Customer demands of 2024 and 2025 are painting an unexpected forecast for 2026, and American toy and amusement supply companies are responding in stride.
According to Reuters, Pop Mart, the powerhouse company behind the global sensation Labubu, earned over $4 billion in revenue in 2025 alone, before their recent move to release even tinier Labubu known as the Pin for Love series.
Even Pop Mart itself is going smaller this year.
It seems to go against all design and marketing norms for product sales. We normally expect customers to want larger products (a perceived ‘bang for their buck’), and choose exactly what they’d like from a selection.
The explosion of blind box toy sales has changed things.
Customers are loving the thrill of the unknown, and an entire subgenre of YouTube unboxing videos has emerged where collectors open toy packages on screen to reveal which one they got.
Toy purchases have seemingly become as much about the removal of packaging as about the toy itself.
The entire toy acquisition experience has become an extended thrill ride.
And when the toy is out of the bag, the chase has only just begun.
According to MGA Entertainment’s founder and CEO Isaac Larian on LinkedIn, their new Bratziez release in Mexico was sold out within a day.
“It’s proof that when a brand connects emotionally — across language, across borders — it becomes culture.”
The “Labubu effect” across multiple major toy brands is clear — smaller, wearable, and sometimes blind-box-ified toys are going to dominate in 2026.
Retail store shoppers and fairgoers alike are chasing the experience of blind-box collection building and accessorizing with their spoils like never before.
The trend is clear: toys aren’t just for kids’ playrooms and bedroom shelves anymore.
Build-A-Bear has joined the party: in December of 2025, they dropped their line of Bag Charms.
No crazy name, no wild color-pop marketing.
Just sleek, gray-background product photos of their iconic stuffed animals mini-fied and clipped to classy purses.
Store brands are clearly making a huge push to respond to Pop Mart’s impact.
Likewise, amusement supply brands are making their moves as well.
We all saw Labubu completely take over the midway in 2025, and stock suppliers are responding accordingly in 2026.
Micro Teenies, originally by legendary toy brand Schylling Inc., are now additionally being sold exclusively to amusement companies and concessionaires through the well-established supplier Rhode Island Novelty.
Rhode Island Novelty (RINCO) has responded to the trend toward portable plush by offering the already successful Micro Teenies… with a new twist you can probably guess.
Licensed character sets such as Sanrio and Care Bears have been sold in Micro Teenies form in big box stores such as Walmart for at least two years, but RINCO’s newest iteration features an essential added element: the clip.
Iconic licensed characters rendered as adorable bag charms?
The Midway is going to look even more different in 2026.
Update: while writing this article, Rhode Island Novelty posted a video to their YouTube channel announcing their new line of blind pack toys. We told ya!
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