Are Funko Pops The New Beanie Babies?

DISCLAIMER : I am looking at Funko Pops through a perspective as a possible investment as many are treating them as. If you simply like the figures and plan on buying a few to display on your desk, then that is fine. They are cool and interesting toys, but if you are looking at them as a future investment then this article is for you.

Im sure if you’ve ever gone into any toy, hobby or department store, you have seen Funko Pops. They are medium sized vinyl figures of various different characters with oversized round heads, that retail for around the $15 mark. It hasn’t been a surprise that in the last few years the company behind them, Funko, has become wildly profitable after sales of the main line of figures skyrocketed. With a large demand has come resellers and scalpers as well, with some of the figures from the Funko Pop! line going for upwards of the 1000 dollars. As a person who has 4-5 figures that I like, and has been following recent news about the figures, there seems to be problems arising with the figure line that seems eerily familiar to the beanie babies craze. I want discuss the reasons why Funko Pops craze might end up like Beanie Babies did, but first I want to discuss what is different.

How are Funko Pops and Beanie Babies Different?

The biggest difference between the two products is that Funko has been able to get the licenses for many of the biggest franchises from the past 50 years. They have Funk Pops covering everything from the Avengers to the Creature of the Black Lagoon. Name a character and they probably have a figure either available or in the making. While Beanie Babies did have a few deals where they made certain characters, the vast majority of their products were original Intellectual Properties.

In addition to having a massive network of licensing deals, Funkos tend to appeal to a larger market demographic, which is part of the reason why they have gotten this far. While Beanie Babies were mostly marketed towards children, Funko Pops target children, but mainly target the teen to adult audience. This is important because the adult audience are the ones who mostly have the money. In addition because Funko Pops are Vinyl figures people view them as cool display pieces while for many, Beanie Babies were viewed mostly as glorified stuffed animals. These differences alone could be the deciding factor that makes them last the test of time, but it is anyone’s guess.
Now onto why Funko Pops are similar to Beanie Babies and the actions they are taking which have proven to be the wrong move in the long run.

Large Print Runs

When Funko Pops were originally created, the print runs were relatively small, which created a healthy secondary market and made people want to actually buy them for collections in the hope they would be worth more one day. However their supply has been increasing rapidly every year and demand hasn’t been keeping up. There was a point where you would actually encounter sold out Funkos and the thrill of the hunt was part of the fun, but those days are gone. Here are the days of bargain bin Funkos, which have been massively overprinted way past the point of demand. Even some 2 year old Funkos are still selling for below their MSRP because vendors just cant get rid of them. Funko, like many other companies went for the short term cash grab and started print runs for greater than the demand. In the long run I think this is one of the biggest problems that will cause their prices to crash.

Too Many Figures and Too Many Variations

The amount of figures and the amount of variations of figures that Funko has been pushing out monthly is pushing away collectors who are looking to complete entire sets. Rather than pacing themselves, Funko is pumping out as much as they can per month. Currently we are seeing about 10-15 Funkos being released monthly, sometimes each having variations which give little incentive for someone to buy both. For example, one of the most notorious figures is deadpool who has had around 30 variations of the same figure, sometimes with changes as small as him giving a thumbs up. These attempts at obvious money grabs by Funko are killing the collector market for the brand as almost every figure is steadily available to the point of oversupply. Stores are eventually going to stop buying all the different variations and figures if they think they won’t sell because there is just too many of them. This is going to lead to Funko holding large amounts of extra product. Having large amounts of your product in a clearance section like you can find in Toys R Us, is not good for your brand, period. Funko Is not thinking about the long term viability of their company by pushing out the amount they are in the short term and upsetting people who were once avid collectors.

Failed Attempts At New Product Lines

In the last year or so, Funko has started to put out a large amount of new product lines that are mostly undesirable and lazy compared to the Pop! figure lines. For this reason, many stores are refusing to even carry the new lines of toys because they won’t sell. Funko can’t control their main brand and they are already looking to expand to the next big thing. The Funko consumer is strictly being given way too many selections to pick from. In the figure and toy business you want to create collectors and people who will buy and hoard multiples of your product. Why do you think Amiibos were so successful at the start, they were interesting and lacked massive print runs. Every new Amiibo that came out would sell out within a week in the states. You need to create a product that can be a collector piece in the long run and people will go out and buy it, which Funko does not wish to do.

While I do see the Funko trend and popularity continuing for at least a few more years, I do not think that it has the longevity to last past another five. The quick short term cash grabs and the disregard for collectability amongst their products is what has killed many figure crazes before. I believe that eventually like Beanie Babies , people will have collector a bunch of Funkos only to realize that they aren’t worth very much because the supply and demand are nowhere near eachother. Unlike something like sealed magic the gathering boxes which get opened at a small rate over time, Funko Vinyl figures won’t have the supply fall and become more expensive. Im not saying if you love how Funkos look, don’t buy them, because they are cool, but don’t expect to make money from them in the long term.

-Calaber24p