Funko's Problems

 

Despite my problems with Funko, I don't have any problems with people collecting and 

There's news of Funko restructuring and laying off employees due to the debt they accrued. 

If nothing else, they need to go back to the basics that made them famous in the first place.

What Funko needed to do was:

• Drop the 3-liter Sodas
• Scale down the regular Sodas to make them limited and obscure. Be more creative with the Chases. A 10k or less than 7k count is best and Sku counts need to drop. 
• Throw away the Blockbuster Rewind completely. It has the potential but its size is less than a regular Funko pop negating it. Make them con-only if you want to keep them. Keep them only if you want if limited.
• Throw away the Big Pins too. Standard pins are fine but big ones are a big waste. 
• Scale back the Pop announcements at conventions. Stick to at least 20. Drop sku count and introduce limited pops again. No big announcements every year, just go back to the March lineup announcements and smaller ones throughout the year. 
• Sell stuff better in certain countries
• Have products that people want and love rather than have millions of commons with Chases and other unique Funko varieties here and there. 
• Spend more on licenses that Funko never had like Top Gun, Roadhouse, Days of Thunder, etc. 
• Tighten up the licenses too per year especially with flexibility with movie/TV tie-ins when a project is delayed 
• No puzzles and board games
• No more Deluxe Albums and Gold figures
• Be more selective with Comic Covers so that way it would make the price reasonable for the right one. Keep them con-only if you want to keep them. 
• Drop Battle Scenes and Sports Cards too. If want to keep, limited only. 
• Drop Snaps and Poppsies 
• Keep commons limited to a few for each license. 
• If you are redoing a character, do them once and move the fuck on. 
• New pops for big licenses like MCU shouldn't be full and do people need like ten pops? If it's a character that hasn't been done before, do that and if a character has been done before, keep it limited. 
• If it's a big franchise, go for obscure references while the movies and TV should get smaller lines. 
• Get rid of 25k legacy pops and die-cast
• Drop or keep NFT pops limited at con-only.
• No more ornaments and plushes. I understand that a seller, they needs to diversify to attract those who want the same thing but something else. Again, for the ornaments, keep them con-only or holiday releases only if you want to keep them. 
• Drop the Pocket Pops. 

The itty-bitties pops are doing fine and no need to change there. Keep the minis and keychains. 

A basic problem was just words exclusive, limited, and common that Funko lost sight of due to greed and their want to be the next Hasbro and Mattel, not knowing those companies succeeded due to focusing on several licenses and doing it well. Fuck, Pokemon and Magic of the Gathering was able to recover post-pandemic. Funko is doing well or decently but they are throwing anything at the wall and hoping it sticks. A major problem is oversaturation. Largely, they need to trim the fat.  

They are already pulling back on ten-inch Funko pop production. Keeping it limited and for larger characters would make more sense than having every character have this. Well, not every character but enough to have Funko cut back. 

In stores, pops might as well warm the shelves before going into the clearance section. That's brutal. 

I applied to a recently open Funko store in the mall and it’s a lot of pops in there with a life-sized Luffy Gear Four Funko at the window beside the entrance. At this point, I didn't care I would be near Funko as long as I was working a full-time job. 

I know at the cashier were the limited ones or the autographed ones I think because the back of the cashier showed autographs on the plastic for the respective pop. 

As for other stores, I remember in one shop that sells Japanese items, the pop section had actually sold pretty well as I recall only a few on the back by the time I was exploring the shop. The Funko pop shelf in that store is the only pop shelf there that has considerably sold. The anime figures section is still relatively big with those going up by a lot. The plushies were still considerable too but those are fairly expensive. Then again, it's a huge retailer that is primarily Japanese products that for someone who loves Japanese products with the occasional Korean products says a lot. If I get a job at the mall, then during my breaks outside of eating would totally go into the Japanese shops to buy. 

Those pops are exclusively animanga though I did see some Marvel then and there. 

Anyways, the oversaturation means that the bigger franchises would be staying on shelves for a long time. Do we need that many Darth Vaders and Spidermans? They are popular IPs and characters surely but not every Funko collector would pick them up because they're common and neither will the casual or the impulse buyers who just like the product. 

Making them limited again would not put them into the clearance section or worse a landfill. 

While anime figures are coming over here with too costly a price for prize figures and while popular figures should have the same price as the ones sold in Japan typically, I'm usually wary about it since I'd rather pay how much it would cost typically than more than I should have. There is still a variety in prize figures though regardless of the cost here. 

In Funko, differences are so minuscule that a regular person would wonder why they want to buy another when they could have the figure anyway. Why do people want a repeat figure with little change regardless of glitter or chrome? 

I know commons have been argued as a point for why Funko was able to make so much money but at the same time, too many commons for too many figures cannot be offset by that. The issue is that they are making too many pops that nobody wants and it's wasting away on shelves and clearance. There has to be a line. 

Funko has licenses that not every license will dole out to others hence its accessibility. Commons made that work because now everyone can have their own figure from their favorite show that won't likely be made in other merchandise. 

Do people expect figures made for Twin Peaks or genres people don’t expect merchandise from? Considering Squid Game’s merch goes against the themes and messages, capitalism overtakes anything. 

Funko is easily the most accessible thing to make figures of. I am not hammering them for having figures for licenses that people didn't expect too much merchandise from. If anything, that's a boon when Japanese figures that do have DC and Marvel figures that are high quality are often relegated to the higher tiers of figure making; very rarely do I see prize figures made for the DC and Marvel figures because I know Q Posket is often a prize figure that I do see but I don't see outside of that. My Hawks figure is about the approximate cost for those DC and Marvel figures I see often in the Japanese figure makers on the side of things. 

Funko just needs to trim the fat of what's not working and focus on what they do best with limited to several per license per year announcements big and small. 

I can't believe I'm advising a capitalistic company that, unlike the artists I support through their small stores, wants money hence all the problems they have. 

If nothing else, if fans of Funko want to have them without the newer ones taking up too much space and costly and too many that it's warming the shelves rather than have customers actively buying, then have at it. 

Funko, what you are running isn't the Disney Pins trading business. Disney can release pins every single day and not suffer any setbacks because it's a Parks activity just as much as Figment remains strong. Even outside the parks, Disney pin trading still happens with people buying Disney pins from various companies such as Loungefly and BoxLunch. 

While there is trading in Funko pops and pins, commons do not afford much trading. At least pins are made limiting numbers due to cost. Popular activity yes but it’s not so common even as a regular site in the parks and other certain communities. 

At least anime figures aren't that common as it's regarded as an otaku activity just as much as any train otakus. Funkos unfortunately have the problem of commons whereas prize figures are typically won via game or retail for a low price. 

When most of their stuff is going into landfills whereas anime figures are getting distributed even if it's upped for a slightly unreasonable price in some places, doubling what it would cost in Japan originally, it says a lot that while Funko does have to go back to the basics given its oversaturation. 

Moving it into landfills because it's not selling says everything about capitalism really. Instead of donating it, they filled up trash with these plastic and cardboard boxes. Sure, it can be funny like the case of the ET Atari game in the landfill incident but it's still pretty bad to just dump it like that instead of dumping excess into charity for positive PR than for the cost. 

That’s getting into a conversation about capitalism and the larger aspects. 

While we are discussing a capitalist company with their capitalistic desires, that doesn’t mean they are the true evils of the world, the lesser evils against extremist nazis. I’ll take Disney’s side over Ron DeSantis because one wants money but the other wants me dead. Criticize we will about Disney but taking the side of a Nazi who wants us dead in the end will kill me and other people like me. Capitalism wants our money but would you take the side of people who wants the queer community dead just because you are criticizing the choices of a mega multimillion company with the current CEO trying to fix his own mistakes and decidedly anti-SAG-AFTRA and anti-WGA strike (it’s the summer of strikes heading into autumn but I’ll rather have Hollywood shut down until these guys get their dues, no competition who gets the worst treatment or deserve more because it feeds into the Hollywood narrative when the visual medium demands so much collaboration in the first place)? Hell no! I’m admitting I’m taking the side of a capitalist in the fight against nazis who are targeting them now or at least Disney but if Disney is using their scary lawyers then what about the others? but I’ll never side with Bob Iger on the strikes. This is the issue vs broad activism again that people in the strikes are combating with the leader of SAG-AFTRA being anti-vax. We are fighting for better pay and treatment but we won’t agree on other particular issues. 

Well, you know my piece on that without a huge post about it. I’m not part of either nor am I pro-Hollywood. Hollywood going woke and Oscars So White are the symptoms of the larger systematic injustice but at least they’re trying even if their tries tend to be toothless and at worst perpetuate stereotypes. I can ignore all the remakes even though they are stirring up worthless controversies. Again, I question people trying to stir up controversies over the live-action Disney remakes given its track record. The Snow White after the Little Mermaid is repetitive at this point.