Thoughts on "One Per Customer"

Lol, no they machine them…but I imagine at some point they melt down Ti to make the rods…sorry my response was a little short handed :sweat_smile:

Ooo lol I still think it would be cool to see the process I know it’s hard to melt titanium because it has to be done in a vacuum. It’s crazy how accurate they get and I guess if one part is just slightly off weight it will favor the heavier side. I wouldn’t mind B grades as long as it was only cosmetic. I prefer raw look anyway.

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I would also add that when the RSO Bowl 7068 dropped at YYE in summer of 2019, they were in stock for at least a couple of months. A lot of folks slept on those initially.

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You’d think that when a yoyo sells out very quickly and there remains substantial unmet demand, that the company would order subsequent production runs. I mean, that’s what real businesses do. But when yoyo makers elect not to do that it sends the message that they aren’t real yoyo businesses, and that is perhaps part of the problem here. We are dealing with boutique makers who run their operation more like a hobby than a business. Consequently, consumers can’t realistically hold them to the same standards/expectations as real businesses.

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@zslane I think that’s just small manufacturing businesses in general. They also don’t want to risk the loss of money to more b grades then a grades and if they don’t sell. Plus less man power and exc makes it hard to keep up with demand especially for the harder to work with and more expensive materials. Which is why I’m big on pre-orders and also second in third runs of the same yoyo.

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I view it primarily, if not almost entirely, as a failure to adequately assess demand and create adequate supply to meet it. Liquidity is also a problem for hobbyist creators, as they lack the funds necessary to produce enough stock to keep a yoyo in supply even after initial demand is met. Again, consumers need to stop thinking of boutique makers as full-time, fully capitalized businesses capable of keeping the market flush with their product.

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As a seller, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. And the product is sales. Yeah, it sucks for us and leaves us at the mercy of the secondary market, but it’s like this in all hobbies, especially bourbon.

Sometimes a company will tailor it to the consumer though.

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I’m starting to think about this for Luftverk stuff, since my last run there was multiple customers who bought 3 of the same yoyo when there were like 12 available. Things like this make it hard for others to have a chance at trying my designs.

I think RSO had a raffle for their high demand yoyos which is a good idea. Or some companies start a patreon for early access (paying someone so you can buy their products???) I have yet to implement any of these things but it’s strange how the yoyo world has become. It was never like this before.

At the end of the day if the company is succeeding it means they can do whatever they want. So support the ones your values align with.

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I believe titanium is machined, like any other metal. I believe what is meant by “returned to the shop and melted down” is exactly that, but, poured into rods to be machined again

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Oo noo I was saying I didn’t think the yoyo crafters would melt down at all. But rather buy the material in rod form cut it a bunch of times and then from there machine the halves. Could melt down the scrap or sell it but I don’t think titanium scrap goes for that much such as shavings.

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Totally agree. I think if anyone was to try a one per customer system it only really makes sense to do it for super small runs. For instance your last run of 12 yoyos. To do it for every release would make it really difficult to sell all your stock I’d imagine. Limiting how many people buy could almost shut down some small companies.

A raffle or pre-order seems to be the fairest way to do it. But why do we need to come up with a fair system would be the next question. If someone wants to pay for your product it’d be crazy not to sell them it.

The main thing that got me thinking about this was the End drops from RSO. I don’t mean to sound like I’m “calling them out” because they did absolutely nothing wrong in how they sold those. But I saw people with 1 of every colourway and then people a bit upset that they didn’t get a chance to get just 1 on drop day. So just wondered if there was a way around this

Ironically it’s kind of a good problem because it shows a lot of the weight in the market is towards botique and collectors pieces

The weight of the yoyo market can’t possibly be towards expensive boutique yoyos. I would be completely shocked to find that the bulk of yoyo sales around the world fall into the hands of the boutiquers. The AR-Ts and YWETs and RSOs and Luftwerks of the world cater to a tiny niche of the overall customer base, and we can’t draw any credible conclusions about overall market behavior from their sales figures.

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Yo-Yos Will Eat Themselves = YWET

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You’re not wrong. I suppose my thoughts on this are specifically for these smaller boutique companies and not the entire yoyo market. But even then I don’t think any of these ideas should be done all the time. The amount of collectors getting multiples probably makes up a tiny portion of the sales really.

Why not make enough for everyone?

Making enough for everybody is a really hard logistic problem, especially for smaller boutique customers. Let’s say that a newly incorporated yoyo company “HypeYoyos” makes 1000 units of a yoyo via a manufacturer, say FPM, or One Drop, or a company in China. Those 1000 throws sell out asap, and people are chiming for more. HypeYoyos sees the hype and the demand, they take their revenue, invests in machines, hires employees, invests in raw materials and supply chain, and manufacture another 1000 throws. However, the market gets saturated at 1500, the last 500 are just sitting in inventory and warehouses. HypeYoyos already incurred a loss to invest in infrastructure, as well as costs for this most recent run. They overestimated demand, took out business loans, invested their own personal money, but now can’t move remaining supply. All of a sudden, they go from one of the most Hyped new boutiques to a company dead on arrival.

This is hyperbolic, but I think it shows the risks of running small business with limited capitol and infrastructure. That’s why so many yoyo companies are passion projects, not very profitable. There are only a few companies at Duncan/YYF scale, and even they go through giant troughs in terms of sales. It’s a very hard problem, in my opinon.

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When G2 did their TiShee run, they had a pre-order period. As a result, they knew exactly how many to make (give or take a few extra to cover customer support issues and other special cases).

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Yeah, this is the model that premium custom mechanical keyboards use. It pushes all the risk from the manufacturer to the customer. For the most part, it’s been working for the hobby, but has its own set of problems, i.e., you pay 500 for a product that may or may not arrive in 12 months.

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Currently in a preorder situation with a keyboard, purchased it in August of 2021, still waiting…

I would love for it to work but with keebs its especially bad because of how much of it is coming from China.