It seems to me that a store would sell more of these if they cut open the top, and sealed it with a piece of tape and the number of the fi?ure on the tape. That way the customer would know what they were getting. Since everyone likes different ones, most would sell in the long run. And the store could hold back a few of the most popular ones so no one bought all of them. Or sell some in complete sets only with the last two free. In the US, 12 for 30.USD would be a deal because you could get all 12 and not too many spares you don't want.
It seems to me the whole grab-bag idea is designed to sell more already; since you don't know what's inside, instead of buying a specific one, you have to buy several before you get the one you want (or in the case you want all of them, you'll have to buy dozens and end up with some multiples). If we knew which ones they were, we'd end up just buying the ones we wanted, and the store would be left with a bunch of the less popular ones just warming the shelves. Or worse yet, some ebay scalpers might scoop up all the most popular ones and auction them off for evil-ly high prices for all those who really want one and can find no other way because the shelves were cleared of the specific ones by scalpers.
I'm fine with getting touchy feely with the bags, though, plus it makes the hunt all the more fun.
But I DO LOVE the idea of PM selling a complete set, like in a gift-pack or something like that. That would be awesome! I'm certain those would sell! At least to collectors. But I see why they sell them individually, so that little kids can pick the ones they want, and parents can buy them at a more affordable pricepoint individually (instead of in one big pricey lot).
What would be cool though is if they sold theme-specific playsets designed to go with the figures. For instance, across the different editions, there seems to be always a musician on both the male and female side. So they could also sell a concert stage that you buy to go with the musicians as you collect them on the way. That way it'd be more like a game, whre you buy the stage, and then eagerly try and collect all the musicians from each release so you can complete you rock concert stage.
Or instead of a seperate them playset, each figure might come with part of a playset, and then when you finally collect all the figures from a specific theme, the parts combine together to form a completed playset!
but that would be a big headache for us if we had all but one piece which was hard to find and could only be found on evilbay.
Just some ideas.
Or better yet: Playmobil should open up to taking direct orders on specific items without limits! I swear they'd make a lot of money that way, AND it would double as effective market trend research, because PM would be able to see RIGHT AWAY which items are the most popular, and then gear their production and marketing to reflect the actual demands!
