2014 Year In Review

Its been an interesting year for Vinylmation collectors, there have been a lot of changes through 2014 and heading into 2015, the hobby feels a little different.

This time last year, I wrote a article looking back at 2013, many of the changes made in 2013 have continued, such as a reduction of 9″‘s (only a single 9″, a Star Wars figure from series 3), smaller case sizes, smaller edition sizes, less releases, etc.  All of those changes have resulted in a much stronger Vinylmation brand, there is much less available and new figures tend to sell out quicker.

Every now and again, Disney try to clear out some slower selling figure, the odd item heads to the outlets but they don’t spend too long there.  There are a few new items added but many of the open window figures are still the exact same ones as a year ago like the Pirates of the Caribbean and Mechanical Kingdom.   Disneystore.com hasn’t had to result to major “Madness” sales, leaving 2014, we only have just over 20 items available, down over 50% from the same time last year and compared to a few years ago with under 200 items, a lot has changed.

One of the biggest changes in 2014 has been how Vinylmation has been treated by the physical Disney Stores, following the awful non-Disney series like Zooper Heroes, there have been extremely limited stock going to stores, with barely a handful of series being released in stores throughout 2014.  They have seen some releases such as Pixar Villains, Sleeping Beauty, Toy Story 2 and a few more items, the vast majority of new releases have dwindled.  This is probably for the best, as the constant new releases was burning many collectors out and many collectors couldn’t keep up, which is why so many figures were reduced, throughout 2014, this trend has continued, with less blind box series and more single figure releases.  However in doing so, many new releases have continued to push up retail prices, with most new single figure releases ranging from $13 to $17.

There can be little doubt that Vinylmation has returned to its Park roots, if you aren’t near D-Street, its become much harder to be a collector.  Lower Limited Edition sizes mean faster sell outs and online customers have often been left out in the cold with sell outs in minutes.  Even at the parks, there seems to be much less figures available and the reduction of trade boxes in 2013, has resulted in less presence at the parks.

Then we have seen the rise of the Eachez, Disney said they wanted to bring back the thrill of the chase and variants have been a dominating force throughout 2014.  The Trading Night Eachez have been hot items with super low edition sizes and only being available at one location, have created a frenzy for every release.  There hasn’t been this much excitement around a new release for years.  The Trading Night Eachez were a incredible success, though the lack of actual Trade Nights, made many local collectors unhappy.

The lack of Trade Nights isn’t the only thing lacking in 2014, Disney as a whole has been paying much less attention to Vinylmation.  Throughout the year, Disney seem to be making less effort in promoting Vinylmation, New Release information has dried up, where we had new 360 images and information, weeks or months in advance, Disney now issue a single post with a months release.  For months, we wouldn’t know about a new release until the day it appear on the website or someone was tipped off at D-Street that it would be out that week.

And its not just the new release information that dried up, Disney haven’t touched their Vinylmation social media accounts in months and its pretty easy to see that Vinylmation just isn’t viewed as something worth advertising.  Maybe as Disney have returned Vinylmation to the parks, they don’t want to advertise them or see the need to.

The Disney Store has always been bad for promotion of new series, we often wouldn’t know about them in advance, but the Park team used to keep people in the loop better, but that has stopped.  Often we would learn about new Vinylmations from the Disney artists like Enrique Pita, Nacho or Gerald Mendez but we haven’t seen very much from these guys either.  This could be because the Disney Store aren’t making any or many new figures, but its very noticeable that many of the talented artists involved with Disney haven’t been seen to be as into Vinylmations as they once were.

And they aren’t the only artists who seem to be spending less time working with Vinylmation, many of the “Disney” custom artists seem to be doing less work on the mold, guys like John Henselmeier, Javier Soto and Noah have had barely involvement with Vinylmation.  Miss Mindy has continued to release new custom Vinylmations through the year and next year has her own series, but overall, many of the official custom artists have gone rather quiet in 2014, other than for some odd bits for the Imagination Gala.   Is this because high end customs weren’t selling?

Non-Official custom artists have been able to fill in the gap, with many artists selling their own blind box series and selling out, however many of them have been also been working on other platforms like Funko Pops and Disney Infinity items.

Vinylmation has gone through many changes throughout the years and I believe 2014 has been one of retraction, looking at some statistics from Google, there is a lot less interest in Vinylmation than in previous years.

Disney took steps to make Vinylmation more profitable, but in doing so, it feels like it has gone into a smaller niche.

Many would argue the increase in variants has created more issues, especially greed, things sell out quickly because of the valuable variants but in general, most figures lose value quickly. Older figures haven’t held their value as collectors often only want the newest release or rare figure.  Trading as a whole has gotten harder and with a influx of people selling parts or all of their collection, Vinylmation prices have suffered.

Many collectors have slowed down what they collect, trimmed their collections and many have lost interest.  With so many other “vinyl” alternatives out there, Vinylmation has lots of competition, even within its own company such as Disney Pops, Infinity, Mystery Mini’s and other brands.

Going into 2015, Vinylmation isn’t in the same place as how it came into 2014, its trimmed some fat from around the edges and is going forward with what looks to be a similar strategy from last year, but I want to know, what do you think of 2014 and the overall state of Vinylmation?