The holidays are a big part of the collectibles industry. Whether its sports cards, Pokemon, Star Wars, toys, comics, or jewelry doesn’t seem to matter. The reality is that all of these sectors within collectibles tend to see the buying rush from consumers during November and December. And in 2021 so many stores and online destinations are flashing customers with “out of stock” notices. Shoppers and collectors better be creative when it comes to looking for “deals” online and in stores for the 2021 holiday season.

Collectors Dashboard usually evaluates high-end collectibles as an alternative asset class. That means the same capital that would have otherwise gone into stocks or bonds is used to buy collectibles instead. Many of the holiday gifts may not fall into high-end collectibles, but many will.

Collectors Dashboard wanted to look at the gift categories in 2021 that overlap with the collectibles theme. With so many regular items stuck on ships or stuck at ports late in 2021, this year is going to be strong in pre-owned merchandise. That points to strength for collectibles in general. We also included observations from other sites that are popular. These included Amazon, Walmart, Target, Topps, Panini, GameStop and more.

Adobe Inc. has released its latest holiday online shopping data with a comprehensive review of U.S. e-commerce trends for Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and what it expects for Cyber Monday. Their analysis is represented to cover more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites, as well as 100 million SKUs over 18 product categories.

According to Adobe, Inc., the top selling products on Thanksgiving Day were listed as follows: Just Dance 2022, Oculus Quest, Rainbow High Dolls, Rainbocorns, Apple iPads, Apple Watch, Nintendo Switch. Adobe also specified that the company expects these products to continue to be in-demand throughout the season. The report said:

Total online spending on Black Friday was $8.9B, which is at the low end of Adobe’s predicted range and slightly lower than 2020 ($9B). With Thanksgiving Day coming in flat YoY at $5.1B, this marks the first time where both days did not see an increase in online spending YoY, another sign that consumers started to shift their spending to earlier in the season, responding to promotions and deals from retailers that started in October.

Cyber Week, including Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, are still by far the strongest online sales days of the season. Cyber Monday is expected to be the biggest online shopping day of 2021, with between $10.2B and $11.3B in online spend… So far this holiday season (Nov. 1 – Dec. 26), consumers have spent $89.9B and are on track to hit $207B…

TRADING CARDS

There were not many Black Friday deals happening through the main outlets for card buying like Walmart, Target and Amazon. The reality is that sports cards have enough demand they do not have to offer mega-discounts to sell the products. Topps was promoting “huge deals through Cyber Monday” in Project 2020 prints ($150), Wall Art (50% off on pre-Oct. items), custom cards (50% off) and Authentics (40% off). It also has new releases and NFTs coming up for a November 30 sale.

Both Target and Walmart had many sports cards and nonsports cards for sale, but as you would expect the number of in-store pickup items was much lower. Translation — they don’t have as many items or at least not as many choices in stores versus what can shipped to card buyers who shopped online.

Panini still has many items, but don’t be expecting “deals” galore. The “Trending Products” were $3,000 (baseball) and $1,500 (NFL, and then Basketball in an online exclusive).

Parents may not care about these two key issues that are hurting the trends of sports cards. Collectors are facing flooded populations of base cards. The collecting community remains a hostage of delays by the major grading companies. Many key stars have had disappointing performance in 2021. All combined, this is keeping a lid on modern era price trends in general for the collectors who love to wheel and deal in new cards.

NEW COLLECTIBLES

The category for Rainbow High Dolls featured dolls generally starting at $26.99 on up and the Rainbow High House up to $159.00. Will the Rainbow High Dolls remain hot young girls who become collectors or will they lose ground to social media and other online activity like so many other categories have seen over the last decade?

While there are many destinations for shoppers to hit, the Big 3 of Walmart, Target and Amazon have multiple Rainbocorns prices from under $10 to $30. Some are priced even higher.

BARBIE & SPIDER-MAN REMAIN HOT

Adobe Video noted that the hot categories remained within Games, Toys and Electronics as top sellers on Small Business Saturday. The top sellers in Adobe’s database included Just Dance 2022, Spider-Man Miles Morales, AirPods, 10.2 inch iPad, Oculus Quest 2, Samsung, TCL, Vizio TVs, Barbie toys, Baby Alive, and hoverboards.

Barbie is owned by toy company Mattel, Inc. and it has been a gift since 1959, with many more releases starting in the 1960s and 1970s.

Star Wars Toys were also cited as strong within Adobe’s data. Other searches elsewhere outside of Adobe’s data pointed to dolls or figures, accessories and the Hasbro Black series of helmets and related items. Many of those items are of course being touted as collectibles.

SHOPPING TRENDS THAT ARE STICKY

Two trends that have performed incredibly well in 2021. Buy now pay later (BNPL) growth has been very strong, and mobile shopping trends have dominated. Another trend which may have ties to new reports of the Omicron variant of COVID is that curbside pickup remains strong. Adobe’s Digital Economic Index included notes on these two categories and a prior day’s report that included curbside pickup, as follows:

• Usage of BNPL so far in November has grown substantially over the same period in 2019, with total spending via BNPL up 422% and volume of orders up 438%.
• Smartphones accounted for 44.4% of all online sales on Black Friday, which is up 10.6% YoY. Smartphone visits accounted for a whopping 62.2% share compared to desktop (up 2.2% YoY), showing again that consumers still prefer to browse on mobile, but make the purchase on a desktop device.
• So far in November, curbside pickup is up 78% compared to pre-pandemic levels (Nov 2019). In comparison, standard shipping for retailers offering curbside is also up 29% over the same time period. Consumers are using curbside pickup to be sure they get the items they need in time and safely.

LOOKING AHEAD

As of this time, Cyber Monday has not yet been seen. This will represent a new back-to-school effort after the Thanksgiving break and some of the travel restrictions around the new COVID variant (Omicron) are only just beginning to hit the news. If those have an impact on in-person activities, then online and curbside pickup should continue to remain strong through the end of the holiday season.

Just don’t expect those out of stock announcements to suddenly replenish themselves — which will mean that gift card giving could carry over more into 2022 as stores and online shopping destinations get the merchandise back on their shelves that is currently stuck offshore, on docks or stuck at regional shipping destinations.