Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed toys created by American businessman H. Ty Warner, who founded Ty Inc. in 1986. The toys are stuffed with plastic pellets ("beans") rather than conventional soft stuffing. They come in many different forms, mostly animals.
Created in 1993, Beanie Babies emerged as a major fad and collectible during the second half of the 1990s. They have been cited as being the world's first Internet sensation in 1995. They were collected not only as toys, but also as a financial investment, owing to the high resale value of particular ones.
History
Beanie Babies were first introduced in 1993 by Ty Warner at the World Toy Fair in New York City, New York. Manufacturing began in 1994, and the toys were first sold in stores located in Chicago, Illinois for around 5 U.S. Dollars. There were nine original Beanie Babies: Legs the Frog, Squealer the Pig, Spot the Dog, Flash the Dolphin, Splash the Whale, Chocolate the Moose, Patti the Platypus, Brownie the Bear (later renamed "Cubbie"), and Pinchers the Lobster (with some tag errors labeled "Punchers"). Since 1994, Beanie Babies can only be found in small, specialty stores, such as gift stores and small toy stores.
At first, sales were relatively slow, and by 1995 many retailers refused to buy the bundles the toys were offered in, while other retailers refused to buy Beanie Babies entirely. Around the same time, Ty Inc. decided to restrict the quantity of Beanie Babies to be produced and distributed. The company began limiting the number of Beanie Babies a store could buy per month to 36 of each character. Ty Warner also decided to "retire" characters after a certain period of time, meaning the production of specific characters would eventually cease. Because these decisions created scarcity, they led to a significant increase in sales and started the trend of collecting and reselling Beanie Babies. Their popularity soon grew into a national craze in the US.
In 1996, Ty, Inc. released Teenie Beanies, a line of miniature versions of the original Beanie Babies. They were sold alongside McDonald's Happy Meals to celebrate the Happy Meal's 17th anniversary. They also partnered with other companies.
Ty, Inc. stopped producing Beanie Babies in December 1999, but high demand soon led them to reconsider. Production restarted in 2000 with a Beanie Baby named "The Beginning."
In early 2008, Ty released a new version of Beanie Babies called Beanie Babies 2.0. The purchase of a Beanie Baby 2.0 provided its owner with a code to access an online Beanie Babies interactive website. The website has since been shut down.
Design
Beanie Babies are deliberately under-stuffed. This led to a criticism that the toys looked "cheap"; however, this set them apart from most stuffed animals on the market which could not be posed easily. Ty Warner has said that this understuffing method made the toys look "real".
Another important design element is the tag. Since the beginning, Beanie Babies have included two tags for identification: a heart-shaped "swing tag" at the top, and a fabric "tush tag" at the bottom. Both tags have been redesigned completely over time. Between 1994 and 1996, the swing tags had "To" and "From" blanks in them for use as gifts. Starting in early 1996, the tags include four-line poems related to the Beanie Baby, and a date of birth for the toy. The poem and birthday concept was created by Lina Trivedi who is credited as authoring the poems on the first 136 Beanie Babies that were introduced to the marketplace.
It was not uncommon for Beanie Babies to be accidentally shipped out with incorrect or misspelled tags, which sometimes increased the toy's value. On occasion, the poems, birth dates and even the names have been changed on certain Beanie Babies.
Marketing
Early on, Ty had trouble finding retailers to order Beanie Babies. To get small retailers to stock the product, Ty introduced Beanie Babies at the 1993 Toy Fair in New York City. This event helped garner attention for the set of plush toys. In 1994, small local stores in Chicago, Illinois, began selling Beanie Babies for around 5 US dollars.
Early in 1995, Ty created the first iteration of the Ty website, the first business-to-consumer website designed to sell to consumers directly. To go along with the launch of the Ty website in 1995, all Beanie Baby hangtags were printed with the Ty website URL and a new piece of text was added with the company's name and the following message: "Visit our website! ! !" As a result, many consumers visited Ty's website for more information on Beanie Babies. This endeavor would mark the beginning of the Beanie Babies boom.
