Latest Happenings at FortMax.com

Here are some of the latest happenings at FortMax.com...

• Inventory shift towards Fortress Maximus and Scorponok items is now at about 35%. Progress has slowed down a little more than I'd like the last month or so, but its still moving along. I am thrilled that we have Brave Maximus, Fortress Maximus, and even the rare Grand Maximus in stock right now!
• Hopefully time will allow to add more content to the website related to Fortress Maximus...stay tuned for that over the next couple months.
• Botcon is in Pasedena, CA this year -- I had hoped to go this year, but that's a little too far to truck my stuff to I think. Maybe next year!?

Transition Update - September

Now two months into our inventory transition, and here are some notes on how its going:

• About 25% of our inventory is now the target items of Brave Maximus, Fortress Maximus, or Scorponok. This is moving right along schedule of transitioning about 10-15% of inventory to the target items per month.
• We began a little early with having 10% (or more) off orders of 'old' inventory, starting at orders $100+. The length of this sale depends on our cash flow needs, but probably will last just 2-4 weeks yet.
• The"Newer Transformers" page now has a variety of items Beast Wars or newer for 50% off!

Transition Update

About one month into the transition mentioned in previous posts, and here are some notes on how its going:

• About 10% of our inventory is now the target items of Brave Maximus, Fortress Maximus, or Scorponok. This percentage would be closer to 20% except several of the items brought in have sold already (which is good!)
• Goal is to continue transition at a rate of about 10-15% of inventory per month if possible. Probably around mid-November will start some form of sales/clearance of the non-focus inventory...it won't be a drastic price slashing, but maybe 10% off or so.
• Collection Completers page was replaced with the "Newer Transformers" page, which is selling off a large chunk of my collection that is Beast Wars or newer. Currently those are 25% off, but I'll bump that up to 30% sometime soon (and now for anyone reading this post that asks for it)

Over-all I think the transition is showing positive signs. It appears the most challenging part will be to liquidate existing inventory at a pace quick enough and at prices still good enough to financially support the transition.

Website Update

As noted on the FortMax.com homepage and in the previous blog post, we are attempting to restructure the FortMax.com inventory. In line with the website name, our goal will be to migrate inventory to be mainly Fortress Maximus parts and figures. Since Scorponok is his Decepticon counterpart, we plan to carry those as well. Also will have Brave Maximus items, which are simply recolors of Fort Max (and a little more affordable). Obviously, it is difficult to get hands on a single Fortress Maximus, let alone make a whole inventory out of it, so we'll see how this goes. If it doesn't work out, I would most likely just shut the site down completely.

The Collection Completers page has been removed from the site since I don't plan on spending time looking for any items outside of what was mentioned above. If at some point I decide to sell off some of my collection, the page may be added back in for a while, but that's not in any plans (at least for the G1 and G2 stuff) unless I get really strapped for cash... maybe I'll put it back up for the Beast Wars and newer things which I'm personally not into so much and wouldn't bother replacing in my collection once sold.

As for the regular inventory we have right now, it will be available for purhcase as it has been (with just the change that you won't see much for new items except what was already mentioned). Perhaps at some point there will be a sale or clearance, but I'm not in a hurry right now and I'll need the money from existing stuff to attempt to stock Fort Maxes!

That said...if you want to make a large purchase of $1,000+ perhaps I could offer a modest 10% discount to help things along...a lot of the stuff I sell goes for 25-50% more on ebay stores, so feel free to buy things off and resell for your own profit (I don't have the time to photograph and list everything on ebay which is one of several reasons I didn't go that route).

Random thoughts

Been a while since posting, so thought I should do something anyway! So here are a few of my random thoughts...

• I'm still looking for the newest Transformers cartoon toys to hit the shelves, I think they are coming any day now.
• If you haven't been doing it already, give some of the links a try from this blog and the main page of the website to see other Transformer related websites. You just may find something good!! (And if you do, feel free to email me the link to a good site and I may add a permanent link for it here or on our links page)
• Nothing has been decided for certain, but a good chance that the FortMax.com store will go through some big changes in the next year or so. Simply put, the time spent to keep it going is not outweighing the financial benefits it provides anymore, not to mention the storage space it takes. I may end up at some point selling off the inventory or else changing the business model to one that uses less time (such as only selling high dollar items), unless I can find someone to run it for me. I don't necessarily look forward to the change, but it's probably bound to happen unless I win the lottery and can quit my day job.
• I got the sense from previous posts and surveys that not too many of you are Magic card fans, but if you are, I found a trading site http://www.magictraders.com/. If you'd like to do some swapping (usually even trades), let me know!