Jazwares to Launch Direct-to-Consumer Service The Vault

Collectibles company Jazwares will launch a new, direct-to-consumer service called The Jazwares Vault, ComicBook.com can exclusively announce. Jeremy Padawer, the Chief Brand Officer at Jazwares, told ComicBook.com that the time is now, because the company thinks it has built a strong relationship with their customers across a number of high-profile brands, and that they have a cohesive enough plan in place to keep their fans engaged. Padawer and Jazwares more broadly have been teasing something like the Jazwares Vault -- which is roughly analogous to programs like Hasbro Pulse or Matty Collector -- for a while now, and ComicBook.com had a chance to preview some of the first collectibles that will come out of the program (as seen in the video above).

Speaking with ComicBook.com, Padawer explained that the service is set up in such a way that they hope to make the three main segments of their consumer base happy. That means, whether you want to display your figures in the box, play with them out of the box, or hang onto them for later resale on the secondary market, The Vault aims to make its program affordable and robust, and to ship product out in a way that it will remain in good shape and retain value.

"The Jazwares Vault is an online destination for collectors to get exclusive, cool toys and more, with monthly drops and one-of-a-kind offerings," Padawer told ComicBook.com. "It's going to be a very immersive direct to consumer ecosystem and program that we're developing, so I think that for our fandom of the brands that we have -- that include brands like Pokemon and AEW and Halo and Star Wars and so many more, Hello Kitty -- for these brands, it is going to be a cornucopia of fun, good times, wonderful things, and we're going to delight our fans."

Jazwares will launch with a pair of AEW Ring of Honor figures, with Claudio Castagnoli and Kenny Omega heading up the Vault's wrestling offerings. Padawer says that after some growing pains, they have figured out what demand looks like for their best-selling AEW line, and that they will make the next couple of years really exciting for fans.

"Claudio is inspired by his 2008 Ring of Honor key match...but the bottom line is, he's one of the all time greats, not just in Ring of Honor, but in wrestling," Padawer told us. "He's a safe bet to start. We want to start on fire. We want to put something out there that people will definitively want, and then we'll do more nuanced things later on. I think it's important to start with characters that people go absolutely crazy over."

The Ring of Honor figures are fairly standard in terms of their packaging, articulation, and other features. Jazwares is also releasing a deluxe, limited figure based on Malakai Black.

"I think for us, especially when we're dealing with collector, it's not necessarily something that we're using as a big profit center, so we don't mind doing smaller runs," Padawer said. "We really want to serve the fandom and give them things that are exciting, that they want. Limited edition [figures], yeah, sometimes they'll get pretty limited, but we're also not out to fleece, so the pricing will remain really reasonable....We also want to give an urgency to actually go online and grab it. For the most part, they won't be so tight that they're going to be impossible to get, although sometimes we'll throw in some curveballs."

Other early releases will be a figure of Ghost in his mandible skin from Call of Duty; a Fortnite two-pack; a Micro Galaxy Squadron, light-up Star Wars AT-AT; and more. Other brands that will show up in The Vault include Pokemon, Hello Kitty, Halo, and Squishmallows.

"The thing about Jazwares, and the thing about the way we develop, [is that] we are collectors first; we are fans first," Padawer said. "While we developed this company into one of the biggest toy companies now...the people that created the company are still operating the company. Therefore, you've got that original fandom -- the reason we all got into this business. We're still here. In addition, our team is made up of longtime toy people who just love it, across the entire team."

You can see a gallery of The Vault's initial offerings below.

If you're excited for this and want to save up some money to get started, you've go a week to do so: The Vault officially launches on Wednesday, March 27th at 9 a.m. PT. That's 4 pm. in the United Kingdom, just for the record.