[georc]

I haven't gotten any e-mails, but I've seen a few pop-ups advertising clones: "Sold out in stores." Their Idea of a good deal was $29.99 + $4.95 S&H. These looked like the same clones that the local grocery and drug stores have been advertising for $9.99. Of course, as the pop-up says, they're always sold out. Unfortunately, most people don't know that quality products (Bits or MSs) are available from their local hobby shop, or a reputable online seller, for same price, if not less.

Having clones around are fine. I kick myself for not picking one up when the grocery store had a table of them for $10, a couple of months ago. The fact is that people in the know are always going to be looking to get the original products. This will keep the inovative companies profitable. At the same time, competiton in the toy business continually pushes manufacturers to produce something better than last year. The inovative companies just need to hope that they can keep their "recipes" under wraps until each current years Christmas season is over. Next year they'll sell the next big (in this case - little) thing.