Funko Is Dumping $30M in Unsold Dolls

Toy company Funko apparently overestimated demand for its bobbleheaded pop culture collectibles so badly that hundreds of thousands of them are doomed to end up as landfill. In a trading update Friday, the company said it plans to "eliminate" excess inventory for a writedown of at least $30 million, Fortune reports. According to Kotaku, that was the company's way of saying its "warehouses are overflowing with five inch chibi replicas of Machine Gun Kelly, Spider-Man, Pikachu, and every other vaguely famous cultural icon, and throwing them out will be cheaper than trying to sell them." The company said it has $246.4 million of inventory, up 48% from a year ago.

Sales of Funko's Pop figures soared during the pandemic but they are now stagnant: In its update, the company said sales were down 1% year-on-year for the fourth quarter of 2022, and its margins are being hurt by "storage and container rental charges associated with inventory in excess of warehouse capacity." Last week, CEO Brian Mariotti said the company had been forced to rent extra space because its Arizona distribution center had run out of room for the dolls, CNN reports. The company also said it is laying off around 10% of its workforce.

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