Theory11 raised their prices?!

[octave]

I just visited their website and noticed that not only their newest decks, but also nearly all other decks were set to 9.95$. I searched their forum and their response was really frustrating! (PLUS they locked the thread in their forum!!!) They justified it with high kickstarter prices. How can you compare to single good or bad designers as one of the leading world wide magic companies? I like to pay for high quality decks and theory11 really puts out some of the nicest decks on the market. So if the prices increased to print large print runs at USPCC then ok, I pay 9,95$ for the new citizens deck. But whats really pissing me off, is the fact they also raised the old prices as well. Those were calculated before manufacturing, so either theory11 is now suffering from a market saturation via kickstarter or they just miscalculated something. I understand that the market is somehow saturated since a year or two, but raising your prices hopefully won't help. I really don't know how I should feel about the whole story, since theory11 put out my favorite decks so far. But I'm also an European buyer and together with the ridiculous US shipping costs theory11 is no option anymore for me to buy decks directly from. Thats just another fact together with the kickstarter pricing that slowly kills my hobby Now I appreciate it even more that ellusionist lowered their shipping costs.
What do you guys think?

[MagikFingerz]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

I don't have any immediate thoughts or opinions, but sounds like this could be a good topic of discussion. Hopefully the actions of T11 doesn't set a precedent that hurts the card collecting community.

[sinjin7]

It seems like only the T11-produced custom decks were all set at $9.95, but non-T11 decks (like the Bicycle decks) are still priced as they always were. There's no question the quality level of the tucks T11 produces are very expensive. Having said that, they have the benefits of economies of scale so their costs are significantly reduced due to their volume of production. The only thing T11 is concerned with is to maximize their profits (which is the right of any business), so when they see that collectors are now willing to pay $12 to $14 for standard Kickstarter decks and $20+ on KS limited edition decks, they're going to push the envelope of what they feel the market will bear.

According to T11, every one of their decks are "limited" (although they won't disclose print runs), and they see their tucks are more pimped out that most of the KS limited edition decks that are fetching $18-$20+ per deck, so the writing was on the wall that they, and others like E and Handlordz and D&D were going to jack their prices. T11 is no longer necessarily pricing their decks at a percentage factor above the cost of production, but at the highest cost they feel the market will bear. That's why you see the price hike of their already produced past decks as octave mentioned. This trend is probably going to continue higher and higher until it leads to the inevitable burst of the market bubble.

[Fox-13]

They only seem to have raised the price on the decks they seem to be reprinting... (artisans are constantly getting reprinted as shown by the AoS and tuck seal, and medallions were recently reprinted).
But, for example,
Archangels are still 6.95
Aristocrats are still 4.95
titanium series are still 4.95 (these won't be reprinted though - I asked about the red titanium tally hos and they told me so).
It is possible that lower cost decks will not be reprinted, and all other decks they reprint or intend to continue printing have been adjusted to reflect current printing costs, regardless of the date of printing of the current stock.

[hikeeba]

Also, Elite points have dropped from $0.005/point to $0.003/point. (And the Skype session went way up.)

[alric]

Yeah, I saw that Elite points are worth less than before as well, which kind of sucks. I wish T11 would've announced when they were going to devalue their Elite points so that we could've spent the ones we've saved up before that happened. And in addition to raising their prices, it seems like most of their decks don't offer a discount for buying multiple decks anymore, either. Oh well, it's still better than the shit E tried to pull with their Black Club (R.I.P.).

[Justin O.]

If I was T11, or E, or D/D or any of those guys, and I saw decks of crap being printed by makeplayingcards.com and sold for $15 a pop through Kickstarter or Indienogo I would raise my prices too

[jerichoholic]

I noticed with the recent Elite deck that it also cost like $14 to ship one deck, a lot more than the new E price and more than I previously recall paying.

[shermjack]

I noticed with the recent Elite deck that it also cost like $14 to ship one deck, a lot more than the new E price and more than I previously recall paying.

I just placed an order recently with them and was shocked by the shipping charges...minimal 13-14 for 4 decks and 17 for a total of 6 decks to ship in the US...what was the kicker is that 2 out of the 6 decks arrived damaged as they were just thrown in a box (much bigger than necessary) with only a handful of peanuts (of course not enough to prevent movement during shipping)...decks weren't even wrapped in bubble wrap, just loosely packed.

Needless to say, I have contacted customer support and the good thing is that T11 is usually good about making things right...just a shame to see such unprofessional packing from a company like T11.

EDIT: As I didn't contact T11 until late Friday, I only got a response today...as usual, T11 came through and immediately sent out replacement decks when they received my support request...I also got to keep the damaged decks! As I have said before, T11 has the best customer service and will gladly continue to support them!

[DelMagic]

I made two purchases this week from T11 and both had free domestic shipping.

[octave]

I miss some more workers decks like the aristocrats, the stingers or the titanium series. I'm glad that they kept those prices fair. A new version of the stingers would be cool though, but please not for 10$. I like their decks, but that small price raise was enough to only make these decks going into my collection instead of my working deck shelf. (And |I spend really a huge amount of money on playing cards) But since I like to use most of my decks, 10$ is just too much for me to stock up. All those kickstarter decks and newer decks are aiming for collectors nowadays. They look awseome with embossed tucks, foiled backs etc but I really wouldn't mind a new usable deck, cheaper with standard curts and an old fashioned box. I really wish they would reprint the stingers, maybe in blue as well.

[Michelle]

Their decks are definitely high quality, and I would've been willing to pay for the higher prices up until I saw the reduced Elite points. Now I'm just sad lol.

I'll probably end up buying them anyway, but I'll probably hold off for a little while.

[jerichoholic]

I noticed with the recent Elite deck that it also cost like $14 to ship one deck, a lot more than the new E price and more than I previously recall paying.

I just placed an order recently with them and was shocked by the shipping charges...minimal 13-14 for 4 decks and 17 for a total of 6 decks to ship in the US...what was the kicker is that 2 out of the 6 decks arrived damaged as they were just thrown in a box (much bigger than necessary) with only a handful of peanuts (of course not enough to prevent movement during shipping)...decks weren't even wrapped in bubble wrap, just loosely packed.

Needless to say, I have contacted customer support and the good thing is that T11 is usually good about making things right...just a shame to see such unprofessional packing from a company like T11.

EDIT: As I didn't contact T11 until late Friday, I only got a response today...as usual, T11 came through and immediately sent out replacement decks when they received my support request...I also got to keep the damaged decks! As I have said before, T11 has the best customer service and will gladly continue to support them!

That's pretty odd considering Theory11's sole reason for using the boxes with peanuts is to prevent such a thing from happening in the first place. I find it unusal when I get a deck from them and it's a box full of peanuts and the deck is right at the very bottom. Wouldn't it make more sense to put the deck in the middle to protect it? I don't understand it.