Mattel News – Sales, Subscriptions, Early Access and More

Mattel has posted a huge update. In the update the reveal changes to the 1/15/2013 sales. they also update on Subscriptions, Early Access, Release Schedules and Purchasing.

Toy Fans,

There’s a ton going on and it’s only the beginning of January! We’ve got a lot of important updates for you, including a change to our January lineup, so please read on…

January 15th Monthly Sale

The full allotment of Ram Man® won’t arrive in time for all subscribers to get theirs so we’re moving him to our February 15th sale and switching up our Early Access items. Here’s the new lineup for

Tuesday, January 15th at 9 a.m. PT (12 noon ET):

– MOTUC: Netossa™ (monthly figure, included with Club Eternia® subscriptions)

– MOTUC: Horde Prime™ (remaining Customer Service stock – not included with Club Eternia subscriptions; eligible for Early Access)

– MOTUC: Griffin™ (remaining Customer Service stock – not included with Club Eternia subscriptions; eligible for Early Access)

– DCU: Saint Walker (monthly figure, included with Club Infinite Earths subscriptions)

– Watchmen: Rorschach (bi-monthly figure, included with Club Black Freighter subscriptions)

Early Access

The Early Access period for subscribers is Monday, January 14th at 8am PT through Tuesday, January 15th at 8am PT. For January, the figures are Horde Prime™ and Griffin™. Please remember that neither of these figures are included with 2013 Club Eternia® subscriptions and if they sell out during Early Access they will NOT be available to the general public on January 15th. With most coming from leftover Customer Service stock, quantities are limited and this is likely to be “last call” for these figures (they’re not reissues – they’re first run and won’t have the burst on the package). And finally, just a reminder that Early Access products are completely separate from subscriptions so shipping can’t be combined.

Subscribers, we’ll send you an email with a link to the login page which will live in the new Subscriptions portal. No special code will be needed – just log in with the email/password you entered when you signed up for your subscription.

My Subscriptions

Along with the new Subscriptions portal (the home of Early Access), we’ve also launched the new My Subscriptions account management section. This will be the place to take care of everything related to your subscription accounts, including changing/updating credit card information, shipping addresses, and email addresses, and even combining or separating shipments. This is the only place at MattyCollector.com to change your subscription information. Any changes made in the My Account section only affect purchases made in the Shop, not your subscriptions.

Please note your subscriptions will be available to update until after January 10th. Because the January subscription orders will ship on January 10th, we need to hold the ability to change your information until after orders begin shipping to ensure there are no hiccups. After January 10th, you can update your subscription information for February shipments and beyond. One thing of note… updates to your subscription payment or shipping information may take 1-2 minutes to apply to your subscription. After you’ve saved your change(s), you may need to refresh the “My Subscriptions” page after the short 1-2 minute wait in order to allow the page to reflect the updates to your subscription.

Release Schedule Coming Soon

So about those lineup changes… longtime customers know it’s common for a release lineup to change shortly before a sale. Even though our toys go into production many months before they go on sale, they’re custom figures produced in relatively small quantities and we can’t always predict their exact arrival date. This is due to a number of things, most often a shipment not arriving in time, but sometimes it’s a materials shortage, a shipping strike, a natural disaster, or even an international holiday. Because of this, we’ve hesitated to announce release dates much ahead of the on-sale date. Still, one of the biggest requests we get is for us to let you know what will be available and when. We totally get you wanting to know, so we’re going to start publishing our planned release schedule with the caveat that the dates are subject to change at any time. Watch for it in the next month or so.

A Better Purchase Experience

As you can see, the entire team is working hard to improve your purchase experience here at MattyCollector.com, not just with new features but also a beefed-up website behind the scenes… we’re proud to say not a single “white screen” was served up during our December sale and we plan to make that a permanent feature of sale days. You can also look forward to the launch of a “live chat” feature so if you’ve got questions during a purchase you can instantly speak with one of our Customer Service representatives.

Finally, thanks to you, 2012 ended up our best year to date and we’re looking forward to an even better, even bigger, even MORE of everything 2013!

-Matty