2018 Water Warriors/BBT Blasters

Discussions of all varieties of stock water guns and water blasters.
Rike
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Re: 2018 Water Warriors/BBT Blasters

Post by Rike » Sat Jul 14, 2018 2:35 am

Interesting discussion going on here, I just dropped in!

First, let me quote what a friendly toy developer emailed to us once. Sounds extremely plausible to me about why retailers do not carry any high-quality water guns (and why it's consequently not profitable for manufacturers to make them).
In general, brick & mortar retail stores like $20-$30 price points (MSRP). During Christmas, they can sell much higher price point products, but during the rest of the year, most people are buy toys as birthday presents. While the kid's parent will buy a more expensive gift for them, the other kids that come to the birthday party still have to bring a gift, so they mostly will bring a $20-$30 gift. Since they're not getting it for themselves, they don't care too much about what the gift is. It doesn't need to be high quality, highly innovative or used for very long. The other thing to mention with brick & mortar businesses is that they are all shrinking. Amazon (and online sales in general) are really cutting into their businesses. This part of the industry is struggling and contracting.

Online retailers also sell the most toys at the same price point (for the same reasons) but they can also sell higher price point products well. This is because you can demonstrate the value of an expensive product much better online (through good images, videos and longer descriptions) than you can via product packaging on a shelf. Also, online channels can afford to sell only a few expensive products per month and not loose money because it isn't taking up valuable retail shelf space.
So online is the way to go, #1.

Secondly, as you already figured out, making a high-quality water gun (we at Spyra are going at this in our own way indeed) does not only crash the above-mentioned price schemes, but also does not fit into the mindset of the typical toy shopper.

This is why we spend almost equal amounts (this will shift even more) of time to building the brand and making people aware that a water gun does not need to be just a toy for toddlers in the pool, but can actually be a decent gadget for grown-up kids as well. It's a lot of work and I just guess that the big corporates just do not see this as a focus, as they have other trends (NERF, digital toys, etc.) to carry forward.

People love a good water gun, we've seen it over and over again. They just need to know there's one out there.
We are trying to spread the word on Kickstarter in about 2 weeks. Would love to have you guys on board!

SSCBen
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Re: 2018 Water Warriors/BBT Blasters

Post by SSCBen » Sun Jul 15, 2018 10:02 am

I completely missed this thread because I was busy. Lots of interesting comments here.

In terms of advertising, I recall reading about targeted advertisements via social media. Apparently it's not too expensive (roughly $0.50 per click) to buy some of these. Might be worth looking into for WWN as a test. If we could get 5 more active people on the board, I think we'd all feel a lot better about the hobby.

Rike, thanks for the post. Online sounds encouraging, as does not marketing Spyra's products as toys. I can recall discussions going back 15 years about how water guns would be better sold at sporting goods stores (I don't know if there's an equivalent outside of North America). Stream Machines are frequently sold in sporting goods stores. Of course, that's just one venue for a different audience. From what you've said, online sounds more promising. The video you posted in the Spyra One thread targets the right audience, I think.

DX
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Re: 2018 Water Warriors/BBT Blasters

Post by DX » Wed Jul 18, 2018 1:02 am

I still find it odd how water gun retail prices remain stuck at the $20-30 price point while other toy prices surge like hell. Nerf's Prometheus will be retailing in the fall for TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. Two hundred dollars! It's still a plastic toy. Granted, the Rival line is marketed toward teens and not little kids, but still, that price point is absurd. Maybe water guns just really need to be marketed to older customer bases...
marauder wrote:You have to explain things in terms that kids will understand, like videogames^ That's how I got Sam to stop using piston pumpers

WaterDragonMissle
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Re: 2018 Water Warriors/BBT Blasters

Post by WaterDragonMissle » Tue Jul 31, 2018 1:51 pm

My brother and I just picked up some new 2018 Outlaws for $8.92 each at KMart. I love these things, I feel like they don’t get the credit they deserve. They have the same output/range as most old XPs, great starter gun to give to noobs. I think they are priced around how much XPs used to cost in the 90s also? Can’t really remember...

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