Really why all the waste of paper and plastic? I opened up my new ISD and my new MC 80 2 MC30s 2 Imperial Raiders and 2 Rogues and Villains packs and the packaging filled a 13gal trash bag even after I stomped on it all as flat as I could..
I bet they could drop the cost my 30% if they would just cut way back on the over packaging of the product. just from shipping space used, Its all such a waste paper and plastic.
all of it is now in a padded box smaller then the box the MC80 came in.
Why the over packing even 
Home One:
1 x Outer Box
1 x Plastic Display box with Lid and inset, to hold the piece as a display.
1 x Cardboard outray to lend outer box structural support and keep components together.
2 x Cardboard Sprues left over from Punching.
3 x plastic baggies
of those, only the Plastic Display box is bulky, and that's both to keep the piece from being damaged (packing any other way would leave a Victory SD completely Antennae-less) and to be a display piece... If you did change that, the Box would be half the size. But you also wouldn't see the piece at real size before trying to buy, which will be a concern to some people.
Conclusion for me: Not Over-packed.
Shelf presence
I highly doubt they'll save 30%. I don't think these types of products are as affected by mass as usual shipping...plus the savings on replacements from damaged components and, as Toqtamish stated: visibility on shelves for us nerds who aren't painfully aware of the product.
Also, they probably buy the die-cut cardboard and outer plastic in bulk. They use the same box sizes for X-Wing, so all they have to do is change the printed art and the molding of the interior plastic to hold the model.
Home One:
1 x Outer Box
1 x Plastic Display box with Lid and inset, to hold the piece as a display.
1 x Cardboard outray to lend outer box structural support and keep components together.
2 x Cardboard Sprues left over from Punching.
3 x plastic baggies
of those, only the Plastic Display box is bulky, and that's both to keep the piece from being damaged (packing any other way would leave a Victory SD completely Antennae-less) and to be a display piece... If you did change that, the Box would be half the size. But you also wouldn't see the piece at real size before trying to buy, which will be a concern to some people.
Conclusion for me: Not Over-packed.
The plastic can't change significantly in size- The VSD and ISD take up most of their containers. FFG could cut down on cardboard, but that would mean making non-rectangular boxes, which would affect shipping and display.
I concurHome One:
1 x Outer Box
1 x Plastic Display box with Lid and inset, to hold the piece as a display.
1 x Cardboard outray to lend outer box structural support and keep components together.
2 x Cardboard Sprues left over from Punching.
3 x plastic baggies
of those, only the Plastic Display box is bulky, and that's both to keep the piece from being damaged (packing any other way would leave a Victory SD completely Antennae-less) and to be a display piece... If you did change that, the Box would be half the size. But you also wouldn't see the piece at real size before trying to buy, which will be a concern to some people.
Conclusion for me: Not Over-packed.
Thirded.
They could cut down. If the bits were placed differently or printed differently everything could fit behind the plastic display like they do with the smaller models.
I highly doubt they'll save 30%. I don't think these types of products are as affected by mass as usual shipping...plus the savings on replacements from damaged components and, as Toqtamish stated: visibility on shelves for us nerds who aren't painfully aware of the product.
Agreed. Let's assume reducing the volume by 50% (reasonable, just cut out all the display shenanigans) also reduces the cost of shipping 50%. To gain a net 30% savings, shipping would need to be 60% of the price of the model. That doesn't dance well with the rule of thumb that you get a 50% markup for every layer of the supply chain (i.e. FFG probably charges the game store $10 on a set the store sells for $20).
FFG wouldn't create a product that wasn't optimized for shipping unless it meant that they estimated the increase in sales would offset the increase in shipping costs. And boy are those ships pretty.
When there's nothing else to complain about...
...you know that the troops are happy when they only complain about the DFAC chow and slow mail!...
They should think about the environment and only use recycled materials for the packaging, and as little packaging as possible! What, this will make all armada ships a dollar more expensive? Forget it!
I have a large bag for all the little gaming baggies that come in shipping like this to use for sorting all my other games. The cardboards make great backing for packs of cards so they don't get bent in storage. I like to use the plastic trays as garbage keepers when working on small projects around the house so I don't have to carry around a full trash bag. Great for sorting out ships and supplies for dining room games, too. The only thing that end up tossed is the bubble shaped plastic, and even some of those I have reused to store the ships after cutting down the outer flat plastic part. I appreciate the fact that the pieces come out undamaged from all the careful packaging. I initially thought there was an excessive amount with xwing, but have found a way to use most of what comes in the box now.
I highly doubt they'll save 30%. I don't think these types of products are as affected by mass as usual shipping...plus the savings on replacements from damaged components and, as Toqtamish stated: visibility on shelves for us nerds who aren't painfully aware of the product.
Yeah, some savings, sure, but 30% seems awfully high.
My models go around the globe to reach me. I have had 2 miscast issues and that has been all. No broken models or anything.
Update: Talked to a friend of mine who owns a factory in China (I have strange friends). He said at the size of the MC80/ISD, shipping would be $2/unit max, probably less since FFG can do things at a huge scale.
It's marketing. A larger, more intricate package has a higher perceived value.
Update: Talked to a friend of mine who owns a factory in China (I have strange friends). He said at the size of the MC80/ISD, shipping would be $2/unit max, probably less since FFG can do things at a huge scale.
Perhaps less than that even. It costs a company I am familiar with less than a dollar to ship a packaged leather jacket from Ghangzhou to the USA.
They could cut down. If the bits were placed differently or printed differently everything could fit behind the plastic display like they do with the smaller models.
Update: Talked to a friend of mine who owns a factory in China (I have strange friends). He said at the size of the MC80/ISD, shipping would be $2/unit max, probably less since FFG can do things at a huge scale.
Perhaps less than that even. It costs a company I am familiar with less than a dollar to ship a packaged leather jacket from Ghangzhou to the USA.
Yep, scale plays into it a lot. For the smaller shippers, it's a flat rate for whatever you can fit into 20 feet of cargo container (which is where the $2/unit came from).
Hell, even as a Private Citizen, I was able to book space on a shipping container for my move from Australia to Canada... It was something like $350 for a Cubic Meter of Space... When you consider that its a total volume, and not a literal volume, you can jam a LOT of HEAVY stuff into that area for the very cheap price overall... I mean, I moved Beds and metal frames and two geeky houses worth of RPG books, which would have been well over the $2000 shipping surface mail.