Toys to Retirement Weekly Wrap-Up #11
Important news for both paid and free subscribers!
Sheeeeeesh, coming in hot!
Such a bittersweet time of year — sales have been incredible, but you can feel it slowly starting to drift away. We grind all year for the rewards we’ve reaped in the last two weeks and it’s never easy to say goodbye. Almost like getting home from a great tropical vacation and you can’t stop missing it.
It hurts to see my Amazon December down 18% over last year, but it’s only because I moved some business over to Walmart. Despite the red, I’m very happy with the performance this Q4 and am still a few percent ahead of 2023 as a whole.
I’ll be talking profit and such once the month ends. ‘Til then, let’s dive right into it with some housekeeping stuff:
Free Subscribers:
There are only eleven days left to become a paid subscriber at the $25 / mo rate. Once January 1st hits, that is jumping up to $40 and never coming back down. At $25/mo, your paid subscription costs you less than $1 per day. In my paid content, not only do I analyze every single retiring LEGO theme (which should make you thousands of dollars a year by itself), but I’ve also tossed out leads that would cover your entire annual subscription with a single purchase. On top of that, I like to think that my content challenges the way you source and forces you to look at products in ways you haven’t considered before. I’m confident that there is no other Amazon subscription out there, aside from Keepa, that provides the value that I do for $25/mo. It’s a no-brainer.
Use your 7-day free trial. View the old content I’ve posted since starting this newsletter a few months ago. If you like it, make the jump. 2025 is going to be HOT for toys, and you’ll want to be able to reference Toys to Retirement throughout the year.
Paid Subscribers:
Your rates are locked in at $25/mo. Don’t worry about the rate increase in 2025 (unless you decide to abandon me and come back!).
Another note, I’ll be taking next week off for Christmas, so expect a week of radio silence from me (unless something major pops up that needs to be broadcast). In my downtime, I’ll still be working on stuff for Toys to Retirement behind the scenes, but don’t expect anything until January 1st.
I’ll be rebounding with a “year in review” article full of useful data and lessons learned, as well as a very profitable homework assignment for everyone to start the new year off hot. I firmly believe 2025 has the potential to be one of the best years ever as a toy seller. We’re going to do it right.
Toy Investment Lead List
Earlier this week I did a little experiment of sorts — a toy investment lead list. I tried to structure it the way I’d want a lead list to be structured — not just random ASINs with no explanation. I did analysis and provided confirmation on if I had purchased the lead at that price or not. Keep in mind, it wasn’t a traditional lead list where it’s items that are profitable now. It’s a speculative lead list of investments that I believe have potential in the future. I’ve gotten some great feedback on it, and I’m slowly being convinced it may be something I do in the future based on the messages I’ve received. Not yet though, plenty of other stuff to focus on as we close out Q4. If you haven’t, you can check it out below, although some stuff may already be sold out or sales ended.
Tip of the Week #8
A simple but effective tip several people sleep on — are you using retailers’ ‘Notify Me When in Stock’ button?
If you are using it, dare I say you’re not using it enough? I’ve made at least a couple thousand bucks this Q4 by constantly turning these notifications on. There are several items that are on sale but sold out, that briefly come in and out of stock with a couple of units at a time.
On top of that, you can also use “Brickhound” to get text message alerts on specific LEGO sets coming in stock on the official LEGO site.
You’d be surprised how many gems come and go from these sites. Retailers finding old stock in the warehouse isn’t some joke, it’s a very real thing.
Know what you want, track it, and be ready to snag it when the notification pops up.
Box Office / Pop Culture News
What a freakin’ week.
Sonic 3 has debuted with almost 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, the highest in the franchise and one of the highest rated video game movies of all time. I’m not joking, I was at the mall for five minutes yesterday and heard four different groups of people talking about it. The movie is outperforming LION KING’s opening weekend — do you understand how insane that is? On top of that, Sonic 4 has now been confirmed for 2027 and spin-off movies and series are all but confirmed. Our little blue Hedgehog is here to stay, friends. Will you profit off his merch for years to come, or keep letting him run right past you?
James Gunn’s take on Superman finally has a trailer! For those that don’t know James Gunn, he took several C/D-List Marvel heroes and turned them into household names that everyone subscribed to this newsletter probably knows — the Guardians of the Galaxy. The trailer is getting mixed reviews, but my belief is that it’s primarily from fans of the ‘Snyderverse’ who are upset that Henry Cavill is not part of this new reboot. I think I have a pretty decent intuition about if something is going to be a hit at the box office or not, and I’m confident this one is going to be a home run. Whether or not it has good audience reception obviously remains to be seen, but I’m very confident the world will be watching and we can expect the McFarlane merch to be hot in 2025. The question is — will the toys be overproduced?
I was excited to talk about the brand new hit video game, Marvel Rivals last week obtaining ten million players in its first three days. Any new media is great for us as toy sellers, as it opens up the door for new toy lines and new customers. I’m happy to report that Marvel Rivals now has twenty million players, only a week later. If the hype continues, expect to hear about this game for a very long time, much like Fortnite, Overwatch, Apex Legends, and others.
The DC universe has confirmed they are working on a Clayface movie for 2026. For those that don’t know Clayface, he is an adversary of Batman who has shapeshifting abilities. The latest news is that they want this film to be DC’s version of The Fly, a gritty, body-horror, cult classic film. I love what DC has done with the Penguin, and I don’t think there’s any serious merch potential here, but anything that draws more eyes to Robert Pattinson’s Batman is great for us. Looking forward to this dark side of DC, a nice contrast to Gunn’s take on the upcoming Superman.
That’ll do it folks. A huge THANK YOU to those of you who have joined me on this newsletter that I started a few months ago. I can’t wait to see everyone’s’ success in 2025 — it’s definitely going to be a year of opportunity with how many franchises are actively pumping out media for us. Have a Merry Christmas and don’t forget — toys still sell in January. Don’t lower those minimums, friends.
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