My prediction on the 2009 hot toy of the year...

It's a Friday night and I thought it would be fun to do a lighter post.  This one came to me when evaluating some eBay auction data.  Auctions are generally very very down y/y, but I noticed an interesting blip -a product that has a crazy amount of bid action on one product in particular.  I dug into it and am going to go out on a limb and call the 'hot item of 09' early.  Hold on to your seats readers and remember you read it on eBay Strategies first.

Drum roll..... (hint: they are so fun, but without the mess!)

I'm predicting that the HOT toy of 2009 will be Zhu Zhu pets.  What, you ask, is a Zhu Zhu pet.  Well a YouTube is worth a zillion words so here goes:

There are four main Zhu Zhu pets:

• Mr Squiggles - A light brown hamster
• Num Nums - A grey hamster
• Pip Squeek - A yellow hamster
• Chunk - A white hamster

The above retail for $8 and are going for $20-30 already on eBay. On top of the animals, the genius is they have a huge assortment of add-ons - you can buy a maze of habitrails, a little car, a ball - pretty much all the stuff a real hamster would need, but more expensive, is available for your Zhu Zhu.  The accessories range from $10 to $20+ and there are a mind boggling large number of them: (click to enlarge)

This isn't a simple wind up toy...

Many people seem to dismiss Zhu Zhu's  as a simple wind-up style toy.  They are actually a complex robotic simulation that has three modes of operation and a proprietary 'pet code reader'.  Check out this PDF of the instructions on this robotic pet.   All that's great, but what I think is really amazing about this toy is the range of age groups attracted to it.  I've seen a 3yr old and an 11yr old (boys and girls) freak out about it and immediately want to try to collect all 4 (they 'talk' to each other).  We live in a period where toys are becoming more and more fragmented along age lines - for example, Barbie's only appeal to a very small age window now (5-7 maybe?), where they used to appeal to a 5-15yr.

Conclusion

The Zhu Zhu is a cool new product that has a lot of buzz.  It appeals to a wide swath of the kid population, has a reasonable price tag, and appears to be already be in crazy short supply.  As of this writing (10/0/09) there are a fair number of Zhu Zhu's in some Wal-mart's.  I'm hearing they are not easily found in Targets or TRUs, yet they say they are coming.  My advice to you is if you have a kid in the 3-10yr range, go ahead and start trying to find a Zhu Zhu or you'll be behind the eight ball and buying them for $100 on eBay (from a seller that read this and gobbled up a bunch of supply ;-)  Reminder - walmart.com has a local search, so if you go to a Zhu Zhu item and do a 'find in store', you should see a list of stores near you that have the little robo-critters in supply.

Now it's entirely possible that several boat loads of these come in and the supply catches up to demand, but based on what we're seeing - there is a LOT of demand, so I think that's unlikely.

For all you Wall St'ers out there, unfortunately Zhu Zhu is made by a private company - Cepia out of of St. Louis of all places so you'll have to play this with the offline/online retailers.

Seeking Alpha disclosure - I am long Google and Amazon.  eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor where I am CEO.  And yes, I have already grabbed a mini stockpile of Zhu Zhu's, so I guess I am long robotic hamsters ;-)  Wal-mart is a ChannelAdvisor customer.

Comments

[Scot Wingo]

Re: [eBay Strategies] Emil Croskey submitted a comment to 'My prediction on the 2009 hot toy of the year...'.

Yes they are doing that via third parties

S

[Emil Croskey]

I've found that the best place to get the Zhu Zhu Pets have been Amazon. They seem to have an abundance of them at slightly inflated prices but as we get into the shopping season the prices will get higher. That's why I'm listing a link to Amazon through my website. Why not try to make some of my purchase price back?

[sheri]

Please tell me how to get them at wholesale so I can resale on e bay.

I thank you so much.

Single mother of 3 in Up state NY

Sheri

[Emil Croskey]

I love these Zhu Zhu Pets. I have a granddaughter who is only one yo this year and because of choking hazards I won't give them to her but next year for her birthday she is getting a collection.

[B Braen]

At Toys R Us today and they got in 120 hamsters with a limit of 4. They were gone in under 3 minutes.

[Jim]

Well Scot,
your off to a good start. After reading this I went to my local Walmart and ToysRUS to get one for grandson. They are all sold out with signs on shelves indicating only on per person per day.
In inquiring at the customer service they say that when they know they are getting a shipment in they have people line up and they are gone in 10 min or less.

We got a couple accessories at ToysRUS but no pet.

Thanks for the heads up.