BLIND BAGS
hunt as kids add to their collections.
Will it be a rare collectible or a common one? Tradeworthy or one everyone already has?
Most manufacturers tuck inside each blind bag a complete list of the kinds that can be amassed and ratings for the likelihood of landing each. Opening the rarest is akin to snagging the last flatscreen TV on Black Friday.
Holly Tong of Powell thinks her daughter’s obsession with Shopkins, tiny plastic pieces shaped like household items with humanlike facial expressions, stems from the anticipation.
“So much is instant gratification now, and that not knowing and waiting to open them is exciting,” she said.
Nadia Tong, 7, started collecting Shopkins two years ago and now owns hundreds.
The brand helped spawn the current blind-bag trend when the first of these toys reached store shelves in 2014. More than 100 million Shopkins have since sold, company officials say.
Released in series of about 80, Shopkins cost $3.99 for a one-character blind bag — the kind often placed near cash registers to prompt impulse purchases. Shopkins also have spawned T-shirts, bed sets and a live musical, with a tour stop scheduled for Dec. 6 at the Palace Theatre.
Nadia, a second-grader at Village Academy, is still seeking rarer Shopkins, including Cupcake Queen.
The blind-bag concept isn’t new (anyone remember Crazy Bones?), but such toys are again having a moment. In 2016, sales rose 60 percent from the previous year, according to market research firm the NPD Group.
“I think this Christmas and over the next year, you’ll see more blind bags than ever,” said Richard Gottlieb, CEO of the toy industry consulting company Global Toy Expert.
Blind bags hark back to the era of baseball cards — “the grandfather of blind bags,” Gottlieb said. Similarly, Garbage Pail Kids cards were popular in the 1980s, and Crazy Bones collectibles were a fad in the 1990s and 2000s. Even McDonald’s Happy Meals have included a surprise toy for decades.
Stockpiling as a hobby has roots in stamp and coin collecting, both prevalent at the turn of the 20th century, Gottlieb said.
“Collecting is play, even looking at your collection is play,” he said. “Picking up and putting down your pieces is play, reorganizing them. It’s a different form of play, but it’s play.”
What’s distinct today is the vast variety of blind bags for sale and how social media has pushed the products to the forefront of kids’ minds.
Nadia learned about Shopkins from YouTube, where hundreds of videos showcase the process of opening blind bags. Her favorite accounts — CookieSwirlC and PSToyReviews — have a combined 6 million subscribers.
Each month, Paul and Shannon Stripling of PSToyReviews receive 43,000 online comments and emails from fans of their “unwrapping” channel.
The married couple, who live in Raleigh, North Carolina, started posting blind-bag videos about five years ago on Shannon’s account, which then was dedicated to crafts.
Running PSToyReviews has since turned into a fulltime job requiring them to post two videos a day, shop for new blind bags to feature and respond to as many comments as possible.
“It has exceeded our wildest dreams,” Mr. Stripling said.
Like Nadia Tong, Addison Smals, 6, discovered blindbag toys via YouTube.
“She’ll watch those videos until she falls asleep with a phone in her hand,” said her mother, Vicki Smals, a South Side resident.
Lately, Addison has fixated on the elaborately wrapped L.O.L. Surprise! Dolls. Each comes with its own accessories and cries, urinates, spits or changes colors. The type of doll and its capabilities are both surprises until the buyer opens the bag.
At $9.99 each, the plastic “Big Sis” isn’t cheap, but the L.O.L. brand (which also includes the “Lil Sis,” at $6.99 each) is the No. 1-selling doll in the U.S. this year.
Smals said she has probably spent about $100 on them since Addison began collecting L.O.L.s 18 months ago.
“There is an appeal to the surprise itself,” she said, “but she (her daughter) is really excited even more so when she sees it’s building a collection.”