any refinement to the design or will it be a true second run?
great work on the other 3. i think the assasin is my favorite. right now anyway. they are all sweet throws.
kgb
Not everyone has the patience of a keeb GBer 
Same D bearing version as late summer, but with all new colors. Thanks for the support Bobby, you’ll be able to get one for sure.
Other part that I was thinking is following the custom keyboard market and at the moment it seems like the pre-orders get pushed back all the time. It is not unheard of a pre-order being pushed out, and out, and then cancelled because of some reason or another, or waiting more than a year for something to be produced do production delays. I believe this is why G2_Jake had such a problem with is pre-orders from PayPal, there has been a lot of unlucky folks having problems with pre-orders and it is a risk.
And unless a brand is well established a hit of a major cancellation of a hyped product could be a death sentence to that brand.
This just happened with a rather reputable company with a Kickstarter/ Preorder last year. Took well over a year, and a few hiccups along the way with multiple tiers. A few Kickstarters have been kicked down the road. Buyers Beware
