Beanie Dictatorship.COM (ty.com)

Name: fluffypup

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	ty.com
Date:	20/08/00 (287 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lists all the beanie babies

Disadvantages: Crassly american, amateurish, always under development and a spring board for Ty's marketing strategies

Living in a house mad on collecting Ty beanie babies you would think this would be a pretty top notch website. You would be sadly mistaken, unless you happen to be under 8 years old or American! It highlights the different range of Ty products - beanie babies, beanie buddies, plush, beanie kids, attic treasures etc. The website also has message boards, trading forums and chat forums, all of which are largely dominated by gullible goodie-goodie Americans and heavily editted by the Ty company. Most of its features are under development, an example is the beanie baby greetings.

Ty Beanie Babies are the biggest selling soft bean bag toy manufacturer and distributor in the world. Head of the company and chief dictator is Ty Warner. Beanie babies come in all shapes and forms ranging from bears, dogs, cats, fish, reptiles, insects etc. Each beanie baby is only on the market for a very limited time and then withdrawn (within months or years) thus increasing each one's value. The most valuable beanies are the bears, which used to be sold on a multi-buy system (buy 5 ordinary beanies to get a bear). This multi-buy scheme back fired when Ty decided to end the beanie baby range and everyone was left with loads of spare beanies which left people unable to trade or sell and thus increase the hatred of the Ty company. The other ranges of Ty products follow a similar marketing strategy.

The good points about the website is that it gives you a full list of all the beanies, and other products, which are current or retired. The bad points is that its poorly maintained/developed and is typically crass American mentality, especially the sayings of the day about beanies. It might be self gratification for Ty but keeps us reaching for our sick bags each visit.

It is also used as a spring board for Ty to play his marketing strategies. He enforces his selling strategies on us collectors (eg. saying that only retailers attending certain toy fairs will get a ce
rtain batch of beanies). He started beanies babies for kids but its only affordable for adults. Beanie collectorshave been exploited by the secondary sellers/traders because availability of the beanie/bears. Retailers have been known to bypass selling them in their shops and sell them on thhe open market - car boot, fairs and internet.

The website's selling strategies, plus the amatuer nature of the website makes it very hateable to most collectors, including ourselves. We should know because we play an active part in alt.collecting.beanie-babies.uk newsgroup and regularly discuss Ty's products/strategies. If you want to be kept up-to-date about beanie gossip and events then check out the newsgroups for a regular filter of beanie information without the bull and crassness.

Summary: