Details of some of our products
The Original Beanie Kids are palm-sized plush toys, under-filled with beans that retail for around AUD$9.95.
These soft, cuddly, go-anywhere plush pals all have their own names, birthdays, and their own little personalities displayed on the swing tag. When you purchase a Beanie Kid, be sure to look after it. The condition of your Beanie Kid and their swing tag could mean hundreds of dollars to a collector in the future.
What is it about these soft, cuddly, go-anywhere plush pals that have made them the hottest collectable in the world?
Beanie Kids are absolutely adorable, but they have to be played with! Kids of all ages are taking Spike the Bully to school, Sammy the Punk to bed and Chuckie The Chook adorns computer screens everywhere!
At around AUD$9.95 at retail stores, Beanie Kids are a whole lot of fun for only a little bit of money.
Each has their own name, birthday and zodiac sign on their swing tags. This gives the collector a date to celebrate their Beanie Kids birthdays, and find Beanie Kids with birthdays the same as their own, or their friends or family.
Authenticity look-a-likes produced by other companies should not be confused with the original Beanie Kids which bear the Skansen hang tag.
Already many of the cast are retired with more designs launched all the time. Retirements and Limited Editions will only be offered to existing Beanie Kids stockists.
Demand for Beanie Kids has been so overwhelming, Skansen will be limiting the number of Beanie Kids each store can order. This actually increases the popularity and the value of Beanie Kids.
Beanie Kids were launched in Australia in September 1997. The product was launched as a soft toy initially, but it didn't take long for collectors to develop a keen eye for the product and see the potential for Beanie Kids as a collectible in the secondary market within Australia.
Since then, popularity of these cute collectables has grown resulting in millions of units sold around Australia.
Beanie Kids are a small 8-inch, bean filled collectable plush toy that is currently available in the gift and specialty market at a recommended retail of $9.95. The range consists of a large and ever growing variety of bears and animals.
The Beanie Kid program works in such a way that all beanies are launched to the market with their own birth dates, star signs and special names. These Beanies are current Beanies, that is, they are continually produced and available to the general market. However, after a period of time (unknown by buyers and collectors alike) they will be retired. Retirement of a Beanie Kid signifies a date from which they will no longer be manufactured and therefore whatever quantity is in existence at that point is finite. When a Beanie Kid retires, the value of the Beanie Kid increases as they become harder to find. Even the slowest selling Beanie Kid will move out as soon as it retires. Out of stock situations create demand and higher prices on the secondary market, thus increases the value.
One of the main factors for determining the value of a Beanie Kid in the secondary market is the condition of the swing tag. All serious collectors protect their swing tags with their lives. Some of the independent wholesalers on the secondary market have even invested in tag protectors, as there has been great demand for these from the secondary market. The swing tag is the descriptive tag that is attached to the Beanie Kids ear. They also have a tush tag that is sewn in by the manufacturers and collectors use both of the tags to decide which generation a Beanie Kid belongs to.
There have been many generations of swingtags produced for Beanie kids. Obviously the earlier the generation swingtags are, the more money the Beanie Kids will be worth on the secondary market.
The Beanie Kid, itself, must remain in mint condition to maintain its value.
Many of the original Beanie Kids are fetching very attractive secondary market values to date and these figures are on the rise. Goldie the Yellow Bear and Jade the green Bear are attracting bidding prices upwards starting from AUD $400. These Retired Beanie Kids were originally sold for their original recommended retail price and have now matured on the secondary market.
The designs of Beanie Kids are frequently retired and new ones introduced, constantly feeding the collector’s appetite. Skansen have an experienced and dedicated product development team, constantly working on keeping this product range exciting and sought after.
Beanie Kids went on-line in March 1998 - www.beaniekids.com
To date the site has received tens of thousands of hits, representing the wealth of interest that exists in the market for these “delectable collectibles”.
There are many retail sites that have been developed and dedicated purely to Beanie Kids. Some of these include;
Catalogue O' Fun - www.funbeanie.com
Beanie World – www.beanieworld.org
Cardeaux – www.cardeaux.com.au
Full-o-Beanies – www.full-o-beanies.biz
To find retired Beanie Kids visit www.ebay.com.au
As well as collector’s sites such as:
The Bean Scene - www.members.optushome.com.au/beanscene
These are just a few of the well known beanie sites where collectors gather to chat about beanie releases, beanie gossip and general beanie kid information, even beanie mutations! Many visitors to these sites use their peers as sources to discover where specific, hard to find beanies, are located and also to trade and sell parts of their collections.
Beanie Kids are available at Granny May's, What's New and Kenny’s Cardiology stores. They are also available at other independent chains that are listed on the Skansen Beanie Kid web site. Beanie Kids are not distributed to mass market retail chains, such as, Target, K-mart etc. This distribution concept is to avoid the discounting strategies that these chains employ.
The popularity of Beanie Kids, both as a collectable and as a gift, has experienced rapid growth since its launch in September 1997. Sales over the past years have only seen this growth rate accelerate into what we are sure are to be the foundation of many successful years for this collectable program.
To-date there have been over 400 different designs released into the Australian Marketplace.
Beanie Kids have now begun to export in the U.K. under the name of Bean Bag Bears and have also begun distribution into Norway under the same