From their Press release:
"Inventory at year-end totaled $246.4 million, an increase of 48% compared to a year ago. This includes inventory that the Company intends to eliminate in the first half of 2023 to reduce fulfillment costs by managing inventory levels to align with the operating capacity of our distribution center. This is expected to result in a write down in the first half of 2023 of approximately $30 to $36 million. "
Most rational economic system by far.
The collectible toys, of derivative IP, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of Pops dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the toys, but this could not be. How would they buy Pops at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the Pops, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the toys. A million people hungry, needing the toys- and kerosene sprayed over the plastic mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn Luka Doncic Funko Pops for fuel in the ships. Baby Yoda Funko Pops to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump Mickey Mouse (Metallic) Funko Pops in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the Hopper from Stranger Things (Gold) Funko Pops and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe toys. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from a Pop. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of not enough fun- because the toys must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for Boo Berry Funko Pops in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped Pops, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the Darth Maul (Holographic) Funko Pops float by, listen to the screaming Freddy Funko as Count Chocula (Glow in the Dark) Funko Pops being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of Pops slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
A landfill? Seriously? It would be vastly more environmentally friendly to gather the unprofitable plastic trinkets, melt them down into a slurry, and pour the unholy goop down the throats of the C suite and board members until the breathing stops.
I'll be an annoying pedant and say that technically it's not that their value is $0, they probably could have been sold off eventually at some non-zero value, but the cost of holding onto the item for that long would've been a negative net value.
The previous awful company I worked for was rabid about maintaining inventory. I really don't understand why it matters but they would literally just throw raw materials away at the end of the fiscal year to make whatever stupid numbers looked good on their fiscal report, then we'd struggle for months with raw material shortages.
Another fun inventory-related phenomenon was having to order, receive, test, and store 10 kg of a raw material every single fucking week instead of just doing all of that one time with a single 500 kg order for the whole year because again, "it looks better". They will tend to completely ignore lost productivity if the employees involved in a process are salaried, it's just implied that they will work extra hours if necessary because fuck you. This shit happens because some brain genius big wig decides that their method for measuring a certain money number is the best way and anyone who questions it will be fired or ostracized.
what a great use of pumping more pollution into the air. for shitty toys nobody wants anymore.
:soypoint-1: a landfill? for free? where? which landfill? please tell me! i NEED to know!
