The Rise And Fall Of Funko Explained 

I worked in a collectable store for 18 years and I've seen collections come and go. Most often lines were done in by two things, too many introductions and collector fatigue. Companies put out too many pieces and collectors run out of room/money and start cherry picking from the new stuff. When this starts happening, companies are often too slow to react and cut back production and end up with large amounts of stock no one wants.

Dumping the $300m in merch is shortsighted. The donation to children's charities would not only solve the problem of storage but they could've gotten 2 bonuses: donation tax write offs and positive publicity.

They should donate it to a charity or kid’s hospital instead of dumping in a landfill what a waste

I've never seen a company over-saturate _their own market_ more than Funko did. If you were a collector and you wanted one of every Funko Pop, you'd have thousands of these bloody things!

They could've done "everything must go" sale instead of dumping it

When you’re making a 100,000 figures of a character that appeared once in a failed Netflix show, you’re not going to do so well.

Collect what you like for the pleasure it gives you.

Ok, this is news to me but I can understand their fall. There are way tooooooo many funky-pops! People cannot put that much stuff in their homes

I used to collect funko pops then I stopped when I saw Variant after Variant come out and saw that they were just flooding the market with as many as they could. I started comparing it to the whole beanie baby fiasco. They just kept pumping them out over and over till they lost their value and their fan base. Funko followed the same suit and look people are selling them off in droves. I am glad I did whe I did I made money off of my purchases.

You nailed it with the Pokémon ones... there are more than 10 charmander with the same mold but different color

I went from 220 pops to 70 pops. I found better things to do with my mornings that wait outside Hot Topic or FYE at 9am in the morning and I don’t miss it.

Did not know they even fell

They're biggest issue is each pop has 10 versions. Why keep buying the same pop with a different color?

Honestly Target killed Funko. They did way too many target exclusives and they were a pain in the ass

Sh!t! I have lost so much money on Funko Pops! Most I have are worthless. Can't believe they dumped all those useless ones in a landfill! That plastic will last forever!

Its not dead. They are still quite collectible and a lot of them sell for more than people originally paid. They have over produced several lines in the last few years. Re-releasing vaulted and retired items with a different stand wasn't cool either.

You know you failed to mention the layoffs that the company has had recently the way they've treated their employees and the firing of most of the art department as well as great artists that they had that have been there for more years than I've been a fan.

Imagine being an adult and collecting these As soon as I saw an Al Bundy Married with Children funko at Walmart i said RIP

Sold my collection once they started ramping up exclusives, especially online exclusives too the point they werent releasing normal waves anymore. The hidden cost not mentioned here is shipping.. buying most of these figures also requires 15-20$ of shipping making the value unpalatable for most people. Most "price guide" websites based their prices on sold ebay listings which starting causing market manipulation through fake sales and shill bidding which broke the trust in value for a lot of pops.

Working at Toys R Us i was hovering over every Funko box that came off the truck. Can't bullshit got me a good little collection from Titanfall to The Mummy Remake.

This is just like any other fad in history. It's great for a while, and then it fades away.

Fantastic Video well explained on full Funko history

They could have easily sold them in theme based mystery boxes and would have sold a ton of them

I think people thought the market grew because of the pandemic and reality, because people had extra money, not going anywhere, and now everyone is suffering, the overproduction. Also, Funko shop we can’t get them at retail.

Casual buyer here. I'd still try to buy any that I can find.

sold my collection a few weeks ago, just kept my batman and bttf ones :). YouTooz seem to be doing well, slow and steady and no repeats!.

Don't get me wrong, I collect stuff too; but what do these do? Are they just a collectable figurine, do they have some online component, or are they a bobblehead sort of deal? I was a little kid during the beanie baby craze, but you could hug them like any other stuffed animal, so I understood that.

Excelente video, Felicitaciones por la información, la edición y la secuencia con que lo presentas.

I turned my Funko Pop into a Fleshlight.

Funko never fell down , still the best selling collectable in the world. Every company has ups and drops in sales wich is normal

I have over 500 funko pops and have collected since 2015. I recently havnt liked how funko are going as their loyalty to fans is no more and quality of figures has gone down since stranger things line

I own 1 funko pop of godzilla. He's banished to the darkest corner of my basement.

I’ve been collecting Funko POPs since 2016 so I would’ve gave a limb to grab at least a fraction of those discarded Funko goods. Granted I got more POPs than I can count but I could really use some from Demon Slayer, Naruto, and Marvel.

After 45 Yrs Of Collecting Toy's, Video Games, Comics, i Don't Own a Single Pop 😂, Only Thing Funko I've Got is The Re-release Of Jingle All The Way Tiger Turboman 😅😊

I owned an official Funko retailer starting in 2011, one of their first years. Their early business model was very different. Originally they sold main characters in under served niches like cereal mascots and vintage TV shows that haven't had merch in ages. Then when they blew up they overproduced and made obscure characters for even more obscure shows, and too many close varients of the same toys. This then made toys either less rare feeling, or stores were stocked with characters no one wanted. Who really wants 10 varients of Admeral Holdo? Add that with the "fad" word being tacked on and the people who bought them like beenie babies, just trying to cash in on a fad pushed them over into "not cool". Now I couldn't sell a Funko to save my life. It's a shame as they had it made, but bungled it.

Where's the landfill at?

I told people over a year ago that Funkos would become the new Beanie babies. Especially after they start letting people order them in their images.

Apparently, they had to dump the stock for tax reasons. Selling it would have cost them millions more than dumping them.

I think I have enough Funko Pops of all my favorite characters that exist.

I hate those things so much. Every convention I ever go to now is just full of walls and walls of these things that nobody wants to buy.

June 2024 we still here brother 🙏🏽

Anddd... 1 year later, they're still here. They've become a bit smarter on the IPs they wish to produce. As a longtime Funko collector, I've moved on to Pop Mart for my plastic fix - but I still buy a Funko or two especially if they really have a well made product in their hands.

I own Jay and Silent Bob, Batman Beyond, Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar (Wayne's World), Super Sonic and Sonic the Hedgehog..also an action figure of Darkwing Duck and Hermes and Rudolph of the Vinyl Funko pop line.

I love what you do

Kinda like beanie babies

I was always buying harry potter pops on release day but they just got repetitive, with just doing the same characters with different styles while there's still a lot more characters they could release so that's why I chill out on buying pops until pokemon pops came along gotta catch em all

I think they are neat, but I mean let's be honest all you do is pick your favorite characters then create a stack of them in your room and eventually you just have one wall in your room that is literally a wall of displayed Funko Pops. Are they cool to look at, sure, but all you can do is display them.

I never got why they became so big and also why every celeb i’ve met always charges extra to autograph a funko over a regular autograph except for voice actor Greg Aries who refuses to autograph them for some reason. I only own 1 BUT i only have it because it was Deadpool with a PS controller and was at Goodwill for $2.50(1/2 off color of week) which i had intended to get Nolan North to autograph the following month but i forgot since i went to go pick up my god child out of town because she wanted to meet him too

Stick to autographed funko pops. Anything with a legit autograph makes it unique and never goes out of style

supply and demand.

Pones and Discord are all behind this.

We just want the super rare, limited pieces, grails, and oldies

i see people wondering why they don't donate this stuff. They don't because that would hurt their later chances of sales through market saturation. Destroying the stock would be cheaper because it's easier and less complicated and wouldn't hurt the bottom line. But ultimately it's still a giant loss and reeks of short sightedness and desperation. But many luxury brands do this. Louis Vuiton would rather shred a 2000 dollar bag than sell it off cheaply or donate it. It keeps the price inflated.

Oh, and news flash for the people hoping they go up in value in the future..... That's not how markets work. The world has been flooded with so many Funko toys, that its more likely you gonna end up having to pay to get rid of your 200+ funko collection.... paying a garbage collector that is. (rarity is in fact a requirement for things to gain value)

Funko rules! Will never stop G!

I am glad i am a casual buyer and not a sick deticated person who wants to buy them all! And as i know their most earnings comes from us the casual ones as well! I have 40 pops and really special ones.Nit every bit of a random character they trying so hard to release.For instance OH here's this freaking droid that had a 1 second screening time in this star wars movie in the background for 2000 euros because its gitd etc! Another thing they are doing is that they don't sell for instance specific products to europe ,i want i freaking freddy funko but they don't released some in greece.I know i can have from funko europe but why not to be able to buy one as a normal consumer from my place?

RIP TO E3

Perfect representation of the "consoomer" mindset.

i honestly don't care. i still love my pops and will continue to buy any spider man related pop releases.

Where is this landfill

I didn’t know they fell off. I still buy new Stranger Things ones.

Funko Pop obviously went the way of the 70s lunch boxes. It's value will rise from the next 30 years.

They expanded to too many different lines.

The single biggest problem and solution is oversaturation. Not in the way described though. It's not how many franchises that's the problem it's having 15 different versions of the same character. Cut down on making so many of any single character and people would be interested again.

9:43 Should have sold them 80% off for us in the developing country

10:20 “…while net income decreased by a staggering 368%.” And here I thought something could only decrease by 100%… Amazing analysis here, folks 🙄

I only collect the simpsons ones a friend bought me a stitch one

Transformers & Monsterverse funko pop pls

Oh, the wide face toys ...

The beanie baby’s of the 2020’s 😂

I got a snake eyes from GI Joe and I got David from the Lost boyz My girl got me them years ago.

Way too many funkos of unpopular franchises & bit characters that no one wants. Disney's mostly miss line up being majorly over merchandised.

Never bought one. Never will

Just think beanie babies it’s basically the same thing

What? Never heard of it

This video makes a mountains out of molehills. Sloppy and sensationalized. Looper using Funko for clicks. The company's fine.

Fall?? They are still Huge as Hell

Sucks to see this as I love collecting Funko products

I always just assumed the purpose was to put them in the garbage can

Fall?

Funko are the next beanie bears lol

Funko is still doing well just not like it did but that’s because they’re tied to the movies they license. The landfill thing seemed fake. All I saw was there boardgame that didn’t take off and MGK pops that no children’s hospital would want. Donating them wouldve just been a waste. They’re not really aimed at kids. They probably didn’t toss items like Marvel and DC that kids might want.

They just can't donate it. They have to get approval from the share holders. The problem with Funko they got to greedy and wanted to be number 1 in the toy business. They even admitted it . To much mass production and making items such as Golds and Pins no one wants. Yes they did dump items in a land fill but they are not the only company that does that. Funko is in a bad spot right now but will get back up. If you have listen to the last earning call Funko is going back to its old roots. Slimmer cutting back on mass production and more limited pieces. Also yes they are firing employees but who isn't. Facebook, Twitter, The Washington Post and other companies have fired many employees by the thousands in the last 2 years.

Rather throwing it just give it away

I only collected the disney ones, and they're beginning to look hideous. Only pops i want are the Rugrats ones. Im tossing the disney ones 😂😂😂😂

They just made too many, i dont need 5 versions of one character, funko wrre best when they were actually rare and had value

Never understood this crap🤦🏻‍♂️

I still will never understand why someone would want to own a misrepresentation of a thing they love. Dorbs were kinda cute and the Rick and Morty toys were excellent. If they had just made more real toys they might've got fans outside of neckbeards. Would love to have any of the Conan variants though just cuz Coco is a legend.

También los funkos custom han crecido mucho. En lo personal no me gustan. Pero es impresionante el fenómeno

An item only worth what some other idiot is willing to pay for it.

Donate them to a children’s hospital, or to disadvantaged youth!

Fake pops in the thumbnail 😂😂😂 wtf 🤦‍♂️

When did they fall? Lol so a bunch of unwanted funkos weren't selling. Some funkos sell others don't. That what happens when they go gungho sometimes on franchises that flop like Black Adam etc.

Funko is doing good 😆 😅

It depends on what you collect. There’s versions of stuff that has a bigger collection desire such as McDonald’s for example. There will forever be people who will want McDonald brand things and will pay hefty prices for it

They got greedy & started making one for anything & everything possible. Literally everything. They are now Beanie Babies 2.0. “Investments” what a joke.

Oversaturrated is whynit died out . I lol at all the people who spent thousands to now have a huge NEG

Storage space is an issue with this crap. And also the variants. Ask starwars

It’s just copy of Japanese twist egg toys. Same design, same style, just bigger, more expensive, and without the egg

FUNKO PoP! vinyl figures. FUNKO Wacky Wobblers. 😊