Will Funko Pops retain their value? When will it go under?
I want to preface this article by saying that I’m not trying to give any sort of financial advice. In fact, I’m not even going sit here and say I’m qualified to give anyone advice on any topic whatsoever. With this being said, I acknowledge that everything stated here is my opinion and there’s no reason to believe that I’ll be correct. If we could all predict the future on how things will go for each company, we’d all be millionaires in the stock market, which I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we’re not.
Funko Pops have been around since 2010 when they were first introduced at SDCC. Then, shortly after in 2011, the first Pops came out and the rest is history. If I had to put my finger on it, the Pop craze REALLY took off around late 2015 to early 2016. I think the height of Pop collecting was extremely active during this time period. I have no empirical or hard quantitative evidence of this, but these years were my formative years in the Funko fandom as it was for everyone else.
I also know that around this time, we started to see dedicated stores pop up. First one being ChronoToys (then under different names), Big Apple Collectibles (now defunct), etc. For the first time in forever, we see that there’s enough mainstay in pop culture that Pops now have dedicated storefronts only selling them and nothing else. Used to be that buying Pops meant going into “emo heaven” aka Hot Topic or some random mom n’ pop toy store or drugstore.
Now, we see that the huge interest and increase in popularity can justify an entire business model solely revolving around selling Pops. Unfortunately, as the years passed, many of these businesses went bust. They’re no longer around and now really the only businesses that sell Pops as a whole are Chalice, ChronoToys, and a smattering few others like my own. So what happened? Is there an exact moment in time we can pinpoint when Pops fell out of favor? And is there a chance all of this can go belly up and float under the sea of pop culture irrelevancy?
Funko Pops Aren’t the New Beanie Babies
Funko’s been around since 1998, but it’s first real hit as a company were the Pops. I don’t like the comparison of Funko Pops to Beanie Babies. I think they’re inherently different for several reasons. First of all, Beanie Babies were definitely a hyped fad, but they crashed and burned in record time precisely because they were effectively just nothing. There was no real sentimental value there.
Outside of collectible economics at play, the fact of the matter is that Pops have a longer mainstay because there’s more practical applications/usage you can get out of them. They’re cool to display on a shelf, decorate your office space, etc. Additionally, Pops also have the benefits of being licensed characters.
If there’s anything we know about hardcore fans of movies, TV shows, anime, and comic books, is that they’ll buy licensed merchandise in droves. Pops have more reach, more appeal, and fans of Pops that are also fans of specific licensed media will sustain the value for a longer time than, lets say, a simple green bear that has no real connection to people outside of the speculated value it’s worth.
Now, I’m not proclaiming that Pops can’t face the same death Beanie Babies did, virtually ALL collectibles can face that. What I’m simply saying is that Pops rose quickly in popularity for a reason and, as it stands, it’s currently doing okay despite a drop in interest compared to Beanie Babies which are literally relegated in the history books as the textbook example of FOMO.
Why Funko Pops Aren’t Popular Anymore
“Is there a chance Pops can go under?”
I think there’s no real consensus and I’m not one to doom and gloom over companies. I’m well aware of the fact that people are innately drawn to negatively. Everyone enjoys watching a titan fall. Everyone likes watching celebrities make fools of themselves. Everyone likes reading about the latest politician doing something colossally stupid. Everyone likes to read stories of companies failing. It’s nothing new.
So, with that being said, I’m not trying to add more fuel to the fire and start trash talking Funko unnecessarily. Instead, I wanted to take an honest inspection on Funko as a whole. Its community of passionate collectors, both its failures AND its successes, and of course, what kind of future lays ahead for Pops.
Every fan religiously checks poppriceguide.com to help them understand the value of their collection. While I can’t list every single pop available for a cost growth/decrease analysis, but overall, most of the older Pops (pre-2016) have largely retained their value. Occasionally, Funko will release Pops that are limited and those will reach a high value fast depending on whether or not they’re highly sought after.
But for more modern Pops, there’s been a steady decline in value. More and more, Pops tend to fill the bargain shelf or just sit in inventory without moving. Many Pops across the board from 2017 onward have risen in value, but nothing really goes over $100+ anymore like it used to.
Funko Fans No Longer Care
Funko Pops used to have dedicated fans in droves. Now, it’s more like fans of the licensed IP will buy the Pops, and even then there’s less and less incentive to. Fans are sick of FOMO and having to keep up with Funko’s relentless production schedule. Funko would release waves upon waves of Pops at an increasingly aggressive rate and more often than not, they’d be waves like the notorious Infinity Warps line or chrome Pops which were objectively negatively received.
There would be something cool and special released, like the Chrome Batman from SDCC, just to have it run into the ground to make it essentially worthless and less special. Funko prides itself on being for the collector, but I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of their audience. Their brand is built upon the craze that people have for their products, but when you soulessly mass produce a bunch of lines no one is interested in, you kind of send the message to fans that your product isn’t “cool” anymore and is just a vessel to get people to spend way more than they should. The irony is that fans are the first group of people to spend absurd amounts to finish a line and sustain your company the most, and making the collecting aspect less special hurts the long term value of many of the pops.
It also goes without saying that exclusives aren’t really “exclusive” anymore. When I talked about long term values of Pops above, I was referring just to the “commons”, i.e. Pops sold wholesale directly from Funko. I wasn’t even going over the abysmal state of exclusive values. “Hot Topic Exclusive” has become a meme these days because, at this point, “Hot Topic Exclusive” is just another term for “common with a sticker”.
I mentioned above that Beanie Babies are a textbook example of FOMO, but Funko is just as guilty of this just in different ways. The entire brand of Beanie Babies was built off FOMO which led to its inevitable demise. However, Funko approaches FOMO differently. Funko will often release Pops that everyone wants or considers cool as a either a convention exclusive, a limited release on their website, or as an NFT where people have to play Gacha games with cryptocurrency for the privilege of allowing RNG decide whether they get a grail or not.
FOMO is powerful, but it only carries you so far. These days, Funko Shop exclusives don’t sell out unless they’re limited or just a highly sought after character, and don’t get me started on the NFT line. The last time I think every pack sold out without remainders being burned was the April Fools line. Fans are getting tired of the FOMO centric aspect of Pops that have largely dominated its value proposition, and now the Pop market value is reflecting that.
I don’t want to make it seem like I’m gatekeeping and that Funko should only be for “the serious collector” or whatever that’s supposed to mean, but these issues with fans losing interest is having a tangible effect. It’s rippling across the community and many active Funko Pop groups and discords that once powered this fandom have slowly died out into obscurity.
Will Pop Value Continue to Decrease?
The honest answer is:
“Who knows?”
Your guess is as good as mine. But if I had to give an answer, I’d lean towards probably for the next few years. But honestly, if you’re collecting and you want that piece you’ve been looking forward to badly, there’s no better time to make that buy now while its low. There’s no sense in waiting for the price to skyrocket back up. If you’re a collector who loves to collect for the sake of it, this era of value decline should be a hot time for you.
Remember, Funko Pops aren’t the stock market. We don’t have tickers to live track every single price movement. It’s best not to speculate and treat it as such. As fans of the product, if you like it, buy it, it’s that simple.
Funko has already made the bold move to decrease it’s SKU count and reinvigorate its focus into being flexible with smaller amounts of product offerings. This should come as a relief and great news. Perhaps all of the flagrant issues will finally get fixed now that there is actual attention to detail on the issues I outlined above.
Everyone likes to watch a titan fall, but above that? Everyone loves a great comeback story, and I think whether you’re a newcomer in the Pop game or a veteran, it’s an exciting time to see the future of the business.