Hatchimal
This holiday season, Hatchimals are becoming the gift every kid in America wants. Now, retailers including Target, Walmart, and Toys R Us are scrambling to keep the toys in stock.
Hatchimals are small, robotic critters, created by Canadian toy maker Spin Master. When the toys debuted in October, they were sold for roughly $50 to $60. However, as customers have grown increasingly desperate to get their hands on Hatchimals, prices have sky rocked to hundreds of dollars.
While Walmart originally sold its exclusive Spin Master Hatchimal for around $50, on Tuesday the retailer was selling the toy online through a third party for $599.97. On eBay, the average Hatchimal selling price is $132, with a range from $81 to $196.
"For the last four years, there has been nothing comparable to the instant sales success within weeks of launch as Hatchimals," Juli Lennett, U.S. toys industry analyst at The NPD Group, told CNBC in early November.
Hatchimals' hatching process plays a major role in setting the toy apart from the competition. Hatchimals are sold still encased in an Supercars egg, which could contain one of two possible variations on the toy. Users have to play with and nurture the egg, listening to the cooing Hatchimal inside, for up to an hour as the toy pecks from the inside to break open the shell of the egg.
Here's what an egg in the process of hatching looks like:
via GIPHY