The industry chain process is:

The development and use rights of the derivative product of an IP element or image authorized by the IP party to the authorized distributor. After authorizing the manufacturer to design the product, it will be outsourced to the manufacturer for processing and production, and finally sold to the consumer through its own or cooperative online and offline channels.

The main players in the industry mainly have 5 types, upstream IP parties (literature, animation, games, film and television dramas), IP authorized operation management parties; authorized producers in the middle reaches, including different categories, such as light peripherals, hand-held, 3C , clothing, toys, etc.; producers are divided into OEM and self-production and sales; and then to downstream platforms, channels, mainly divided into online channels and offline channels.

 

Hand-held industry

The term "Garage Kits; GK" comes from Japan, especially the unpainted model kit (ie semi-finished products), which requires the player to polish, assemble, color and so on. However, its meaning was later misunderstood and expanded, including the finished product of resin-shaped human form.

 

Why is it so expensive?

 

Time, production and sales costs are high.

One garage kit usually takes half a year to design before going public. A mature hand-operated prototype can only complete 2-3 complete IPs a year, and the design cost usually costs 20,000-30,000RMB. When it comes to production, the investment is also high in the process of opening the mold. Pvc is a steel mold, the mold opening fee is very expensive, the hand is composed of 5-20 parts, each part needs to be opened separately, the cost is about 3-5 million, and the mold needs to be modified repeatedly.

Since the market is still really small, the output is at most tens of thousands. Compared with the billion-level mass production of low-school toys that we see everyday, the cost gap is still very large. In the process of mass production, due to certain requirements for quality, the scrap rate is also high, the product is not a product of standardization, and some details of grinding and coloring need to be done manually, all of which lead to an increase in time and production costs.

From the time of product delivery to the completion of sales, it also involves transportation, warehousing, taxes, courier fees, marketing activities and other costs. Therefore, the overall cost is not low. It can be estimated that the fixed rate of the garage industry is between 1.5 and 3.

 

Can 3D printing technology

Solving production cost problems

Nowadays, 3D printing technology is becoming more and more mature, and many friends will ask whether 3D printing can solve the production cost problem. After research, it is found that 3D printing technology has indeed been used in the garage kit modeling and production process, as well as some small garage kit manufacturing that does not require a high degree of fineness. However, it still cannot effectively solve the cost problem of the garage kit industry.

 

The main reasons are as follows:

1. Printing accuracy problem

At present, the highest precision of industrial grade 3D printers is 0.01 micron. However, since the printing technology is superimposed layer by layer, the biggest problem is that there will be obvious large layers when stacking, especially on the surface of the curve, it will be obvious. After printing, it needs to be polished by hand. If it is a simple surface, it can be done easily, but complicated details or recessed details are very difficult.

2. Printing material problems

At present, 3D printing can only be printed using one material, and different parts are used, and different materials are used, which cannot be directly printed as a whole, and the parts are printed, and the above-mentioned precision problems occur, and difficulties arise in assembly. Need to continue to polish by hand.

Therefore, the current 3D printing technology is mainly used in the template proofing stage, and there is still a certain distance from mass production, but with the development of technology, mass production is not impossible.