2013 GB Young wants!

I understand where everyone is coming from – $360 is alot of money. However I remember that when we were discussing the price that $300 was mentioned as a reasonable price and some were even suggesting $350. The only input from Windstone was from John who said something along the lines of “we have the greatest customers – they are agruing for a price increase! Do I hear $500?”
I’m buying one – I have a 50/50 chance of getting a candycorn and I didn’t see many of them that I wouldn’t love to own. To those of you who love safari corns, you may be hearing from me to make a trade if I get a natural colored one…although I liked alot of the safari corns as well……

By the way, I will be eating noodles for the rest of the summer. It’s worth it to me.

*EDIT* I just read drag0nfeathers comments and I agree. Thank you, Melody, John, Pam, Susie, etc for all your work.

Would have made more sense to me to put these on Ebay or special items. That price doesn’t speak ‘Grab bag fun’ to me and it excluded those with lower-budgets that went for grab bags to begin with.
Hopefully people like what they get, but that’s one massive gamble that seems completely illogical to me, if it weren’t for resale prices (which I think is a risk in itself).
To me it seems this has generated a load of unhappy campers, and the surprise unis haven’t even arrived yet.

I don’t want to sound a grump, and I *really* don’t want to start drama, and frankly I’m pleased Windstone can get that price for them, but it’s about $100 out of my reach. I’ll have to enjoy people’s pictures of all of Melody’s wonderful effort.

Obviously I’ll live without one and be just peachy, none the worse for wear, but I can’t help but be a little bit sad, since I did plan on splurging a bit for one.

I can’t wait to see the photos when the unicorns arrive at their homes, and hey, on the bright side, with a price like that they will stay in the store longer and give the people who are dying for them a better chance! I wasn’t going to be able to get one anyway, but even if I had a job right now, I would pass because emperor dragons new and shiny from the store sell for less.
Mystery quasi-tiny unicorn < hulking beautiful royal dragon of awesomeness

I have to say, I’m very sad and disappointed when I saw the price…… I know that these gb’s would be more than the last batch, but I was not expecting this…… I just can’t justify spending that kind of money on one of these guys, no matter how beautiful they are.

After much thought and discussion, we (the wife and I) have decided to bow out on this one. We were VERY excited and had picked favorites, but this is 5 weeks worth of mortgage for us! Way too expensive. We were anticipating something more in the range of $250…

For us Canadians, it’s $360 plus $22 for shipping… and then tack on $85 for customs and duty fees. Total of $465 means that if we don’t like it, the odds of reselling/trading and breaking even are pretty slim. 🙁

Disappointed, we’ve been watching for this. Going to add our voices to the ‘too expensive for a chance’ crowd.

I don’t want to sound a grump, and I *really* don’t want to start drama, and frankly I’m pleased Windstone can get that price for them, but it’s about $100 out of my reach. I’ll have to enjoy people’s pictures of all of Melody’s wonderful effort.

Obviously I’ll live without one and be just peachy, none the worse for wear, but I can’t help but be a little bit sad, since I did plan on splurging a bit for one.

I think this sums up my stance perfectly. I did set aside a pretty sizeable chunk, knowing the price would go up, but as Rusti said, it was a splurge I was willing to make as I’ve been trying to get a Young for a year. To find that I’m shut out yet again not because I couldn’t snag one in time, but because the price tripled? Yes, that’s disheartening. If I could afford to spend almost $400, including shipping, I could have bought one resold from a previous batch by now.

Melody’s work, as always, is fabulous, and those who can afford it will be pleased, I’m sure. I just wish we’d been given notice that the price would rise *this* much. I think you’d see less disappointment had the price been set and announced before anyone had the chance to get their hopes up. I know I’ve been counting on this and planning for it for months, even staying out of the last GBB batch so I could put that money towards this batch instead.

Regardless, for the company’s sake, I hope they sell well.

I just nabbed one in the store, but I too am quite apprehensive about the price. I’m almost starting to wonder if I should cancel the order and instead save the money for an ebay piece. I would probably feel better if I knew there were more people in Canada willing to trade a safari in case I get a candycorn, so shipping would be less of an issue.

Some people wanted one batch, some people wanted two. In the end we decided it would be a lot simpler to just make it one large batch. There were 300 people who pressed the notify button, and only 120 unicorns! It would also cut down on Susie having to cancel orders for all the people who would have inevitably ordered from both batches without realizing that they should only order from one batch. 🙂

And yet what STILL bothers me and will always bother me is that you guys didn’t think about the points we were making – we knew these were going to be expensive and that is entirely why we wanted a choice. How is it fair to those of us with lower incomes to gamble THAT much on something? It’s simply not fair. And before anyone argues aftermarket pricing, I think it’s already been brought up that the last batch of fairly expensive babies did not bring the aftermarket prices that we’ve seen in the past. It fluctuates so much that it’s a non-argument.

My opinion is of course my own, but this certainly puts the nail in the coffin that I’ve been feeling descend for quite some time. I’m not going to be spending my money on Windstones directly from the company any longer unless it’s to get one specifically to paint. I’m sorry – but you’ve lost me as a customer. I’ll miss everyone, but I’m going to close the forums now and not look back for a while. My voice means nothing here anyway.

I’m sorry, but I think you’re being a little over dramatic. Windstone can price their pieces at whatever they like. They have bent over backwards to please their customers, especially the ones who have lower incomes. One per policies, etc. I think it’s about time they get their money’s worth for OOAK’s specifically painted by Melody. Yes, the price is high, but not every single thing they put in the store can be at the customers total financial benefit. Windstone is a company and they need to stay in business and maintain it. I think pointing the finger and yelling at them like that is insulting to them. We’ve been begging for theses for a long time, and now we’re gonna gripe about the price now that we have them in our grasp? I guess I was expecting that and I’m sure they were to to a point, but to say they lost a customer because they decided to do something other then what you wanted is a little extreme.

I dunno, like I said, the price was more then I was expecting too, but if you don’t want to spend the money then don’t buy one. It’s as simple as that. I am worried about the same things, I want a candy corn more then a safari, but I’m willing to risk it. Some others may not be. We got a lot of warning they were coming and time to scrimp and save. We were able to watch live feeds and chat and even had a chance to name some of them… in the mean time melody has to put her other projects on hold as well and that costs money as well. I think all of that time and dedication to pleasing their is worth something and they need to make a profit to continue their business.

Maybe next time they should just put them ALL on ebay. Then they will make even more money and not have to listen to everyone get angry about it.

I’m disappointed that everyone is being so inconsiderate to Melody, John, Susie, Pam, and everyone else who has been excited about this release to just have everyone dump on them like this.

I agree with Drag0n. I said I would support a price tag of 300, in a later post John asked what about 350? That right there gave me an inkling about what the proce would be. When I first started collecting ebay prices were very high. It was common to see things sell for close to $1000 or more than that depending on the piece. Ebay prices are very low right now, and that hurts WIndstone’s business. If they need to raise the prices, for things that are selling in the 500-700 range then that is what they need to do. If they have 300 notifys for 120 unis, there is more demand than supply. Horns are gone after this, so higher demand = higher prices for limited quantites.

For all you artists out there, think…how would you react to someone saying I really like your painting, handmade doll, sculpture, but I can’t afford your prices so you need to lower them so I can buy something. I bet you’d be pretty insulted. Negotiating a price for a piece that has not sold or has no interest is different than demanding the artist lower their prices on something that is a proven seller. If the unis sell at 360, then the price is not too high.

I also understand the poorer collector, who does not have 360 to spend. I was that collector for 20 years. I could admire them in stores, but that was as close as I got owning one. My very 1st Windstone was a Peacock Scratcher. He was a gift from a guy I was dating, and for 10 years he was my only Windstone. It sucks, but it is unfair to expect a buisness to take a loss on something. Sometimes all we can do is drool and move on. There are good people here who help each other, and Susie, John, Melody, and everyone else at Windstone are some of them. We should thank them for thier hard work and dedication. Earning a living doing Art is hard, and they do so much for us….the raffles, the Quests, the surprise raffles, the pieces donated to help charities, huskies, or forum members who have fallen on hard times. Name one other small company that does this. I bet you’ll have a hard time finding one.