Price Gouging at Kidrobot NY

10:00 AM on 01.02.2010   |   Call Niero

Figure collectors are no strangers to high prices. Certain pieces have a retail value of well over 1k, but these figures are usually exceptionally made, part of a very limited run, or a combination of both. Pieces that are relatively common rarely sell for above retail; this is especially true of vinyl pieces such as 8" Dunnys. The Joe Ledbetter Tiger Dunny, which originally sold for $40, goes for about the same now.

Then again, if you are Kidrobot, you can charge wahtever you want--or at least this is the message they are sending to their fans with their newest business practice. The JLed Dunny was up in their NYC store for $800, over 20 times the market value. The saddest part of that? Someone bought it. A rich tourist payed $800 for that Dunny (apparently as a gift for their child), when he could have bought 20 of them for that price.

Hit the jump to check out some of the insane prices KRNY is charging for relatively common pieces.

Obey's 8" Dunny rarely sells for above $60--the most it has gone for in the past few months is $75. As you can see, KRNY is charging $800 for this piece, the same amount they charged for the JLed. They are justifying this practice by saying that they are really intended for display only, and were never meant to sell. The thing is, they have sold some of these pieces, so they obviously are not there for "display only." I have to wonder what Kidrobot hopes to gain by this practice. Their regular customers are furious, and KR is certainly not going to get any loyal buyers once the people who purchase these pieces find out what they are really worth.

Next up is Eggy, arguably the most boring Dunny design ever. The nice thing about Eggy is that he is great for customizers, as he rarely sells for over $35. People do not want to have to paint over a beautiful design (like the Hernandez Jaguar or the Amanda Visell), so the "ugly" designs are actually quite nice for the artistic fans of KR. But KRNY is charging $100 for Eggy. Not as ridiculous as the Obey, but stil outrageous. No one wants to pay $100 for Eggy--after all, he was a large run and sold for $30 originally. 

The Flying Fortress Dunny is actually quite rare and rather old, but it still does not sell for over $80. Here it is marked at $500. Once again, I wonder what KRNY could have possibly been thinking when they priced these Dunnys. They run the KR forums, where many sales are made, so they know how much these things go for. 

Perhaps the worst of all of these is the Dalek 20", which is marked at $2,000. There is one up on eBay right now for only $500. The truly awful part of the pricing on this particular piece is that it is listed as a custom, when it is clearly a production piece, so some tourist with little knowledge of Dunnys might come in and think they are getting a great deal on a one-of-a-kind piece when they are actually spending $1500 more than what it sells for on a mass-produced figure.

I thought I would end on one of the non-Dunnys they are charging a crazy price on. The Krink Mailbox the are selling for $250 when you can still buy them in some online stores for retail. The crazy prices are not restricted to Dunnys, or even vinyl. Who knows what they will decide to mark up next--labbit plushes? Donut pillows?

There has been at least 1 piece besides the JLed that have sold--a full Series 2 set went for $2,000. Once again, while KRNY claims that these pieces are for display only, they are selling them to hapless customers. If they want to show off some of their older pieces, they should simply set up a shelf for display only where people can admire what KRNY has done in the past. It is truly outrageous that Kidrobot thinks this is a fair business practice, so let's sent them a message telling them that it is not okay. Email Kidrobot at nystore@kidrobot.com or email the creator directly at contact@paulbudnitz.com to complain about how they are taking advantage of their customers.