Bearconomics! Interview with XclusiveAF

Why Bearbrick:

First, why did I even come to Bearbrick? I buy them, and it's an investment. I look at them, I have a cool collection, and on the other hand, I know that my collection grows every year, like gold.  

<...> When you have something, and in a year it has increased in price even by a hundred dollars—it's just… you're not losing money. I even tell everyone, especially with the big bears that [cost] more than ten thousand dollars: <...> why would you let that ten thousand just sit in your account when you can put in ten thousand, and in a year, your bear is worth thirteen thousand? That's how I look at it. The most I ever spent on a bear was twenty-five thousand dollars: I bought the Chanel. And I was aware that twenty-five thousand dollars is roughly an American annual salary, but I invested those twenty-five thousand dollars because I knew I would sell it: I sold one Chanel for 68 thousand. <...> My wife was just in shock; I was in shock myself when I bought it, but I knew that <...> worst case scenario—I could list it on eBay with a starting bid of one dollar, and I would at least <...> make ten thousand dollars on top. If you know, you know—twenty-five thousand dollars is nothing compared to Bearbrick. I’ve had four Chanels in my hands; sold two, still have two, selling them now for 75 thousand dollars. If no one wants them—okay, because one day, a buyer will come.  

Also, I had been buying Bearbricks and KAWS figures just based on what I liked, my taste. Then, as you grow, you have more money, more capital, you can spend more… I thought, "Why don’t I buy this thing too?"—a guy kept offering it to me, I thought, eh, some nonsense. And what happened? The nonsense I never used to take—I started selling more of that than the Bearbricks I bought for myself. That’s why I tell everyone—there’s always a buyer for every Bearbrick toy. I used to avoid, I don’t know… whatever I didn’t like, but now I buy everything: if I get offered something, if I see something— I buy everything. I don’t choose. Even if I buy something I don’t like—maybe you’ll like it? Maybe Ilya [Popov, art toy collector, the owner of the Riki toys collection, Editor’s note]  will like it, even if I don’t at all… And plus, the person who comes to buy a toy I don’t like—they’ll come back and buy something else I got, because people come back. Like I said, it’s like a drug—once you buy one Bearbrick, collections grow, and fast.  

On new releases: 

<...> I try not to buy new releases at all, because as a reseller, there’s no money in them for me: if I buy a new release for a hundred dollars, I won’t even be able to sell it for a hundred, because everyone can buy a new release. Everything I buy is super rare, super expensive, things you just don’t see. I don’t know who else has an Instagram and a collection like mine, where you can find almost everything that’s ever been released; if we don’t have it, that means we already sold it. And we can also get practically any [figure] in principle. But new releases—I don’t even follow them, to be honest. Not interesting.  

Plus, the new releases, especially from Medicom [Toy]—they don’t put out anything, I’d say, that makes you go "wow." I see them—maybe I don’t see them first, because I don’t follow—but even a week later, when I do see them, there’s just no "wow" effect. It’s all mass-market: Tom and Jerry, Goofy, Donald Duck—that’s what’s been released lately—Lucky Cat, I don’t know. The same thing over and over.  

On fair pricing:

<...> What sometimes frustrates me is when people sell at super high prices, and then the person who tries to resell it… If you come as a buyer and they tell you it’s an investment, it increases in value like gold. That’s true, yes. But you always have to buy smart. If you don’t buy smart, you’ll end up hating all these toys you overpaid millions of dollars for—well, not millions, but still, doesn’t matter.  

That’s why I always buy smart. Whenever I sell, I try to give people a price slightly below market. Maybe fifty dollars less, maybe seventy dollars less. So that if they ever want to exit, they won’t hate me for life. Because if I sell something for ten thousand dollars, and tomorrow they have problems, they need money, and they try to resell it, and they realize, "Oh, this thing for ten thousand dollars—I can’t even sell it for three thousand"—I can’t allow that, because of my reputation. I want collectors and regular people to come to me, and when they want to leave the game, they should at least get their money back.  

On designer toy market in the USA: 

<...> The Bearbrick culture in America is still weak, very weak, I’d say—it basically doesn’t exist, and there are no fakes. In China, they make fake KAWS figures because KAWS is KAWS. But Bearbrick… They make them, but it’s not as popular.  

Sneakers, though—that’s a whole culture, people go crazy buying and selling them… Here, we have DCon once a year, but sneaker conventions in America happen practically every month, traveling across states: New York, then in January, they come to Miami, I’ll go there, and… it’s a whole culture. But Bearbricks and designer toys in general—nobody knows anything about them. They don’t even know pop art.  

Just take Designer Con, for example—people don’t even know [about it], and Popmart—Americans don’t know about Popmart, Labubu. Everyone standing in line—Asians. That shows how nonexistent the market is in America, to be honest. And the people who buy Bearbricks? Probably 80% are resellers. They buy and make money. It’s sad, and it’s not sad, you know?  

It’s such a small niche. And I don’t understand Medicom—why don’t they expand into different countries? There are retail stores (like 3D Retro and Toy Tokyo in New York), only two stores in all of America. In Russia, there are zero stores. Nikita [Efremov, Editor’s note] is a reseller, he buys and sells. But to buy directly… Even when DCon happened, I asked Alex from 3D Retro, "Do you even make money?"—they have a huge space, so much money [spent]. They said, "No." They’ve been doing this for twenty years! I asked, "Why? For the culture?" They said, "Yes." They’re just promoting it, and they’ve been doing it for nineteen years, the next DCon is their twentieth anniversary. Imagine that, and still nobody knows. I told them, "Hey, let’s do something in Miami?"—"There’s just no money." I’m talking to the biggest people. And Medicom—I don’t understand why they can’t promote themselves. These organizers—why should they promote it at their own expense? The potential is huge. Once people buy—it’s like a drug. Bears are amazing.  

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