$30 million in Funko toys (those square headed POP! dolls) headed for landfill

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

Funko Is Dumping $30M in Unsold Dolls

Toy company Funko apparently overestimated demand for its bobbleheaded pop culture collectibles so badly that hundreds of thousands of them are doomed to end up as landfill. In a trading update Friday, the company said it plans to "eliminate" excess inventory for a writedown of at least $30 million, Fortune reports. According to Kotaku, that was the company's way of saying its "warehouses are overflowing with five inch chibi replicas of Machine Gun Kelly, Spider-Man, Pikachu, and every other vaguely famous cultural icon, and throwing them out will be cheaper than trying to sell them." The company said it has $246.4 million of inventory, up 48% from a year ago.


Sales of Funko's Pop figures soared during the pandemic but they are now stagnant: In its update, the company said sales were down 1% year-on-year for the fourth quarter of 2022, and its margins are being hurt by "storage and container rental charges associated with inventory in excess of warehouse capacity." Last week, CEO Brian Mariotti said the company had been forced to rent extra space because its Arizona distribution center had run out of room for the dolls, CNN reports. The company also said it is laying off around 10% of its workforce

https://www.newser.com/story/332369/funko-is-dumping-30m-in-unsold-dolls.html

[chowder66]

1. I really wish they would come up with something better than this.

Auction them off or send them to charity or have charity orgs come grab a bunch to distribute to families in need.

[Merlot]

3. If they give them to charity it might de-value the dolls on the market

and goddess forbid that should happen. No room for charity in a corporation, unless it's self serving public relations charity that ends up being cheaper than an ad campaign.

[chowder66]

4. +1

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

5. people collect those things... imagine if word got out....

[Effete Snob]

2. How bizarre

Usually the point of this kind of thing is to trade on artificial scarcity by producing well below demand, and making some "rare".

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

7. they are/were very popular, I guess the corp thought popularity had no bounds

[Initech]

6. I have honestly never understood the appeal of these things.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

8. I wouldn't mind have one or two, they are cute. But I would take them out of the box

[msongs]

9. destroyed merch is a tax write off, donating/giving it away? maybe not nt

[The Third Doctor]

10. I never really was interested in these. I've collected several things

Over the years and these just didn't interest me.

[Takket]

11. i have a couple......

but they completely saturated the market. they put one of these together for any famous person/character. people bought the ones they wanted and the rest are just excess. happens to most any collectable like this. they strike while the iron is hot and make as much money as they can. in a few years the CEO will just file for bankruptcy, close the doors, and walk away with all the profits.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

13. they make sooo many... collector with 3000 on the video...showed 3 versions of popping fresh

multiple versions of the same character.

[ARPad95]

12. I have 3 sets of Funko Pops: U2 ZooTV tour, Outlander and Wizard of Oz.

They're out of their boxes and set on floating shelves in corresponding themed bedrooms.

I just ordered Baby and Johnny from Dirty Dancing. that movie.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

14. Wizard of Oz ones sounds cute. I've walked past Pops in the store but choice overwhelms me

[ARPad95]

15. I have the Funko Vynl set with 2 characters (plus Toto) per box. Here's a photo of the box with Tin

Man and Cowardly Lion:

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

16. cute!!