Wholesale buyer guides

Short, practical guides for shops, operators, teachers and planners buying toys by the case.

• How to buy wholesale toys for resale — How wholesale toy buying works for a small US shop: case packs, unit vs case price, MSRP and keystone margin, minimums, shipping and how to pay.
• Claw machine prizes: what to stock and what they should cost — Which plush and squishies work in a claw or crane machine, how to size them to the claw, and how to work out what a prize can cost at your play price.
• Vending and capsule machine toys: what fits and what pays — How to choose toys for a capsule or bulk vending machine: capsule size, which small toys fit, and the per-vend cost arithmetic.
• Classroom prize box and treasure box toys: a budget guide — How teachers and therapy programs stock a classroom prize box or treasure box in bulk: what to buy, how many, and what it costs per student.
• Party favors and goodie bags in bulk: how much per bag — How party planners and parents fill goodie bags in bulk: a per-bag budget, how many of each item to buy, and which toys work.
• Carnival prizes by tier: small, medium and large — How carnival, fair and festival game operators structure prize stock in small, medium and large tiers, with trade-ups, and what each tier costs at wholesale.
• No-minimum toy wholesale: how to test one case before you commit to a pallet — No-minimum toy wholesale: one case, then decide. Open the case, count the inner packs and check the print before it reaches your shelf.
• How to price toys for a 60% margin — Keystone is the floor, not the ceiling. Here is where impulse toys can go higher, which departments hold a 60% margin at the counter, and how to read the margin printed on every product page before…
• Fidgets after the pop-it peak: what is moving into fall — Pop-its had their run. The reorders now are quieter shapes: slow-rise squishies, magnetic rings and pocket puzzles. Here is what school stores and gift counters are reordering as the weather turns…
• The seasonal reset calendar — Order-by dates for Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s and Easter so cases land before the rush. Here is when to place the order, when to reset the front table and when to mark the remainder down…
• Halloween 2026 wholesale toy trends — Halloween is a hand-out holiday before it is a costume one, and the cases that move reflect that. Glow rings, mini squishies and sticker packs by the case, and how many of each a counter really needs…
• Planning a prize wall that pays — Mixing $0.50 hand-outs with $3 plush to keep the payout ratio profitable. Here is how to tier the wall, which tiers empty first and how to reorder without a gap in the top row…
• Building a stocking-stuffer line under $3 a unit — A stocking-stuffer table is the easiest seasonal build there is: one price point, twelve SKUs, a case of each. Here is how to pick them from the sub-$3 departments and keep the table full through…
• Claw-machine plush: sizing, payout ratio and reorder cadence — A claw is a stock position, not a toy. Here is which plush sizes fit which claw, how to set the payout so the bin still pays, and how often a busy machine actually needs a fresh case…
• Case pricing, explained — “Factory-direct” gets said a lot. Here is what actually changes in the math when the distributor is gone: unit cost, case cost, MSRP and the profit per case, before you buy…
• Back-to-school fidgets: what school stores reorder in September — The first reorder of the school year tells you what the year will look like. Here is what school stores and camp canteens reordered in the first two weeks of September, and what they dropped…