Playthings For Posterity

Achieving collectible status is a highly lucrative marketing strategy and there are lots of hopefuls on the shelf—but what are kids really collecting? A recent survey conducted by children's product design and marketing firm Funosophy Inc. asked kids what kinds of things they're collecting or would like to collect. Three hundred boys and girls ages 6 to 8 responded to the open-ended survey. Multiple responses were allowed and most kids did provide more than one response, leading to 528 total responses. The results follow.

Whether they're tumbled to a polished shine or dug up in the backyard, rocks are the most popular collectible among kids 6 to 8!

In better news for toy retailers, Ganz's Webkinz tops the list of not-found-in-the-backyard items kids today are collecting—not surprising considering how hot the business model of low cost of entry backed by a world of online play is in the industry right now. Webkinz collectors are roughly 25 percent boys and 75 percent girls, according to this survey (observation directional only due to small sample size).

According to this survey, the most popular category of items collected is dolls, including non-specified dolls, branded dolls like Barbie, Bratz and Polly Pocket, and playsets like Littlest Pet Shop, as well as traditional porcelain collectibles and collectible animals like horses and dogs. Stuffed animals, driven by the Webkinz craze, are the second most popular type of collectibles.

Worth noting is that low-cost “classic” collectibles, like marbles, coins, bottle caps, stamps, pins, key chains and stickers ranked third most popular, with nearly one quarter of all respondents reporting collecting these types of items.

Collecting is hot with kids and most often, they're collecting more than one theme at a time. The lower-cost classic collectibles, which have not been heavily pursued by toy manufacturers (with the exception of key chain companies like Basic Fun and sticker sellers like Sandylion) represent a huge opportunity to capture a larger slice of the kid collector audience.