If you’ve not encountered factory extras before, naturally you would have many questions. This guide is intended to help you understand where factory extra anime merch comes from and what their quality is like.

Judge for yourself whether factory extras meet your requirements. ?

So, let’s start with the most common concern…!

Are Factory Extras Bootlegs?

No. These items are produced by the official merch factories – NOT bootlegs.

Rubber straps and acrylic goods are not expensive to produce. It is far cheaper and easier for the official manufacturer to produce extra stock during a production run than for a bootlegger to replicate hundreds and thousands of designs.

This is why factory extras are occasionally available before the official goods arrive in store. They were all manufactured at the same time.

This is also why less popular characters are available as factory extras. Do you think wholesalers would stock a hundred unit of characters that don’t sell well if they have the choice? If these are bootlegs, there’d be an endless stream of the most popular designs! Yet the good stuffs always run out!

Types of Factory Extra Merch

When it comes to anime rubber straps, there are 3 main types of factory extras:

  • Type 1 – Small batch of samples manufactured prior to the real production run
  • Type 2 – Leftover stock from the real production run
  • Type 3 – “Unfinished” excess stock or rejects
Type 1 & 2

They are identical to what you would find in store, except not boxed.

Occasionally there are top tier factory extras like these two below.

They have the sturdier or decorative official attachments, logo printed on the pack, and are packaged in heat sealed bags. Everything is the same as what you will find in the shops, except not boxed.

Type 3

Within the type 3 category, there is a range of quality:

  • Best – the rubber strap has all print details (maybe even the logo), but has a generic black strap or metal ball chain rather than the official coloured strap or metal keyring
  • Good – the rubber strap is missing print details (e.g. cheek blush, pattern on shirt), but otherwise perfectly fine
  • Poor – the rubber strap was damaged during production or storage (e.g. colour bleed due to the rubber not being stamped correctly, stained in storage, surface is missing a chunk)

The Persona 5 es series nino rubber strap set below contain a mix of Type 2 & 3 factory extras. They all have cheek blush printed on, but a few don’t have logo on the back. The majority come with the official coloured or decorative strap, while two have the generic black strap or metal ball chain.

These GSC rubber straps below are all Type 3 factory extras. Chuuya and Dazai with logo are considered Best, whereas Yagen without logo is Good.

These two Love Live Sunshine rubber straps are Type 3 factory extras.

love live sunshine rubber ichiban kuji yoshiko diastrap charm

When supplied by different factory extra wholesalers, the same Sugar Pochette Giyu came with different attachment – one with chain, one with generic black strap.

demon slayer kimetsu no yaiba giyu tomioka sugar pochette ichiban kuji rubber charm strap

These BNHA rubber straps below are all Type 3 factory extras. Kirishima has the flag attachment and logo, whereas the other four don’t.

The Jump Festa 2018 Bakugou nitotan was a factory reject because the back surface was scratched during production. Nevertheless, the front surface is perfectly fine thus this would be considered a Good quality factory extra strap.

These 4 acrylic charms are all factory extras. The Bang Dream ones came with official metal keyrings, whereas the Bungo Stray Dogs ones came with plain chains.

bang dream bungo stray dogs chuuya acrylic charm keyring

The left Todoroki is official boxed goods. It came with the box, sealed bag, good quality black strap, and logo. The right Todoroki is a factory extra. Even though it has no logo and only a generic strap, the rubber character is identical to the official version.

my hero academia bnha mha todoroki shouto ichiban kuji desk rubber strap charm
boku no hero academia my hero academia bnha mha deku midoriya izuku todoroki shouto bakugou katsuki ichiban kuji rubber charm strap study desk

So, what quality can you expect from HachiSales?

I’ll be honest. The perfectly-packaged-basically-official Type 1 & 2 factory extra goods are pretty rare. We do get them, but you can’t EXPECT them.

At HachiSales, we aim for Type 3: Best/Good quality.

  • The rubber part is the same as official goods
  • The logo may or may not be printed
  • If there are extra details in the design, they may or may not be printed
  • The strap will likely be a generic black one
  • The keyring will likely be a metal ball chain

They key is we want perfectly formed rubber straps. If they have logo etc printed on also, even better!

Scroll back up to my sample photos again (which were all goods from our past Group Orders btw).

Are they of acceptable quality to you?

Print Details

If I’m aware of any missing print detail, I’ll mention it on the product’s page under “Things to Note”. You can then decide how much does that affect the design.

For example, es series nino factory extras are often missing the cheek blush. However, this blush is relatively light irl and doesn’t affect the rest of the strap’s design.

Whereas if a tattooed character is missing their print on tattoo, you might think that affects the design too much.

For example, these Idolish7 rubber straps are Type 3 factory extras. Tenn has all the print details – cheek blush, hair shine, pattern on his trousers, and logo on the back. Riku doesn’t.

More Examples… From You!

To see more of different factory extra goods, please visit the Customer Gallery for photos shared by Group Order participants and merch buyers.

Interested?

If the option of factory extras suits your needs, you’re welcome to join our next Group Order or check out what’s in-stock today.

If you’re a purist collector who prefers to have the box, the logo, the correct strap attachment etc, then… continue with what you’re doing!

Happy collecting! ❤

PS.

If after reading all the above, you still want to message me just to say “so you are a con selling cheap fakes huh”, please don’t bother.

We have heard it all before. Multiple times. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯