The company behind Funko Pops has too much inventory and plans to dump up to $36 million worth of collectible figures.
Note: The cover image is an icon image.
The Funko company is best known for their Funko Pops. These are small to medium-sized figures that depict characters from well-known film, series and game franchises.
There are anime characters to characters from “The Office” or Apex Legends. Funko offers a huge selection of colorful characters. However, recently the sales figures have apparently fallen so far that stocks have to be liquidated.
Reddit user u/edelwiess20 posted a video showing Funko packaging at a landfill:
What does the company say? In a press release on March 1, 2023, the manufacturer of the Funko Pops released a financial report for the fourth quarter of 2022 and an outlook for 2023.
A paragraph reads, “Year-end inventories totaled $246.4 million, a 48% increase over the prior year.
This includes inventory that the Company intends to reduce in the first half of 2023 to reduce costs by aligning inventory levels with the operating capacity of our distribution center.
This is expected to result in a write-down of approximately $30-$36 million in the first half of 2023.” (via investor.funko.com)
What does that mean? The company is describing a problem: stocks are getting out of hand and are now being reduced. However, it is apparently cheaper to dispose of the figures in landfills instead of selling them off.
At least that’s what the reddit video, which you can see above, suggests.
How does the excess inventory come about? The figures have sold quite well in recent years. Sales have been particularly brilliant for the company, especially during the pandemic.
But now the demand for the small figures seems to be significantly lower, so that the stocks seem to be stuck.
For one game, on the other hand, things are going really well: RPG has 93% positive reviews on Steam, offers content for 100 hours – is free if you have Skyrim