How Ty Inc.’s Beanie Babies Are Making a Comeback | CO

Why
it matters:

• Ty Inc. Founder Ty Warner built a fortune worth billions with the Beanie Baby plush toy craze in the 1990s. Now the company is using lessons learned then to maximize the brand’s collectibles appeal to score a new hit, its first line of bounceable plush toys, just as products and experiences with (low-tech) nostalgia appeal gain heightened consumer interest.
• Toys are a $42 billion market in the United States, according to The Toy Association and research firm Circana.
• Plush toys, the category Ty Inc. is known for, was one of the strongest growth categories in 2024, with sales up 1%, while the overall industry was down slightly.

The
Beanie Babies plush toy craze in the 1990s made toy company Ty Inc.
an industry superstar and made its founder, Ty Warner, a billionaire.

Now,
the company’s latest extension of the Beanie brand is capturing
some of the magic that made Beanie Babies a collectible craze two
decades ago.

In
July, Ty Inc. introduced Beanie Bouncers, a combination of a bouncing
ball and a collectible plush toy.

The
four-inch balls are wrapped in soft plush and are designed to
represent different characters, most of them animals with names
reminiscent of the original Beanie Babies, such as Leggy the Octopus
or Buzzy the Bee.

But
unlike Beanie Babies, these toys are designed to be able to bounce up
to 50 feet, adding a play component that the original Beanies didn’t
have.

When
he announced the Bouncers over the summer, Founder Ty Warner said his
aim was to put a new spin on one of the oldest and best-selling toys
known to mankind—the ball.

“This
is plush you can toss, catch, bounce, roll, kick, bowl, and collect,”
Warner said in July.

The
driving force behind Beanie Bouncers and other new ideas at Ty is
“all Mr. Warner,” Jose Verger, Vice President of Sales, told CO—.

“He
is still extremely involved on 100% of all our products,” Verger
said.

The
Bouncers arrived in stores last fall and were a holiday hit, and
they’re
looking to be the company’s most successful new launch in the past
five to six years, Verger said.

“You
have the cuteness factor of a Beanie Baby, but you also have the play
value,” he said.

Part
of the success is because they appeal to all ages, Verger said. “We
even have adults buying them. You can hold them, squeeze them, use
them for stress relief.”

Beanie
Babies expands amid low-tech nostalgia trend

Beanie
Bouncers’ launch coincides with the rise of “analog wellness,”
what the Global Wellness Institute
highlights as a key 2025 trend. “Trailblazed by Gen Z and
millennials, more people are hungry for all kinds of retro,
pre-digital hobbies and experiences that restore the tactile and
touch, the attention that comes with making, and the social
gratification,” from bird-watching and ceramic classes to snapping
photos with Polaroid
cameras, according to GWI’s 2025 trend report.
And this embrace of nostalgia and desire to unplug is reflected in
the popularity today of “comforting plush toys” like the hot
Squishmallows
collection, said Elia
Auchane, Retail Strategy Consultant at WSL Strategic Retail,
in a post on the future of wellness.

[Read
more: Retro Rewards: How Businesses Are Monetizing the Nostalgia Trend to Win Over New Customers]

The
Beanie Babies playbook: Low prices and collectible appeal

With
Beanie Bouncers, Ty Inc. is following the playbook that made Beanie
Babies a success. A key strategy is keeping the price low, at $5.99,
just one dollar more than the $4.99 price of the original Beanie
Babies.

Ty
provides retailers with a specially designed display carousel that
prominently displays the $5.99 price.

“We
want to make sure to communicate instantly the very low price,”
Verger said. “If they don’t see the price right away, they’re
going to think it costs a lot more,” he said.

Another
strategy is periodically “retiring”—or removing from
distribution— Beanie Bouncers characters to enhance their
collectability. Ty also is sticking to the company’s tradition of
avoiding mass merchants and promoting sales to independent stores and
specialty retail, including museums, zoos, candy stores, convenience
stores, and drugstores.

Kenny
Sarfin, Owner of the independent Books & Greetings
store in Northvale, N.J., said he liked the Bouncers so much that he
ordered a second display stand from Ty right away. He keeps one in
the front of the store and one in his toy department.

The
toys sold well over the holidays and Sarfin is eager to get more in
stock. “It was a perfect Christmas gift, a perfect stocking
stuffer, and now I would like to play it up for Easter,” he said.

[Read
more: Trend Forecasters on the 6 Consumer Trends Set to Impact Business in 2025]

Carving
a new niche in the $42 billion U.S. toy market

Toys
are a $42 billion market in the United States, according to The Toy Association
and research firm Circana.
While overall U.S. toy sales were down in 2024, plush toys—Ty’s
specialty—was up 1%.

Ty
Inc. was founded in 1986 and was mostly known for its plush stuffed
toys. Its sales exploded after it began selling Beanie Babies in
1994.

Ty
Inc., as a private company, doesn’t reveal income or sales figures,
but the success of Beanie Babies catapulted it into the top ranks of
U.S. toy companies. It also made founder Warner a billionaire, with
his wealth valued
at $6.9 billion by Forbes.

With
Beanie Bouncers, Ty Inc. appears to have another hit, even if they
don’t match the success of Beanie Babies.

“Beanie
Bouncers have been well-received by retailers, kids, and collectors
since day one,” said James Zahn, Editor-in-Chief of The Toy Book,
the leading toy industry trade publication.

“The
toy industry always talks about innovation and Beanie Bouncers are a
prime example of why that doesn’t always mean high-tech,” Zahn
said. “Sometimes the most straightforward ideas, like combining
plush with a ball, can be a big hit,” he said.

The
Beanie Babies craze probably never will be duplicated, Zahn said.
“The world was a very different place back then and Ty Warner
managed to launch the right thing at the right time, and everything
was in alignment,” he said. “From the perfect size, price, and
form factor to the growing prevalence of the internet driving the
collector frenzy and fueling the secondary market to the deep
assortment of characters housing something for everyone, it was just
right across the board,” he said.

“Ty
probably doesn’t get enough credit for this, but the
character-driven world of Beanie Babies has inspired a playbook
that’s still in use across the toy industry, particularly in the
plush category,” Zahn said.

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Published April 07, 2025