OMG! WTH is going on? Why is the XM 1/6 Lobo so pricey!?

Folks know we aim to be as transparent as we can (without stepping on the toes of licensors) and here is a good situation where we need to be.

Like many of you who are reeling from the shock of the SRP at SGD1,299 (our priciest 1/6 individual piece yet), we had the almost exact same reaction when we received the factory cost quotation. Yup, at first impression, anyone would balk at a 1/6 scale statue that's pricier than a 1/4! However, scale can be a misleading indication of cost.

Here are some quick facts on Lobo and why the SRP came to be;

• The Lobo piece consists of over 80 individual parts and pieces (check out the photo below)! We aren't just talking about the super detailed textures on the jeans or jacket. Every individual parts are painted separately for maximum detailing work and put together (sorta like a jigsaw puzzle). Just work effort alone, and pricing from the factory, is many times more as compared to a regular statue.
   
• Lobo has the most switch outs vs the other 1/6 we've launched... Even the dawg comes with 2 bodies! For the uninitiated, switch outs, especially complicated ones that require clever fitting to reduce seams cost a fair bit more to produce. This Lobo has 3 portraits (googles, cigar, long dreadlocks), 3 arms (Hook, Gun and holding Dawg). None of our other 1/6 (and very few 1/4 comes close to this amount of switch outs).
   
• Other 1/6 statues are just on a base, Lobo is on a SPACEHOG... on a base! Just look at the size of that bike – it’s gonna cost us.

As a result, the factory quote came up to easily over double what they would charge for our other standard 1/6 statues, which is reasonably reflected in the SRP.

Still, having heard many concerned Lobo fans are being priced out, we looked hard into how we can lower the SRP. For instance, we could reduce switch outs but we love them too much to do that.

Ultimately, we decided a good way is to make Lobo the 2019 1/6 DC XM exclusive. How does this help? Well, being XM exclusive means we don’t sell these through our Wholesalers (like our XM EX Ghost Rider, Dark Phoenix, Gambit etc.) so we can remove bulk of the wholesale margins.  The new Lobo price will be reduced from SGD1,299 to SGD999 (SGD300 off). Naturally we need to explain to our distributors and get them to understand (it’s not beneficial to them at all).

Ugh. That’s not going to go well but we do try to limit to only 1 XM Exclusive per license per scale per year so might as well make it Lobo.

If you’re too lazy to read the long story, just read this line “Price for LOBO is now SGD999!” and based on what the factory is actually charging us, it’s a deal of the galaxy!