Shrewsbury, NJ
The reality of the situation, is that Stern hasn't hit that price point to where sales are affected. They can't keep up with demand.
(Topic ID: 175720)
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Quoted from Cobray:Stern knows that Star Wars is going to be big, and with the release of the shiny new Star Wars Pinball will be 80% of the "I'm done with Stern!" proclaimers on here lining up to find who has an LE left at the new higher price Stern is offering. Just wait and see.
How many people are already on the star wars list with their distributors?
I bet a whole lot more than people are willing to admit.
Quoted from Zitt:Clearly... you weren't paying attention. This Fan bought an LE... and the LEs sold out before they officially announced.
They did what... 5 or 6 runs of Premiums / Pros over ?5? years.
Not sure I'd agree at all with your statement.
I purchased my Star Trek LE in March 2014 from a distributor.
Quoted from Zitt:Did you pay more than $7k? If so... distributor was a flipper.
Regardless, The point I was trying make is that Stern had no problem selling these machines. They weren't left holding any. I can't say the same for other themes like (WWF or Mustang). I don't think those titles did more than their inital runs and proably didn't sell out the LEs.
Yep.
I used that distributor once and that was it. At the time, I did not know any better and I had no idea this site even existed.
In my line of work, we are only allowed to use the local distributors. So naturally, I looked for the local one to me for pinball. Thanks to people on here, they were able to push/show me the right way to purchase new machines.
Today? I get all my NIB games from JJ.
Quoted from Shapeshifter:Quite staggering that people are paying these prices for a cheap plastic translite.
If you really are celebrating 30 years of pinball, a real backglass honors pinball history more than anything else.
Wow, $15000 and no backglass.
Wow.
Most, if not all the recent LEs have had backglasses. No excuse for no backglass on Batman LEs.
I had read that existing titles in distributor's inventory, will be going up in price because of Stern.
It would be cruel if Wrestlemania was subjected to this.
Quoted from TigerLaw:Sadly I think that will result in a wipe out of the manufacturers (most of them anyway), none of us know what Stern's margins might be but I'm guessing they are not as high as many may feel they are (at least on pro models). Would Stern stay around if they had to make pros for $1,000 less retail?
If Stern makes on average, $500 per machine, they make say 15,000 machines per year, that's $7,500,000 in profit.
One would think that Stern is debt free. It's not like they have a fleet of trucks and heavy machinery. It's all hand built.
The next down cycle, they should be able to ride it through unscathed.
Quoted from JY64:Why would you think Stern is debt free when they just enlarged there plant
From what i read, they are renting space.
Quoted from flynnibus:Stern just upsized their facility and built that out... you don't do that with cash as a business in a market where rates are so low.
Stern also has crazy amounts of inventory... that is stuff that was all bought with something. Again, not stuff you typically drain your cash reserves for.
Stern went through years of lean... years you were running the red.. so that usually requires debt to survive.
Stern took on investment.. that's money that typically isn't 'free'
They probably carry a healthy bit of debt from their move and normal operation.. as do most businesses.
Accounts payable is not considered debt. That's everyday business activity.
I'm talking about loans on plants and machinery, vehicles, trucks, buildings. Look at their videos. There's nothing there that's expensive. It's all hand tools.
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