Retro Con Wrap-up #2 – Pop! State of the Union

After two days, hundreds of vendors and thousands of dollars spent by attendees and cosplayers alike; Retro Con has come to another successful close.  This year’s event was the biggest of its short history with attendance coming in at over a thousand people in the two day extravaganza.  Attendees were driven in by celebrities like the Million Dollar Man, Pat Fraley (original voice of Krang), and Cam Clarke (original voice of Leonardo), while staying for the wide assortment of collectibles and crafts. Funko Products were a huge part of the toy landscape.  At least fifteen percent of the vendors had some sort of Pop, Sugar Vinyl, or Mystery Mini on their shelves at one time or another.  By far the most popular Funko Product was the Pop Assortment.  The Horror, Disney, and Superhero Collections had the highest percentage of real estate on the shelves.  According to some of the vendors interviewed, the quickest Pops to sell out across the scope were Marvin the Martian, Dark Crystal, Over Watch, and David Bowie’s Jareth from Labyrinth. With the explosion of Funko and Pops, in general, making up such a huge part of sales for vendors, I wanted to dig deeper.  Three particular interviews really stood out, with each representing a different store type.  You can read the excerpts below.

Interview 1:

Amy – B-Evil Toys – http://www.b-eviltoys.com/

• B-Evil Toys is an internet/convention based store specializing in Horror Vinyl Items.
• B-Evil Toys have been Selling Funkos items including Pops and Dorbz for a year.
• Funko Items are the heart of her store.  Horror lines like Friday the 13^th and Nightmare on Elm Street are her big sellers.  She sells them consistently and they tend to keep their value.
• Most stores are selling all the new stuff but she likes to keep her stock of just the horror lines for her customers that seek “Everything Evil.”
• Pops are her top seller but Mystery Mini Blind Boxes don’t sell well.  She says there is a difficult price point issue due to some customers wanting a particular character or some wanting the box blind.  It is so mixed that she is never sure if she should open them or not and the blind boxes just end up sitting in her inventory.
• Amy says that it is very easy to order and work with Funko and she loves the sales rep.  She would, however, like Funko to give a heads up to small businesses on new stuff coming out and also when they will be producing more items of the same line (Alice in Wonderland came out with a second set before she could even sell out of her first set).  That would help her with ordering and pricing.

Vendors who bust ghosts as a family

Interview 2:

Dustin – Queen and Bass Comics            

• Although Dustin is looking for a brick and mortar space, Retro Con was only the second convention he ever attended as a vendor.
• Funko Pops make up 90% of the store’s sales with the Disney Princess Line, Lilo from “Lilo and Stitch” and Marvin the Martian Pops as his first Pops to sell out at the Convention.
• Dustin loves selling Pops because of the friendly customer base and loves how Funko continues to put out pops connected to latest pop culture, keeping them fresh.
• Dustin would love “in search of lists” from Funko, where customers or a store can search for a desired Pop in a database and can have Funko ship that Pop directly to the store for the customer to buy.  He would also like to see Funko have a system where it keeps track of what you order and sell in order to track trends so you know what to order more of or order in the future.

Cosplayers

Interview 3:

Kristen – Alternate Dimension Toys – http://alternatedimensiontoys.com/

• Alternate Dimension Toys is a brick and mortar based store with an internet store as well.  The store has been opened since July of 2015.
• The store itself is made up of 80% Funko, but they also sell comic books and other action figures – known in Norristown, PA as the “Pop Store.”  Has an entire room dedicated to Pops, although they still have customers come in every day asking what Pops are.
• Mostly collectors come in to buy pops and the customer base is 75% male.
• The Store has created a Loyalty Card as a way to bring in business to store.  When the customer buys ten Pops, they get the next one free with the Loyalty Card.  The Loyalty Program has been successful so far with 6 inches high worth of cards since the store opening.
• They also get foot traffic to the store from its location on Main Street of the small town.  It currently resides next to a popular ice cream shop and a Starbucks that ranks in the Top 5 of Sales in the USA.
• Another way they bring in customers is with the bi-monthly Trade Event hosted by the store.  Customers stop by the store and can trade with other customers.  They average 30-40 people for each event.
• Kristen says it is easiest to sell Pops at conventions rather than in store.  Customers come to conventions to specifically look for these items to buy rather than in store where they must rely on word of mouth and repeat customers.
• Although it is easy to order from Funko, the store has had trouble with Funko’s Shipping; which takes at least a week to get to the East Coast.  Also, Funko requires payments on the invoice within three weeks, which makes it a hard turnaround time to sell the Pops.
• Also, the store has a hard time competing with the Big Chain Stores.  Funko delivers to those big stores first before sending it to the smaller stores.  This makes it hard on the small business because customers will go to the Hot Topics and other big stores and buy it from them since they get it first and also because they get all the exclusives.
• The store needs to do conventions just to sell products that would otherwise sit in store because they get them later then big business.  The store would be more successful if Funko sent shipments out the same time to small and big businesses.
• Labyrinth, Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Over Watch were the quickest to sell out at their booth at Retro Con.
• Genres that sell best in the store include Disney, Star Wars, and whatever is new (Golden Girls as an example).
• Reaction Figures and Dorbz do not sell in their store.  Their customer base does not like Dorbz because they are “too cute.”  Funko still pushes the new lines of Dorbz still on the store even though they can’t get rid of the ones they have.

In conclusion, I think Retro Con was by far the most fun I have ever had at a convention.  Every vendor I interacted with was genuinely nice and cared about the wide variety of new and vintage toys and handmade crafts.  Vendors were more than happy to make a deal in order to have their customers leave with a smile on their face.  The guests took time to actually talk to the fans and interact.  Simply put, between the ticket price to get in, the number of vendors in one place, and the guests that you won’t find anywhere else; Retro Con is now my “can’t miss” con of the year.

Pat Fraley and Cam Clarke from the Original TMNT Cartoon