Beanies at 10

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of Ty Inc.’s most popular products. Ty is a well know brand and popular in it’s home country of the USA, and you’ll rarely find people in the UK, Canada, Germany, Japan, Australia and New Zealand that haven’t heard of Beanie Babies, plus many more countries around the world. Ty’s products have become household names among many families around the world following the craze of Beanies around 1998 but how has Ty changed since those earlier days of the company in 1993?

Ty Warner’s ambition of creating the finest, affordable plush toys and products in the world, kick-started the company in the early 1990’s. His plush toys soon led to a line of smaller, bean-filled products which he named ‘Beanie Babies’ which we are celebrating a decade of this year.

So how have the products changed in the past years, the operation of the company, and the collectors themselves?

In about 1998, these products became a national craze in the USA and soon caught on in Europe. These were the days when new releases were the must-have product and it wouldn’t be strange to find people queuing outside their retailers waiting to be the first to get their hands on the latest introductions from Ty. The value of Beanies rocketed and many people decided that the way to get rich quick was from beanies.

Many retailers took advantage of the craze and children and adult’s addiction to these bean-filled animals. This bought ‘bundling’ which is where retailers made collectors buy a number of animals or the less popular beanies to get a rarer, more collectible or special beanie. Shops gave away tokens, stamps and collector’s cards so that people could keep track of how many more beanies they needed to buy before they could get the ones they really wanted. Retailers also found they made more profit by ‘back-dooring’ where they could sell extra beanies or exclusives to secondary market dealers for more money than by selling them at ‘recommended retail price’ of about £5/$5.

Collectors spent huge amounts of money as beanie values rocketed with the massive demands from collectors and would go to any length to get their dose of Beanies.

Nowadays, the collectibles market isn’t as exciting or ever-changing like it was. Many retailers of beanies are small, privately owned shops that specialise in bears and collectibles. ‘Back-dooring’ now is rare in these small specialist shops, and the idea of ‘bundling’ is extinct. The market has changed completely since the days where newer beanies were almost as sought after as the older original beanies and this also changes how these shops now operate. The latest releases hardly change in value and there are very few that are available in all shops around the world that can be put into the ‘rare’ category. Many retailers find that people just won’t buy 10 beanies at a time and there isn’t a beanie that is delivered that can be offered as the reward for a full collector’s card. Retailers also make little profit, if any, by back-dooring beanies and find that it just isn’t worth doing, although it guarantees that all stock will sell and won’t be left on their shelves.

There have been un-expected announcements from Ty such as the retirement of all beanies at the end of the last Millennium, which sparked interest and intrigued some collectors, but also angered many. This shock was news headlines on Tv, and newspapers all around the world and a main topic in conversation with collectors and even non-collectors. The new Millennium was probably the end to the Beanie baby craze around the world, but made way for the true collectors.

Another of Ty’s shock announcements was the recent end to some of their product lines. After rumours for a few months, finally at the start of 2003, to many people’s disappointment, Ty made a sad end to Attic Treasures and Beanie Kids by retireing these products. Attic treasures have been a major line of the company since the very start of Ty and have been favourites with collectors for many years. This decision angered many into stopping their collection of Ty products in protest.

Many people say that the spark has gone from Beanies, but I say that it’s just a start of a new Era. Beanies are still as popular with individual people, and the spark is still there. There is as much excitement as ever when I visit the Ty Homepage and see a new introduction or announcement!

Ty Inc have changed but not for the worse! Ty have changed with the rest of the world. Ty has developed their website more in the past year or so with the introduction of the wonderful TyStore. E-Beanies celebrate technology and the amazing things that the internet has brought to the world, and give us internet exclusive beanies that wouldn’t have been as popular or as easily purchased in the crazes of 1998. Ty have realised that for any company to succeed in the 21^st century, it needs to expand their site with the new technology available.

The Beanie Baby Official Club have also brought the internet and beanies together and shown children and adults alike how fun the internet can be that maybe they wouldn’t have known about. 2002 introduced a whole new perspective of the BBOC with the introduction of the Color-Me beanie. This beanie could be decorated and collectors could feel especially proud of themselves when their own beanie design was placed in the BBOC Color-me gallery for all to see.

Technology has also bought collectors closer to beanies with the Ask Ty feature of the Official Homepage. The question of the week to be answered by the one and only Ty Warner is decided completely by visitors to the site, and lets collectors learn bits and pieces about Ty Warner, his company and his products and learning a new snippet of information each week makes collecting just that little bit more exciting!

In recent years, we have also seen another change in the company. We now see Ty joining forces with Hallmark, Cracker Barrel and Portsmouth FC which makes an interesting change to the way we buy our beanies. These joint promotions give collectors the excitement of the early days with the quality of the newer fabrics, materials and manufacturing techniques of today and a pinch of making new friends to get the opportunity of owning these special beanies.

In the past few years, Ty have experimented with the beanies themselves by the way of new fabrics and styles of beanies. Ty has added to their well-known quality of each beanie by new fabrics. An example of some are the multi-toned fabric of Dinky, the shiny, royal-like fabric of Buckingham and Unity, the hairy, thick fabric of Harry, and the soft, long fabric of Chickie and Sizzle, to name a few. We have seen the ‘Old Face bears’ re-introduced in the form of Ted-e for the anniversary of the Teddy bears, and Cand-e and Kiss-e for Christmas and Valentines day, and the new ‘Pot-bellied bears’ or ‘Pooh-style’ such as Clover or Patriot.

The Beanie animals have changed characteristics in recent years. We say goodbye to the , cartoon-like beanies of Inky and Legs, and see the introductions of the more-realistic but still cute beanies such as Hoofer and Rusty

And it’s not just Beanie Babies that are a must for collectors. Recently collectors world-wide have fell in love with the cool and crazy Punkies, Soft and huggable Pluffies and snazzy and adorable Beanie Boppers and Teenie Beanie Boppers. All three are hits with younger children of all ages and Ty have succeeded in gaining a new audience in the shape of the younger collectors.

I feel that since the craze of Beanie babies at the end of the Millennium, Beanies seem to have gained more meaning and each one seems more special, but I don’t know if that’s true with everyone. Collectors meet friends through beanies, and personally, I feel that collectors now are genuinely interested in beanies, and there are getting fewer and fewer collectors that just collect beanies with the idea of selling them on and making a profit.

People now argue that as the craze of beanies has died down and that beanies are getting less popular - but I don’t agree. I think Ty has succeeded in keeping Beanies interesting, and ever-changing and the company ideas are always new and unusual, which add to their success. I think we’ll be joining Ty Inc in many more anniversary celebrations in the future!

This is my own opinion and all my own work.