Anyone else having issues getting product for RTR? (specifically boxes)
My FLGS sold out on release day just a few hours after opening (they did a midnight sale) in which they got 108 boxes (other than the few that they kept to sell individual packs of and use for drafting).
I went back today since the store owner said they were ordering some more on Tuesday and they should be in Wednesday. I checked and the store was only 'allowed' to order 8 boxes.
Now that has made it very hard on a player (myself) who planned on competing at States this Saturday since I only have the RTR product that I have is what I used and won at the pre-release (that isn't enough btw)
Is their a distribution issue? Did WotC not print enough to meet demand?
I think its being intentionally under produced, because they had to realize that this was the second coming of one of the most popular sets of all time.
I'm sure people at WotC knew that there would be more demand than usual.
WotC is intentionally creating a short supply to feed more hunger for the set.
from MaRo's mailbag column on the mothership this week:
"Sonoda_Cards @maro254 Why does Wizards short supply almost every time now?
[MaRo]: We don't. In fact, we sent out more boosters for Return to Ravnica's Prerelease than any other Prerelease in the history of the game (by a decent margin, by the way). We even sent out extra guild boxes to lessen the chances of players not getting the guild they wanted. The problem wasn't that we didn't provide a lot of product. The problem was that the demand was incredibly high—higher than we anticipated (and, as I said, we were very optimistic)."
granted, his reply mentions product shipped for prereleases, i would still assume the statement is relevant to product shipped for release, as well.
then again, i wouldn't doubt for a minute that the shortage could in fact be manufactured. however, this is their "official" statement, for what it's worth. people just really love them some Ravnica. X)
Lol, what company does business by intentionally under producing their product when the demand is high? Are you saying that because wizards prints less, they will eventually make more money?
This set is breaking all sales records, but INN block already pushed the limits of wizards' production facilities. There is no short supply, there is extreme demand. The lag that is in the design to sale chain will prevent wizards from reacting to this quickly enough.
Creating temporary shortages can be very good for the long term. Obviously they want to satiate demand eventually, but making the supply a bit short for the first week or two can be good for a product like this. In the case of a collectible item such as this value is determined by perceived value and supply/demand. Pepsi not making enough Pepsi to satiate demand does not help Pepsi at all, since no one buys Pepsi for the potential value. No one ever perceives a brand new can of Pepsi as more than its intended worth MtG is a stark contrast to this.
For those that love to speculate on card values and love to buy boxes of sets they deem "good money" making a lower supply early on can be good.
Not to mention I doubt many that want to buy another say booster box or two are going to say forget it if they have to wait 2-3 weeks.
Lol, what company does business by intentionally under producing their product when the demand is high? Are you saying that because wizards prints less, they will eventually make more money?
This set is breaking all sales records, but INN block already pushed the limits of wizards' production facilities. There is no short supply, there is extreme demand. The lag that is in the design to sale chain will prevent wizards from reacting to this quickly enough.
You should read up on the Diamond monopoly back in the 60s-90s. Very enlightening, especially in regards to under-production for greater profit margins.
At least for our shop, the one I run/own the magic singles collection for. We were able to get our normal allotment of 10 cases from wizards, and we were able to get 22 cases from our normal distributor. We knew the set was going to be popular and the rumblings of a shortage made us cautious with our pre-orders, so we only pre-sold 2 cases worth (out of the 10 cases that we were getting from wizards). We had enough product to run our pre-release without issue, even with record turnouts for our events. Out of the 22 cases we got from our main distributor, 18 were used for openning for singles (held back a couple just in case), which is what I usually open, or maybe a little less for the shop's singles supply. The thursday before the release, when we were just getting our other product, we were informed by our distirbutor that they would have 5 cases of boxes and 2 cases of fat packs available to us, if we were able to pay by the next morning. We took that, and received it earlier this week. We then were FINALLY able to get ahold of the wizards rep, and we were informed that we would be able to still order a maximum of 3 cases of RTR per week for the time being. According to our distributor, the amount they have to distirbute will be very small for a while. The owner was able to get a single case out of them this week outside of the extra from the previous week.
So thats what Its looking like, at least for us. So while wizards isnt out-out, they are highly allocated and restricted in how much people can get for now, likely in hopes of making the second print run last long enough till the 3rd print run hits.
I know of other local shops that actually ran out of product because they offered so many boxes up for pre-sales, and are waiting on getting more in. I learned after M10 and Zendikar, to always be careful with overly popular sets, because you never know what could happen, even if wizards has ramped up the printing to higher and higher levels (they did print more of this set for the initial print run than they have for any other set to date, demand was just insanely higher than they even could have fathomed given comparisons to even Innistrad, their last hottest selling set). And for anyone thinking that wizards is intentionally under-printing this set. YOU ARE WRONG. They have no reason to do so, because they never sell boxes at more than the normal rate to their distributors/shops, they want to do their best to meet demand but not exceeding it by much, in this case the demand was far higher than even their elevated estimates, and thats why they got that second print run out as quickly as possible to hopfully quell things for now until the 3rd print run could be printed/packaged/distributed.
I can confirm the 2nd printing is incredibly small. WotC definitely underestimated the demand of this set. I just hope they print soon enough that my store doesn't have to stop running drafts. We already stopped offering discounts on RTR boosters (AKA, a box is $144).
Completely expected. Anyone that didn't see some degree of shortage coming is delusional. This set is selling beyond everyones already inflated expectations.
They should pull off a pokemon, and release way beyond the anticipated amount, and sell the leftovers in "limited edition" box sets.
Lol.
They overproduced Fallen Empires, remember how that turned out? Yeah, although it is a well designed set (for the time) with some of the most broken commons of all time (Seriously, Fallen Empires is the only set in magic's long and varied history that has had three common cards banned because of their power level), it is still highly reviled today due to over production.
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It's about time for the reserved list to die, for the sake of Vintage and Legacy (And Commander).
Wait ? In layman, they are trying to pull a walmart stunt and mass horde RTR products? Is that even ethical ?
Define ethical. SCG Opens are as popular as they've ever been. WOTC has been setting consecutive sales records despite the vastly increasing price of singles on the secondary market. SCG is obviously still doing great in business terms, despite the grumbling, and more importantly, there is only 1 other distrubutor that even comes close to reproducing SCG's business model, TCGPlayer.
I don't understand how people can claim that WotC is intentionally underproducing. They do not raise prices for the product. So basically, they are only shooting themselves in the knee more than anyone else. Basically, WotC and the retailers both lose out. I don't think this was intentional at all...
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Sometimes those with the most sin cast the first stones.
Also, there's that whole ex-starcity current wotc employee overlap. There's always been a bit of an incestuousness relationship between wotc and the secondary market. Then again, where can you go to look for employees that really know the game. Secondary market people, those that write for sites like starcity get the most exposure.
***I'm not saying this is the reason, I'm pointing out why people are sometimes suspicious of the whole wotc getting as involved with the secondary market as they sometimes do. Obviously not everyone at wizards worked for these companies. Most probably haven't, its because those people get more exposure when and before they move that I think some believe that hiring from the secondary market is more of the norm then it is.
My FLGS sold out on release day just a few hours after opening (they did a midnight sale) in which they got 108 boxes (other than the few that they kept to sell individual packs of and use for drafting).
I went back today since the store owner said they were ordering some more on Tuesday and they should be in Wednesday. I checked and the store was only 'allowed' to order 8 boxes.
Now that has made it very hard on a player (myself) who planned on competing at States this Saturday since I only have the RTR product that I have is what I used and won at the pre-release (that isn't enough btw)
Is their a distribution issue? Did WotC not print enough to meet demand?
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I'm sure people at WotC knew that there would be more demand than usual.
WotC is intentionally creating a short supply to feed more hunger for the set.
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
That leaves me high and dry for the next several weeks then.
No product = No deck = No play
A Magic the Gathering Blog and Podcast
http://thephyrexianarena.blogspot.com/
Follow @YawgmothsWill on Twitter
"Sonoda_Cards @maro254 Why does Wizards short supply almost every time now?
[MaRo]: We don't. In fact, we sent out more boosters for Return to Ravnica's Prerelease than any other Prerelease in the history of the game (by a decent margin, by the way). We even sent out extra guild boxes to lessen the chances of players not getting the guild they wanted. The problem wasn't that we didn't provide a lot of product. The problem was that the demand was incredibly high—higher than we anticipated (and, as I said, we were very optimistic)."
granted, his reply mentions product shipped for prereleases, i would still assume the statement is relevant to product shipped for release, as well.
then again, i wouldn't doubt for a minute that the shortage could in fact be manufactured. however, this is their "official" statement, for what it's worth. people just really love them some Ravnica. X)
Creating temporary shortages can be very good for the long term. Obviously they want to satiate demand eventually, but making the supply a bit short for the first week or two can be good for a product like this. In the case of a collectible item such as this value is determined by perceived value and supply/demand. Pepsi not making enough Pepsi to satiate demand does not help Pepsi at all, since no one buys Pepsi for the potential value. No one ever perceives a brand new can of Pepsi as more than its intended worth MtG is a stark contrast to this.
For those that love to speculate on card values and love to buy boxes of sets they deem "good money" making a lower supply early on can be good.
Not to mention I doubt many that want to buy another say booster box or two are going to say forget it if they have to wait 2-3 weeks.
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
You should read up on the Diamond monopoly back in the 60s-90s. Very enlightening, especially in regards to under-production for greater profit margins.
So thats what Its looking like, at least for us. So while wizards isnt out-out, they are highly allocated and restricted in how much people can get for now, likely in hopes of making the second print run last long enough till the 3rd print run hits.
I know of other local shops that actually ran out of product because they offered so many boxes up for pre-sales, and are waiting on getting more in. I learned after M10 and Zendikar, to always be careful with overly popular sets, because you never know what could happen, even if wizards has ramped up the printing to higher and higher levels (they did print more of this set for the initial print run than they have for any other set to date, demand was just insanely higher than they even could have fathomed given comparisons to even Innistrad, their last hottest selling set). And for anyone thinking that wizards is intentionally under-printing this set. YOU ARE WRONG. They have no reason to do so, because they never sell boxes at more than the normal rate to their distributors/shops, they want to do their best to meet demand but not exceeding it by much, in this case the demand was far higher than even their elevated estimates, and thats why they got that second print run out as quickly as possible to hopfully quell things for now until the 3rd print run could be printed/packaged/distributed.
Cheers
I'd rather they were short than having anther fallen empires. I can still get booster boxes of that without paying a premium.
[[b]B]DCI Level 2 Judge[/B][/b]Lol.
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I am asking this as it might have some possible connection as to why WOTC might be trying to stranglehold supply.
Conspiracy theories FTW.
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They intentionally filed new distributor applications to buy out as many distributors as possible.
They overproduced Fallen Empires, remember how that turned out? Yeah, although it is a well designed set (for the time) with some of the most broken commons of all time (Seriously, Fallen Empires is the only set in magic's long and varied history that has had three common cards banned because of their power level), it is still highly reviled today due to over production.
---
Numquam evolutioni obstes. Solum conculceris.
Pascite draconem, evolvite aut morimini.
Wait ? In layman, they are trying to pull a walmart stunt and mass horde RTR products? Is that even ethical ?
Define ethical. SCG Opens are as popular as they've ever been. WOTC has been setting consecutive sales records despite the vastly increasing price of singles on the secondary market. SCG is obviously still doing great in business terms, despite the grumbling, and more importantly, there is only 1 other distrubutor that even comes close to reproducing SCG's business model, TCGPlayer.
***I'm not saying this is the reason, I'm pointing out why people are sometimes suspicious of the whole wotc getting as involved with the secondary market as they sometimes do. Obviously not everyone at wizards worked for these companies. Most probably haven't, its because those people get more exposure when and before they move that I think some believe that hiring from the secondary market is more of the norm then it is.