Toy craze creates underground market for parents, online sellers
Pssst! Wanna buy a hot toy?
They don’t get any hotter this holiday season than a Zhu Zhu Pet. The electronic hamster has taken children’s hearts and minds by storm – and sent their parents fruitlessly sprinting from store to store.
But rather than deal with long lines or disappointed offspring, some hamster hunters are going another route: the underground Zhu Zhu Pets market. Hundreds of South Florida entrepreneurs are offering Mr. Squiggles, his friends and their accessories – such as rodent-sized cars and houses – on Craigslist, eBay and other online sites for double to quintuple their retail price.
While parents may grumble, they’re buying.
"People are struggling to buy for the holidays in this economy. And here you have others who managed to buy a whole bunch of hamsters and are reselling them for four times the price," said Karen Aguayo, a Miramar mother of 7-year-old, Zhu Zhu-crazed twins.
Her pique didn’t stop her from purchasing a $20 Zhu Zhu Funhouse for $45 online, after several futile store runs. "My kids are really good and they asked for only one thing," Aguayo said. "You don’t want to break their hearts and tell them Santa couldn’t come through for them."
The hamsters, normally costing between $8 and $10, were priced as high as $100 online this week, although $25 to $50 seemed to be the going rate. Feeding the fire is the fact that many major toy retailers – including Toys "R" Us, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target – are limiting the number of Zhu Zhu products that shoppers can buy, trying to spread out the supply.
Online sellers scrambled to reassure buyers Monday, as green toy site GoodGuide.com claimed it had found contaminants in the Zhu Zhus it tested. But the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced by the end of the day that the season’s hottest toy was safe, and GoodGuide confessed that its testing methods were incorrect.
The brief safety scare didn’t seem to dim interest in the toys.
Playing off desperation is perfectly legal, as long as the merchandise isn’t counterfeit or stolen. State law may prohibit jacking up the costs of blue tarps and hotel rooms as a hurricane approaches. But the Florida Attorney General’s Office said nothing prohibits overcharging for toys, and so far has received no Zhu Zhu complaints.
Underground marketing of hot toys isn’t new. Cliff Anicelli, editor of Playthings, a monthly magazine that covers the toy industry, remembers the same thing happening more than a decade ago with holiday blockbusters Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids.
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