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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If you're just starting your personal finance journey, Financially Inclined is exactly what you need. I'm Janelia Espinal, host of Financially Inclined, and each week we discuss money lessons you need to know. Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello and welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Sam Gruet and I've got a question for you. Think back to your last birthday. Were you gifted any toys? Lots of adults were. In fact, figures suggest that adults buying toys for themselves are
are keeping the toy market alive. I probably don't want to fully admit to myself how many thousands of dollars that it costs. Today, I'm on a mission to find out why. Meeting the manufacturers. Every other monster takes one and a half to four plus hours, depending on the size.
The sellers. If we're noticing that kids aren't into something, you can then hit up the adults. And most importantly, the grown-up buyers. I have so many soft toys, all kinds of different brands. I just absolutely love them. The adults saving the toy industry. Coming up on Business Daily. Business Daily.
I'm at the studio of Lisa Lee, a toy designer and creator based in Vancouver on Canada's West Coast. Hi, I'm Sam. Nice to meet you. How are you doing? She's the owner of toy brand Leather Monsters and of Boston Terrier Norman. Do I see maybe a passing resemblance between Mr. Norman and some of the creations you've got here? Yeah, I think any of the flat-faced dogs, my monsters started off.
before I even had dogs looking like this. Lisa shows me around her home, where she's been making toys for over a decade. And so this is a tabletop full of your creations that are ready to go. They're quite mesmerising, aren't they? The eyes are incredible. How do you make the eyes? The eyes are actually made by a family in Belarus that makes taxidermy eyes for museum quality mounts. Wow. The sewing set up here, which is obviously where all of the magic happens. Yeah.
And on the wall behind, I mean, just describe what we've got going on here. Oh, there's hundreds of eyes. There's about 600 eyes, 300 to 400 sets at any given time, and they range from hyper-realistic in terms of which animal they are to completely doesn't exist. For myself, I started in 2012 moving from fabric into leather, and when I moved into leather...
it was like a lightning bolt went off. I had to really minimize the amount of details and be really picky about how I did stuff. And I came across these taxidermy eye makers in Belarus and matched that with leather. And I tucked along, working away, doing my thing. And I developed quite a few collectors through Instagram, which was pretty new. So anytime you posted stuff, it was very easy to spread whatever you were doing worldwide. And then when the pandemic hit and
And I guess 2021 was when I came across a community called the Handmade Plushie Community.
And that's based in the States, approximately 5,000 members and hundreds of makers from all over the world. And we just blew up. If you're not familiar, a dull or stuffed animal of soft material is sometimes called a plush toy or plushie. And what's the demographic of your buyer then? The newest group that's come in has been the 24 through 55-year-old female. Yeah, so women who collect soft toys...
and they collect them frequently in themes so there'll be people who have color themes holiday themes and they've been a boon for the handmade maker thanks see you again cheers bye leather monsters creator lisa lee the fortunes of the toy industry are increasingly reliant on a growing demographic of adult buyers with greater disposable income
In the fourth quarter of last year, adults spent more than US$1.5 billion on toys for themselves. That's according to market research group Sukana. The older demographic is actually a key growth area for the global toy market. It's actually just reached 29% of global toy sales. Melissa Simons is the executive director of UK Toys and Euro Toys and led the report.
So that's all toys purchased for those aged sort of 12 plus, but it's actually the 18 plus, the adults, that are really driving that. And historically you tend to think of it as being the sort of the geeky males, but actually it's got a full range of both genders and all age groups. So you get the older women coming in. A lot of that is being driven by brands too. The hottest toy on the market is probably Lego. And Lego's appeal is actually across a wide range of ages and both genders.
So in the last year, they've done a fantastic job with pulling in older women into the toy market, particularly with their Lego botanicals range, where you can build flowers made out of Lego parts. You've got plush, particularly strong in the last year. Adults in particular have really gone in for collectible plush toys.
Jumbo Snuggle Dragons have arrived for pre-order. I have finally bought the Breathing Otter plushie, which I've been seeing all over my TikTok. So it's something like Squishmallows that's done very well through social media in the last few years. Jellycat. And all of these are very soft, sort of cuddly toys. You're like, think your traditional teddy bear, but they've been very much modernised to look like any product. So if adults have become nearly a third of the market, where has that growth come from?
Adult purchasing toys has been a constant growth area of the market for the last 10 years. And in the last five years in particular, it's gone from being 24% of the market to 29% of the market. And it's pretty much outperformed the sales to kids every single year for the last 10 years. And it's definitely something that the industry has wanted to jump on, particularly given in some countries declining birth rates.
So the best way to keep the toy market active is to go after this ageing population that we have globally. And so what do the numbers say about the amount of toys being bought by kids or being bought for kids then? Yes, so we are seeing global toy sales for kids declining, partly because there are less kids being born in a number of developed countries.
countries. I do think kids tend to move out of toys a little bit earlier because they're not necessarily going into technology such as iPads and iPhones, but into other areas such as for girls in particular, beauty, fashion areas are very popular for them. And we're actually seeing some of those industries that are really strong on TikTok, such as beauty, are actually picking up some of those sort of toyetic words. Some of the really hot lines are looking very
sort of toy, very bright, colourful. They're kind of appealing to the younger audience by looking at what we call toyetic products. Melissa Simons from market research group Cicana.
And while social media has pushed skincare to children, it's also introduced toys to new markets too. And I finally found a plushie that checks all the boxes. These are cheeky chonks. On TikTok alone, there have been 132 million posts relating to plushies. My next guest is behind a fair few of them. Hi there.
How are you doing? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Yeah, I'm doing really well, thanks. Raven, also known as Froggy Crossing, is a 25-year-old YouTube creator with over a million subscribers. It's my full-time job. It was very unexpected, but I absolutely love it. I started posting on YouTube in 2020, right in the middle of lockdown, because basically I was bored. I wasn't really intending for that to become my job, and it kind of just
took off unexpectedly. And how did you get into the world of plushies and soft toys then? I...
I would say that I've always been in it, even as a kid growing up. I had Webkinz, I had Beanie Babies, and as I grew into my middle school and teenage years, I think I kind of fell out of it. Maybe I didn't think it was as cool anymore, but once I kind of had a stable job with disposable income, I kind of rediscovered my love for soft toys.
I started buying them again because I've always loved collecting things because, you know, they bring me happiness, they bring me joy. And I think also a big pillar of my channel and my content is reconnecting with my childhood and healing that inner child. And I think the toys also play a part in that. They kind of help me relive those childhood moments and bring those little sparks of childhood happiness back.
Hello and welcome back, my beautiful froggy army, to another video. Today, we are doing something that I haven't-
We just want something tactile. We want something away from a screen and even something as simple as a plushie, a soft toy can offer that. You're listening to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. If you're just starting your personal finance journey, Financially Inclined is exactly what you need. I'm Janelia Espinal, host of Financially Inclined, and each week we discuss money lessons you need to know.
Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts.
Today, the adults saving the toy industry. I'm at the Granville Island Toy Store in Vancouver, Canada. And I want to find out just how much adults are influencing the products on sale at shops like this. We're definitely known for things like having a really large selection of Lego, which is kind of more targeted towards adults nowadays.
Laura is the manager here. Especially with like the bigger sets, like the Chewbacca one that you can see up there. That's for like definitely men in their 40s. We also have a large selection of plush animals, which a lot of people I think are going for. They want something just warm and cuddly nowadays.
And so stuffed animals have really taken off. How do your displays then, if we're looking around, how do you think the displays and even the packaging is appealing more to the adult audience? Yeah, they don't like companies definitely do think about that again. Like if you look at Lego, the black boxes aren't going to appeal to a kid, right? Kids like bright colors, but adults like things that look sleek and high end, right? So... And there's a lot of that on the shelves in front of us, isn't there? Especially in the Lego section. Yeah, yeah, there is. So like,
They catch adults' eyes, and that's why you'll notice too, like we kind of position that stuff a little bit higher, right? So it's at adult eye level. How much of your customer base in terms of the money you've got coming into the tills is from adults buying toys for themselves? I'm going to say it's probably close to 30%, 40% now. Like it's high because you definitely have the collectors. So it's things like...
I mean, Lego, obviously. I do strongly feel Lego is more targeted towards adults now than it has ever been before. Why so? There's all these lines now. It's like they're ideas lines. So they're not for kids. Like they're architect sets, like...
like phone booth sets, fancy McLaren cars, F-150s. Like there's just, there are things that kids aren't going to want. But I think, I think like it starts with like maybe dads trying to build with their kids and like, well, I want something for myself. So then Legos realize they can target people who are in their adulthood who want to do things like the flowers line. Like, I mean, a lot of people can't grow up
Grow flowers. They kind of suck at it. So buy a Lego plant, get some building. You have a beautiful flower that will never die. Right. So I think they just really started targeting that. And it made a big difference. Like, I think it's kind of saved the Lego line because Lego goes through ups and downs. And right now targeting the adults who have the money, who can spend five hundred dollars on a collector set.
It saves them. I mean, where do you think your business and other businesses would be without the adult buyers now? Because obviously you're selling lots of toys, but if the adults weren't buying them, what would the situation be? I think we'd still be doing okay, but probably not as well as we could be. I mean, I do strongly believe toys are recession proof. If you do have kids, you always want your kid to be happy. You just might not buy as many toys, but you'll still buy something.
But if we didn't have that extra little bit of adult buying, there would be hardship sometimes, right? Cost of living pressures is something having an impact across the toy market, though. In the UK, toys sold for less than £15 accounted for nearly half of the market last year.
And following escalating tariffs in the US against China, toy industry officials are warning American consumers to expect higher prices and fewer choices this year. The US imports as much as three quarters of the toy product it sells from China, according to the US Commerce Department. Thanks so much, Laura. Lovely to meet you. Nice to meet you. Take care.
The toy industry has worked hard to bounce back after its global sales fell by 8% in 2023. Since then, the market has pivoted further towards kid alts, an industry term for buyers aged over 12. And like a lot of business success in 2025, the buzz is reflected online. Ever since I was a little kid, I have dreamed of owning a real life size replica of a Ghostbusters proton. Jay Glatfelter is a toy collector and content creator
He makes videos under the name Geek Dad Life. And you could say he's doing his bit to keep the toy industry going. Hi, Jay. How are you doing? I'm doing well, doing well. Happy to be here. Yeah, great to have you with us. Yeah, excited to talk toys. I have to ask, how much do you spend, do you think, on toys each year? Well, what I tell my wife or what I actually spend? Ha ha ha!
How far is this going to be broadcast? Just across the world service, so no biggie. You know, I think easily thousands of dollars a year. It's not a cheap hobby, but there's far more expensive hobbies out there. That's what I tell myself and my wife. Oh, absolutely. Golf clubs don't come cheap. Cars are expensive. Yes, yes. And those are way more than, you know, a $50 action figure. Yeah.
I'm really interested to know about your channel and when it particularly started taking off, because I just wonder if there's a correlation between the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns and the rise in toy collecting. That is 100% an accurate, you know,
assumption or something that you're seeing it. So I started my channel right before the pandemic. I started in October of 2019. And the channel was originally not necessarily going to be just about action figures. But I think what happened during the lockdowns was what were we going to do? We couldn't go out. We couldn't go, you know, do the normal activities that we had become accustomed to.
And one of the things that I think happened for a lot of people, and this is beyond just action figures. You saw this with Pokemon cards and stuff like that, where you're locked in a house. You want to do something to bring joy. And so, you know what? G.I. Joe's. I used to love G.I. Joe. How much are G.I. Joe's now? And you go on eBay.
And then you buy it. And then what happened was a whole bunch of new collectors kind of jumped into toy collecting. And for those of us that were into it before, we saw the prices, the secondary market prices, like explode once the pandemic happened because you had people that –
had time on their hands. Maybe they had extra money because they're not spending it by going out, and now they're putting it into collecting toys. And not only was that true for older stuff, but even the new stuff, because one of the few things you could do is probably go to the grocery store or we go to Target or Walmart or whatever where they have toys and like, okay, I'm going to go hunt the latest toys because it's like the one thing I can do during lockdowns. And so...
The whole thing just exploded after the pandemic. Okay, so a question I've been asking myself while making this, why are more adults buying toys then? If you go for the baby boomer generation, or maybe even younger than that, like how many adults got into doing trains because they had toy trains when they were kids, right?
Frank Sinatra had a train set in his house because he grew up with toy trains, whether it's toy trains, Tinker Toys, whatever, to action figures of the 80s and maybe plushies of the 2000s or whatever. But the thing remains true of trying to seek that comfort that maybe and joy that you had as a kid when you're an adult when the world gets a lot more difficult. Yeah.
We're back in the studio of toy maker Lisa Lee in Vancouver, Canada. Where around the world are you most popular? I do have customers in Europe and in Japan. And speaking of Japan, there's a lot of Japanese influence in a lot of toys these days. The Squishmallow was inspired by Japanese cartoons and the soft toys that they have in Japan. How much do you think...
Creatively, yourself and other makers like you are influenced by Japan and the East. I think we are quite influenced in terms of embracing the cute. I think they've been very helpful in terms of having adults purchase toys and having adults collect them. Embracing more childlike fun and enjoying yourself in play is something I think they've really influenced North America in.
Thank you to Lisa Lee and to all of my guests. You've been listening to Business Daily on the BBC World Service with me, Sam Gruyere. This episode was produced by Megan Lawton. You can find more episodes wherever you get your BBC podcasts. If you're just starting your personal finance journey, Financially Inclined is exactly what you need. I'm Janelia Espinal, host of Financially Inclined, and each week we discuss money lessons you need to know.
Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts.