[yourbigpalal83]

My intent here with this post is to NOT turn this into a political argument. Im trying to leave politics out of this but with alll the news going on and the president making his comments about "Children getting less dolls this year", i think its a fair question to ask anyone in the know, working for Hasbro or Mondo toys...if this will have an effect on items allready pre ordered and paid for.

Case in point, back in December i purchased both the Hasbro Ecto 1 and Ecto 1A deluxe sets that were crowdfunding. Hasbro took the money out of my account so to me i consider those items paid for. If and when these tariffs go into effect, is it reasonable to expect Hasbro to hit me up with an aditional cost for those items to be made and delivered?

Same thing with the Mondo figures... I pre ordered both of The Real Ghostbusters Egon and Peter 2 pack figures with the full sized ghosts that come with them. I wouldent at all be shocked if in the future the Ray, Winston and Janine Figures would see a price increase (id be willing to pay 250 dollars for those up 50 bucks from the 202 the original figure 2 packs sold at) but not much more then that.

What are the chances that Hasbro or Mondo ask for a surcharge for pre ordered items or would they simply increase the cost of future items to adjust to the current situation.

Im still new to the Collectors market and im not 100% sure how it works. I hope its cool i ask these questions as i think they are fair ones but i dont wish to come off as trolling or trying to start a politcal issue. that is not my intent here. Im just unsure of what the current situation is with pre ordered stuff or up coming pre orders!

Thanks for understanding

[mrmichaelt]

In theory, if they charged your credit card already, the company has to eat additional costs but we're in a unique situation so that may not be the final verdict.

For the HasLab Ectomobile, the campaign ended in December 2024 and cards were charged around December 2 which is well before the current administration took office so Hasbro would have to eat the cost in theory.

For Mondo, same with the first set but not sure with the Egon set and beyond. On April 9, Mondo did tweet this in response to a Godzilla pre-order, "The pre-order release of Attack Peter's Godzilla Vinyl Designer Figure will be delayed in order to assess potential tariff impacts and evolving market conditions. We will provide an update at a later date. Thank you for understanding!"
https://x.com/MondoNews/status/1910095423211016359

However, since these are all technically pre-orders, the companies might follow suit with what online retailers like Big Bad Toy Store have done. Before your pre-order is charged and shipped, Big Bad Toy Store says they will email customers the new price adjusted for the current cost added on by the tariff and you will have the ability to approve the additional charge or cancel your order. Hasbro and Mondo might do this. Right now, we're waiting to see what the toy companies will do.

[edspengler]

There is the possibility that the shipper may give you a bill to pay import fees before releasing the package to you, similar to items that are shipped and received overseas - I have sent items to Europe and Canada where the receiver has to pay a minor bill to the shipper to cover import fees in order to release the package. I’m not saying this will happen, just putting it out as a possibility when you have already paid the vendor for a product that has not shipped.

[yourbigpalal83]

So there is no official word yet on whats going on as its a "Fluid" situation (By the way i really loath that term for some reason)

Look. Heres how i see it. IF hasbro HAS to increase there prices on upcoming stuff like say if they decide to do this years Ghostbusters Haslab crowdsource campaign then so be it. There is also the rumored updated 4 original Ghostbusters Plasma Series re release thats been making the rounds, and if that was supposed to be say a 100 dollar set now becomes a 120 dollar set, ok...20 more bucks i dont want to spend but thats reasonable.

Nintendo did the same thing with the switch 2 pre orders (which i did not snag one) and said ok, the system itself is the same price as we announced, but the accessories are 5 dollars more.

Thats tolerable. I dont like it, i dont agree with it, BUT i will accept it.

But...if a 100 dollar Ghostbusters Plasma Series 4 pack set now becomes 250 dollars because of a 145% tariff, then thats ridiculous.

If the winston, ray, janine mondo 2 pack sets become 450 dollars up from 202...thats insane and i wont do that. I dont think most people would. Even if the single pack figures of them jump from 100 dollars to 250, thats still crazy and unreasonable to most people.

i think im roughly...900 dollars or so give or take,( i know its over 800, i got to check my bank account) in the hole for the 2 haslab Ecto's. To me that money is spent and gone...and i expect them this december by christmas.

Now say hasbro sends me an email saying "Due to tariffs we have to increase the price of your pre order, an item you allready paid for...by anthing over 100 dollars im canceling the order and expecting my money back. Like the other poster said in here, they should in theory have to eat the cost of the tariffs on that one due to the timing.

Look, i get theres way more important things out there going on with this. These items are every bit luxuries. Going forward future items going up in price i cant really fault the manufactures. they are running a buiness and this is beyond their control.if they got to raise prices to keep the lights on due to things out of their control, then so be it. I still have the choice to decide if the increase price is worth the value of the item to me.

But if i get a email saying something i pre ordered months ago and paid for is going to be double the price, then i doubt many if any fans are going to be happy and i bet you will see a ton of pre orders canceled or the ones that keep it resell it on the 2nd hand market for even more money.

When a high end brand new ghostbusters figure cost as much as last months rent, something is seriously wrong with this picture.

[GuyX]

My intent here with this post is to NOT turn this into a political argument. Im trying to leave politics out of this but with alll the news going on and the president making his comments about "Children getting less dolls this year", i think its a fair question to ask anyone in the know, working for Hasbro or Mono toys...if this will have an effect on items allready pre ordered and paid for.

Case in point, back in December i purchased both the Hasbro Ecto 1 and Ecto 1A deluxe sets that were crowdfunding. Hasbro took the money out of my account so to me i consider those items paid for. If and when these tariffs go into effect, is it reasonable to expect Hasbro to hit me up with an aditional cost for those items to be made and delivered?

Same thing with the Mondo figures... I pre ordered both of The Real Ghostbusters Egon and Peter 2 pack figures with the full sized ghosts that come with them. I wouldent at all be shocked if in the future the Ray, Winston and Janine Figures would see a price increase (id be willing to pay 250 dollars for those up 50 bucks from the 202 the original figure 2 packs sold at) but not much more then that.

What are the chances that Hasbro or Mondo ask for a surcharge for pre ordered items or would they simply increase the cost of future items to adjust to the current situation.

Im still new to the Collectors market and im not 100% sure how it works. I hope its cool i ask these questions as i think they are fair ones but i dont wish to come off as trolling or trying to start a politcal issue. that is not my intent here. Im just unsure of what the current situation is with pre ordered stuff or up coming pre orders!

Thanks for understanding

The answer is Yes & no. No They won’t ask for a surcharge. That’s not how it works. You can’t buy something at a set price and then have the company charge your credit card because market fluctuations changed. It would be like saying you bought something containing gold but because the cost of gold went up between when the item was purchased and when you received it the company suddenly demanded more money. That’s not good business. I would expect some fly by night company to pull that shit. But not Hasbro

What can happen is they can cancel everything and refund all monies. But they can’t charge you extra. It wasn’t a deposit.

How could it be affected? That’s the unknown. My guess is maybe they use cheaper components, less packaging, less quality control. But you can bet they won’t eat that cost. It will be borne onto the customer in ways you might not think to look.

One thing they could get away with is cutting out the stretch goals since those aren’t guaranteed. But I still don’t think Hasbro would do that.

[prodestrian]

But...if a 100 dollar Ghostbusters Plasma Series 4 pack set now becomes 250 dollars because of a 145% tariff, then thats ridiculous.

Keep in mind that it's the importers who directly pay the tariffs, rather than consumers (yes, technically consumers DO pay in the end, but this isn't quite the same a VAT/GST/sales tax). So if Hasbro is selling it to you for $100, they're buying it for less. How much less? No idea. Maybe they pay $20 each and make a lot of money on each sale (a lot of which obviously covers design, marketing, etc), or maybe their profit margins are super thin and they're paying $90 each to the manufacturer (this seems VERY unlikely).

We just don't know how much Hasbro/Mondo are paying for each unit.

If they were previously paying only $20 per unit to China and selling to you for $100, then a 145% tariff means they'd now be paying $49 per unit. Yes that's more than double for them, but maybe they're OK with only making $51 profit instead of $80 per sale. Or perhaps they'd just pass the cost on, so the updated price would be $129 for you.

But if they were paying $90 per unit, the tariff means it now costs them $220 per unit. There's no way they can sell it for $100 if it's costing them $220. Especially if they've potentially already poured thousands of hours in research/development/design/marketing and need to recover those costs.

They may be forced to raise the price from $100 to $250, or cancel the whole thing entirely if they don't think anyone's prepared to pay that much. We'll just have to wait and see unfortunately.

[yourbigpalal83]

But...if a 100 dollar Ghostbusters Plasma Series 4 pack set now becomes 250 dollars because of a 145% tariff, then thats ridiculous.

Keep in mind that it's the importers who directly pay the tariffs, rather than consumers (yes, technically consumers DO pay in the end, but this isn't quite the same a VAT/GST/sales tax). So if Hasbro is selling it to you for $100, they're buying it for less. How much less? No idea. Maybe they pay $20 each and make a lot of money on each sale (a lot of which obviously covers design, marketing, etc), or maybe their profit margins are super thin and they're paying $90 each to the manufacturer (this seems VERY unlikely).

We just don't know how much Hasbro/Mondo are paying for each unit.

If they were previously paying only $20 per unit to China and selling to you for $100, then a 145% tariff means they'd now be paying $49 per unit. Yes that's more than double for them, but maybe they're OK with only making $51 profit instead of $80 per sale. Or perhaps they'd just pass the cost on, so the updated price would be $129 for you.

But if they were paying $90 per unit, the tariff means it now costs them $220 per unit. There's no way they can sell it for $100 if it's costing them $220. Especially if they've potentially already poured thousands of hours in research/development/design/marketing and need to recover those costs.

They may be forced to raise the price from $100 to $250, or cancel the whole thing entirely if they don't think anyone's prepared to pay that much. We'll just have to wait and see unfortunately.

Yeah. See the whole situation is so confusing. Im still not totally sure what a tariff is and ive must have watched about a dozen videos on the topic. I know the whole intent is to get more manufacturing jobs here in the US instead of overseas, but beyond that im really confused. Economics and math have never been my strong subjects in school lol.

I just hope the Mondo figures remaining in The Real Ghostbusters line dont cost double the price, and as someone else said on here, with the Ecto 1's from Hasbro i hope we arent hit with an additional fee. They made the point it wasnt a deposit.

I do think toy companies like Hasbro and Mondo especially which is more targeted for the adult collector are going to be hit super hard with this nonsense. Hasbro i think will be hit hard too but they have both the Adult Collectors market which they have been trying to cater to in addition to the kids stuff they put out.

[zeta otaku]

I think we're good with the Venkman and Spengler figures, but unless things get reversed, we're gonna get smacked hard with the Ray and Winston figures.

As for what a tariff is, it's basically an extra import tax that companies get sacked with. Normally, we as a consumer don't really feel the effects of them because they're minimal and the company may just eat the fee themselves. These, however, are too large for companies to absorb themselves, so prices have to go up significantly to offset the extra costs the importers are getting sacked with. As for bringing those manufacturing jobs back to the US, it's a neat idea, but it takes years to get that kind of infrastructure set up and would still cost more than importing (mainly due to higher minimum wages and other expenses locations overseas don't have to deal with)

[Nomake Wan]

Yeah. See the whole situation is so confusing. Im still not totally sure what a tariff is and ive must have watched about a dozen videos on the topic. I know the whole intent is to get more manufacturing jobs here in the US instead of overseas, but beyond that im really confused. Economics and math have never been my strong subjects in school lol.

It's okay, you're not the only one who doesn't understand what a tariff is. I imagine there are a lot of people, perhaps even people who implement them, who do not understand them.

As zeta otaku says, they are an import tax, and are paid by the importer (not the country of origin). Further, there is an exemption called "de minimis" which used to mean that any shipment with a total value under $800 was exempt from any tariff, but on May 2nd that was revoked for all goods made in China regardless of where they ship from. So while Hasbro was already on the hook for the 145% tariff anyway (they don't do de minimis shipping, they do massive seafaring containers' worth), now even regular consumers can find themselves on the wrong end of a massive import duty charge.

How the tariff is paid precisely depends on how it came into the country. For massive companies like Hasbro, the tariff payment will either be handled by their freight forwarder (who then just add it to their line of credit like any other payment) or they may have an account with CBP to remit directly via electronic payment. Either way, it comes out of Hasbro's pocket if the shipment's coming through the ports (which it is for the US; Hasbro only ships direct for small volume areas like southeast Asia). Hasbro would then have to decide how they want to pass that newfound cost on to the consumer. So far they have not announced how this would work. Another massive toy company, Bandai, has announced that they would just eat the tariffs for now (under the assumption that the current administration will blink within the next few months). I somehow doubt Hasbro will just eat the tariffs, as that decision is a rare one among companies I've seen.

Individuals buying things from overseas directly or companies who ship direct is a whole 'nother can of worms thanks to the de minimis exemption on Chinese-made goods being revoked. In either situation, it is the recipient of the package who is on the hook for paying the tariff (that is, you). If the parcel goes through the international postal network, then the tariff is either 120% or a $100 flat fee. June 1 this becomes either 120% or a $200 flat fee. USPS also charges an $8.85 fee for any parcel that goes through customs and has duties owed, and has stated on the record they will not personally involve themselves with duty collection, suggesting that you would have to pay the foreign postal carrier the owed tariff in advance for it to clear customs.

If the parcel comes via private courier (DHL, FedEx, UPS, etc) the tariff rate is 145%, same as if it came in via ship at the ports. I know for a fact that DHL will actually hold your shipment and demand payment to release it since that's what happened the first week of February when this mess was tried for the first time.

An important note is that this tax is on products made in China, not shipped from China. Again, for massive freight forwarders handling giant shipments this isn't a big deal; those shipments have incredibly detailed manifests that describe in detail what's on board and what its origins are. But this is now a nightmare for individuals. While every country except China still has the $800 de minimis exemption in place, since China's exemption was revoked this now means that every single one of the ~4 million packages per day that normally are swiftly passed through customs under de minimis must be inspected to check for the presence of Chinese-made goods. Again, this happened for less than a week in the first week of February and it crushed customs so completely that they were backlogged for a full month (I know because I was affected; I had aluminum tape stuck in customs for 28 days).

To wrap this all up, while right now everyone is talking about China (and rightfully so, 145% is insanity), once the tariffs on everything else are unpaused you can just consider this a 10% blanket consumption tax on individuals. Adding a tariff to every import, including imports that have no domestic production (such as things that cannot be produced domestically, such as coffee, tea, mangoes, etc) means it is no longer about "promoting domestic manufacturing" but is just a consumption tax. This will likely be followed by further weakening of income tax rules for certain tax brackets alongside the suggestion that the tariffs will cover the deficit.

Hope that helps. I've been helping people in a totally different community try to understand these tariffs for weeks now (lots of people don't seem to get that if they ship something from Japan that has "Made in China" written on the item in the box, they're on the hook for 145% of the parcel value). I myself will be eating a 145% tariff for a Japanese-shipped item ordered all the way back in December if the situation does not get resolved by July.

[yourbigpalal83]

Just got the following Email from Mondo. I was going to share a screen shot but im not quite sure how to upload it.
As you guys suspected...All previous completed Pre Orders are safe...so Egon and Peter will remain uneffected but Winston and Ray going forward will cost more!

Lovely....

We’re reaching out with an important update about how ongoing international tariffs are impacting Mondo’s products moving forward.

As always, our goal is to continue delivering the highest quality collectibles, records, and posters—and we’re doing everything we can to ensure that continues, even in the face of evolving global trade policies.

Starting May 6, 2025, select pre-order collectible products for U.S. customers will include a tariff surcharge fee, which will vary by item and will be visible in your cart before checkout.

A few key things to know:
These surcharges will not apply to in-stock items currently in our warehouse.
No retroactive charges will be added to previously completed orders.
Orders placed before May 6, including pre-orders, will not be impacted.
We didn’t make this decision lightly—but it’s necessary to help us navigate rising costs while continuing to invest in the products and experiences you expect from Mondo. Thank you for your passion and support. Please visit our FAQs Page for updates or reach out to [email protected] with additional questions.

— The Mondo Team

[Kingpin]

Just got the following Email from Mondo. I was going to share a screen shot but im not quite sure how to upload it.

Fortunately 910dohead posted a screenshot in the main Mondo topic:

Well, here's our answer.

[Nomake Wan]

Another massive toy company, Bandai, has announced that they would just eat the tariffs for now (under the assumption that the current administration will blink within the next few months). I somehow doubt Hasbro will just eat the tariffs, as that decision is a rare one among companies I've seen.

As a small update, Bandai recently sent an e-mail to people who had preordered items for this month to notify them that they would not be shipping. Good Smile Company, another big Japanese toy company, sent a similar e-mail. So rather than "eat the tariffs" it would appear their actual position for orders going forward is, "Let things bound for the US sit in our domestic warehouse until the tariff situation is resolved." They did eat the tariffs for items that shipped in April, however.

[mrmichaelt]

On their blog, on May 8, Hasbro Pulse stated, "We’ve made some price changes across our fan portfolio. Like many companies, we’re seeing higher costs across production and shipping. While we’ve worked hard to keep prices steady, these changes help us continue delivering the quality play experiences you expect from Hasbro. When you purchase from Hasbro Pulse, the price you authorized for a pre-order or a HASLAB will not change, even if prices fluctuate in the future. Your price is locked in at the time you place your order."
https://www.hasbropulse.com/blog/keeping-you-informed


Ok, so it looks like on May 9, prices increased for Hasbro products at various retailers. But current pre-orders, i.e. Marvel Legends figures, were switched to unavailable on the Hasbro Pulse page.
https://toynewsi.com/278-57825


But overall, the way Hasbro Pulse worded it, the HasLab Ectomobiles are safe and there won't be any additional charges added on.

[mrmichaelt]

The tariffs are part of the current political and economic situation but it is unnecessary to get into political commentary in this thread and take the discussion off tangent. Bottom line, we now know what Hasbro and Mondo's stances are. The thread is closed but will reopen if new news on the subject surfaces.