Squishmallows: cuddly toys fuel an obsession – and a price-gouging crisis
Leah Swift, an 18-year-old college student in West Virginia, bought her first Squishmallow in October 2020. Less than two years later, she has amassed 350 of the cute, cuddly toys, which overflow from the shelves of her small bedroom.
Swift regularly posts videos about her vast collection on TikTok, where she’s garnered nearly 400,000 followers and 11m likes.
“It’s gotten to the point where people will stop me on campus and ask if I am the Squishmallow girl from TikTok,” she said. “It’s crazy. When I started making these videos, I never thought it would be this big of a deal.”
Squishmallows, a line of whimsical and rounded stuffed creatureslaunched by the toy company Kellytoy in 2017, have boomed in popularity in recent years. Much like Beanie Babies in the 1990s, the toys have sparked a fanatical following of Squishmallow “hunters” who flock to stores in search of new and rare models.
But the craze has also been beset by controversy, as rising demand fuels a pricey black market for Squishmallow resales. Resellers report making as much as six figures a year buying up and flipping the toys, which critics say is stripping shelves bare for genuine collectors.
Now, Squishmallow influencers like Swift have found themselves pulled into a debate over the etiquette of buying and reselling the toys.
Swift bought her first Squishmallow, a strawberry-shaped toy named Scarlet, for just $5. The same model now goes for as much as $25 on resale sites like Depop and Mercari. Swift estimates she could resell her collection for about $3,000 total – but would not dream of it.
“I am against reselling Squishmallows for any more than their retail value,” she said. “There are people who get into the space for all the wrong reasons, and it is having a
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