Back in August 2019
Hasbro announced a company wide initiative to
remove plastic from all of their toy packaging by the end of
2022. For many of their products this likely won't be that difficult to do, however when it comes to the world of collectible action figures like say
Marvel Legends, that isn't as easy as it sounds.
You see many, at least those who still do their primary figure buying at physical stores, as opposed to online want to be able to see the figures they buy before handing their cash over. This is for a number of reasons. One is so they can pick the figure with the best paint applications, since all figures aren't created equally when they ship from the overseas factories.
Another reason people want to see the figure they are buying is to make sure it's the actual one listed on the packaging. You see an all to common problem that has developed in the hobby is the act of figure swapping. This is when someone decides to switch out an old figure with the new one and then put it back on the pegs. Usually these people will buy the figure, go home switch out the new figure with an old one and then take it back as a return. The stores who have know idea what the actual figure in the box should be take it, and then eventually put it back on their shelves to be resold. If one can't see the figure inside the packaging, then they have no way of knowing if a figure swapper has gotten to before they have.
Recently
Hasbro has been selling
army builder Marvel Legends figures which are sold
exclusively online. These figures come in a unique closed box that features nice artwork on the outside. This packaging is totally comprised of cardboard, and has no plastic on it. The boxes are smaller than regular Marvel Legends packaging and the figures cost about $5 cheaper. So is this something Hasbro could switch the entire line over to?
Dan Yun from the
Hasbro Marvel brand team poses a question not to long ago on social media asking what people thought about the closed box troop builder packages...
Was this just a random question Dan posed because he was bored, or was he trying to do some research, getting customer feeback about the new packaging? Most of the responses he got seemed to totally ignore the packaging aspect of his question, as people instead honed in on the troop builder aspect of it. Still this got me wondering, could they be considering this style of packaging for the entire
Marvel Legends line? Is it at all practical for a mass retail produced action figure line?
For myself, I have no problem if they went to a closed box style for their action figures. I think modifications would need to be made to make it more difficult to take the figure out of the box and put a different one back in, but otherwise I would be fine with it. Of course I do most of my figure shopping online these days, and I open all my figures, so packaging to me is just something that goes into the garbage.
Since Dan didn't seem to get many responses about the actual packaging, I thought I would pose the question here for you all. Do you like the closed box packaging, and would it be practical for a line like Marvel Legends at mass retail? If not, then how do you think they can live up to the company mandate of no plastic in their packages by 2022? Let us know your thoughts on this in the
COMMENT SECTION below.