Since I got back into throwing I’ve noticed a crazy amount of unnecessary secrecy regarding new drops. Particularly boutique drops I don’t mean teasers, but actually announced product that has production time-frames and everything, but the creator will not provide pricing or availability. Now I could understand if this was a sales tactic, but these throws sell out immediately. Any G2, Amy ILYY, any unknown. But for some reason we’re not allowed to know how much money to save for what drop day and time. Not complaining about missing the drops, as I can rarely afford them anyway, but damn it would be nice to know.
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I feel your frustration
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My uneducated guess is that the limited availability combined with a surprise price causes impulse buys. If you know the price ahead of time, you have time to think about it, and maybe decide against it. When a drop hits and might sell out, you don’t have that time to think.
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Most of these companies are just being more modern in their marketing IMO. I’m an old dude and am not on Instagram. But all the boutique companies are. And if you follow them on IG you will see early information about releases. Normally a drop is mentioned a week in advance and pricing is normally quoted in comments. G2 has an IG just for drops that tell you the day of what is dropping exactly when and for exactly what price.
I think this is a function of these smaller companies just having less time to pick/pack/ship the yoyos. Printing labels, packing boxes and getting them all to PO is not a small effort. With the boutique companies being side hustles for the most part, these guys just don’t have the time to devote to the shipping process. I think that’s the real bottleneck here. So they have to limit what they sell as a result.
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Nah people just like building HYPE
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I guess the rebuttal to that is the G2 Direwolf. Dropped one Sunday, sold out, then everyone knew everything about the price and drop details. Subsequent drops still sold out. There’s no shortage of demand.
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Instagram is where most of the boutique brands announce their drops and links to their sites. Prices are typically listed in the comments.
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Cough new edge cough cough
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I wonder if some of it is also uncertainty over when they’ll have them in hand and tested/boxed up etc. If you watch the G2 vlogs you’ll see Jake talking about a drop being maybe one day maybe the day after that depending on when he can get testing done since he also has a full time job and two kids. And I feel like a lot of the boutique companies are like that—a dude or two doing this as a hobby around other life stuff. Also if you have boxes coming in from another place etc that adds even more uncertainty.
So certainly building that hype train but I think there are also some practical considerations at work too.
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Hmm. I guess to me it’s unnatural to even announce until you have those details. Like get it all in, test it, box it, THEN hype it with all the details. But I’m a planner, and definitely not cut out to run a business, lol.
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maybe they’re telling you in advance so you are
It’s all about the grand illusion. Create a false sense of demand so people feel like they have to have it because there’s only going to be “xxx” available. Sadly this practice is all the world is today. We see it everywhere, I do agree. it stinks. Personally, I am less inclined to buy something if I have to pre-order, or feel like I have to make an impulse decision. I would rather know what it’s going to cost so I can plan accordingly.
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They want us to suffer from FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
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The lack of price in particular along with the all the other hype [videos, photos, general discussions/ descriptions, potential drop dates] is what bothers me the most. Just tell me how much the darn thing is going to cost! It’s probably the most crucial piece of info for people to have…
I’d gander to say that most throwers aren’t just rolling in dough. We have budgets! And budgeting requires planning ahead.
But there’s one other thing that DRIVES ME NUTS about drop hypes of new yoyos: the lack of dead-on profile shots and the lack of specs.
Probably my two most deciding factors aside from price are profile and specs.
Take all the pretty photos that your little heart desires, but throw in a straight forward profile shot too for crying out loud!
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I do it because I genuinely don’t know lol.
I post pics of things because I’m excited and want to share, but I don’t have exact details worked out yet. Take the Absurdity for example. I want to give everyone a drop day and all the other bits, but they’re not done yet so I can’t.
I can’t speak for others, but I bet it’s a similar situation.
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Yeah I feel like mostly it’s this. Which is understandable. We’re talking about toys, after all. I just hate it. To put it in perspective, I’m the guy on the road trip waking everyone up after I’ve been awake for two hours planning the day and getting everyone breakfast.
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I think the key as a maker is to be open to answering questions. I try not to be cryptic or secretive. In fact I try to be as open as I can to any questions.
Maybe that’s why Smashing didn’t rise as quickly as SF lol
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It’s really hard to set a price until you have the production run in hand and fully tested. Maybe some people are better at estimating than me, but it seems like an area where getting the number wrong would absolutely sink a company.
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I see that. This is why it would be better to wait, if possible. Or in the case of G2, just tell us since you’re already overpricing to take into account an almost clinically-treatable level of QC, lol.
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It’s really exciting to share early photos/tricks/impressions though!! Like, I couldn’t even resist sharing renders and photos that the machine shop sent me.
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