Kinda long but interesting Wall Street Journal article about 7-year olds selling used toys online in order to make new stuff happen...

http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB122 ... 9197.html#

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Santa Needs a Bailout, Too: Kids Sell Old Toys to Raise Cash for New Ones
By JENNIFER SARANOW

When 7-year-old Faith Corbin asked her mother for a Ruthie Smithens doll for Christmas, her mother gave her some bad news. Because of the bad economy, there would be no expensive dolls this year.

"I can't really justify spending another $100 on a doll," says Barbara Corbin, 42, of Bowie, Md. Declining home values and mounting expenses for everything from school to food have put an end to the days of buying her four children whatever they want, she says.

Having seen her mother buy things online, Faith, a second-grader at St. Pius X Regional School, suggested selling some of her toys online to raise money for the Ruthie doll, which coincidentally represents the Depression era in Mattel Inc.'s American Girl series. "I wanted to sell to some people who don't have much toys," says Faith, whose mother helped her place an ad on craigslist to sell some American Girl doll clothes, accessories and paraphernalia for $100. "I'm waiting for the money," says Faith, who has been pestering her mother to "hurry up" and sell the items.

These straitened times have brought out a different kind of holiday spirit in children like Faith: the entrepreneurial spirit of Christmas presents. As many parents cut back on holiday spending this year, their children are figuring out ways to get the money to buy what they really want. They are asking their parents to post ads online to sell their old stuff or to hawk it on eBay. Some are showing up with used gadgets, toys and game consoles at malls and fast-food chains where people congregate.

The number of postings in the "games/toys for sale" category at craigslist more than doubled to 396,197 last month from 190,157 a year earlier. Many of this year's listings include the phrases "my son is selling" or "my daughter is selling," for items ranging from Bratz dolls to the Game Boy Advance.

On eBay, more than 3,600 used toys were available on Dec. 2, and more than 2,000 were sold for an average of $30.21 in the previous week. "Kids are smart, and when their parents are telling them 'No,' they are looking for other ways to make it happen," says Cat Schwartz, eBay's gadget and toy director.

By late last week, a quarter of the 500 mothers of 8- to 12-year-olds surveyed by the research and strategy firm Just Kid Inc. said their children had considered selling old toys and games to help pay for gifts this holiday season; 11% said their children had already done so and 6% said their children had sold more this year. In many cases, respondents said their children wanted to buy something for themselves.

That was the motive for Ashley Suplicki. Three months ago, the fifth-grader in Dallas, Ga., told her mother she wanted a new blue iPod nano and a Nintendo Wii system for Christmas. When her mother said she would have to choose one this year because "Santa is having a tough year, too," Ashley selected the Wii and asked whether she could sell her old gadgets to buy herself the new nano.

Last month, with the help of her mother, Jennifer, a single mom who was laid off last year and was unemployed until April this year, Ashley sold her iPod Shuffle and a karaoke machine on craigslist for a total of $50. Because there were already so many Game Boys for sale on craigslist, she took her Game Boy and four games to a pawnshop, where she sold them for $45. "I'm trying to sell as much as I can," says Ashley, who has put together a pile of old Barbie items she would like to get rid of.

Sometimes, it's the parents who think selling is a good idea. To teach her children a lesson about how much they have, Erin Scharba Judge of Anoka, Minn., has been encouraging her two young sons to donate toys they don't care about to charity and sell special toys they no longer use. Last month, she helped 5-year-old Alex sell his old Diego's Mobile Rescue Unit and other Diego items for $40. He used the money to buy himself and his siblings gifts. Selling "will help them with their money management, it will help them with not being pack rats, and it will help them with their generosity," says Mrs. Judge, who adds that things are a little tight this year for the family because her husband's work hours were recently cut and they are expecting a fifth child.

Entrepreneurial children are benefiting from the fact that toys and gadgets are more expensive this year. The prices of toys on toy guide best-seller lists this holiday season are, on average, 40% to 50% higher than they were five years ago, estimates Sean McGowan, a veteran toy-industry analyst with Needham & Co.

Items such as iPods, Wiis, videogame systems, laptops, American Girl dolls and Leapster learning games can bring in big sums. On eBay in November, for instance, pre-owned American Girl dolls sold for an average of $53.10.

But not everything sells. Alexys Haskell, a fifth-grader in Apple Valley, Minn., has been trying to sell her Hannah Montana doll and shirt for $5 on craigslist since her mother, Kathleen, informed her that she couldn't afford to give her and her sister money to buy each other Christmas gifts this year. But so far, Alexys has no takers. Only her 9-year-old sister's lava lamp has sold -- for $5.

"It's a little bit depressing. I wish I could buy them what they wanted," says Mrs. Haskell. She says rising medical and other expenses forced her to cut her Christmas budget.

Sometimes the children drive a hard bargain. Reef Koch, a sixth-grader in Reston, Va., asked his mother last month whether he could sell his toy box full of hundreds of Power Ranger figures and accessories for extra money to buy himself and his family gifts. He wanted to sell the box for $200 on craigslist, but his mom persuaded him to list it at $40.

"He still thinks it's worth a lot more," says his mother, Kelly, a 34-year-old stay-at-home mom who has been looking for a job for a year and says things are tighter in her household this year. So far, they have received one offer for $25, but Reef turned it down. "It was too cheap for all those Power Rangers," he says. "It seemed like a rip-off."

That is interesting. But to be honest, if I had asked for a Wii AND an iPod for Christmas as a kid, I probably would have gotten nothing.

So true!

As for the article, I guess it's a good lesson to teach your kids that if you want something, you have to give things up (even if it is a toy you no longer care about). A better lesson, I think, would be teaching their kids to make better choices in the first place and insist they pick things that they'll still want a week or a month after Christmas. If as a kid, I'd started selling off all my toys (while they were still in good enough condition that others would pay good money for them), the only outcome would be that my parents would stop buying stuff for me to begin with. I realize that the marketing machine is quite a bit more agreesive now than it was when I was a kid, but jesus kids are spoiled these days. It seems parents have forgotten how to say 'no.' There were plenty of years growing up when my parent's didn't have much extra $$ at XMAS time. We got less those years. That's all.

I would have gotten an awful pullover from K-Mart and a kick in the pants.

But, seriously, I used to buy off-the-shelf Bandai Ultraman, Kaiju and Rider figures for my nephews, and they would play with those more than the more expensive toys they got for Christmas... I eventually upgraded them to the Soul of Sofibi line, and I gave my niece the Bijinda. She still ended up absconding her brother's Kikaida, too.

This is beyond ironic, it's meta-ironic.

I gave my niece that Popy Robocon pendant today, I think she likes it more than her dog.

This article is interesting, because it never mentions allowances or kids saving on their own. I knew I had to do that as a kid. And I routinely went to thrift and junk stores in my neighborhood with my parents and found awesome stuff there. It's only when I met a few snotbag kids they mocked the fact I had toys that were either from a discount store or used. But I didn't care. Heck, my childhood Matchbox car collection was jumpstarted when I found a whole bunch of them tossed in the trash.

Heck, this past week I made a donation to a local thrift store of this huge box of toy cars I found in the neighborhood. Lots of Matchbox and Hot Wheels, all in great shape and just tossed.

And when I got sick of Mego action figures as a kid, I sold them all to pay for Micronauts and Microman stuff. And I traded toys all the time. Everyone in my neighborhood did.

I know it's cliche to say "Oh those kids nowadays." but geez. $100 doll? I can't wait until that kid grows up and gets a maid! For $100 a day it's a poor "depression era" person who will clean your house.

Lets not forget many of us on this board have spent $100 on a toy or made a $100 purchase containing a couple of toys. Which leads me to agree with the irony statement...this thread is FULL of irony!

We've probably all spent over a hundred dollars on many toys, true, but it was with money (I presume) we earned ourselves. I'd be a Grade-A ungrateful s**t if I started selling off gifts at a rate of 2, 3 or more to 1 in order to maintain my habit.

Exactly. It's not the same. An adult who earns their own money is much different than a kid shielded from the world, who has never worked who wants a $100 doll.

The irony I was referring to was the fact that the doll represents the Depression era, when many people didn't money to spend on food, much less dolls, as well as the idea that we may be headed into a Depression ourselves. Polishing the brass on the Titanic and all that.

I'm not shocked by this. Most of my dolls cost $100+. I have several that cost $300-$600. For One Doll. The $600 one i'm mentioning is vintage, but the $300 one was retail cost for a doll made in 2005.

Generally speaking, dolls ain't a cheap habit. (unless you are talking barbie or bratz)

I know this and I got it, sorry to misquote anyone. I found the other statement ironic, but for a different reason than the depression irony.

It makes sense to me. Dolls have the added labor costs of intricate painted facial features and hair, plus the clothes, and I believe that dolls are subject to additional tarriffs that other toys don't accrue.

Has it been a year already?

I saw the title and didn't recognize the thread. Thought someone hacked my account...

This thread seems more fitting for the board this year than last.
"I want to sell the toys I bought a few weeks ago and don't care about anymore for the toy I want this week."

we begged for a Nintendo for years and ended up getting one the year before SNES came out.
christmas really fosters a materialistic desire in children, and this article only supports that fact by claiming that kid's have evolved their thinking to new strategies. what happened to Santa? he either brings you your toy or he doesn't; you were either good or bad (and you knew which one).

Damn, I remember when I was kid, I went around the neighborhood shoveling as many driveways as I could. Why? To buy Street Fighter 2.

Edit: As I got older, I started to construct bird houses and sell them around the neighborhood. Looking back, they were pretty crappy. It was nice of my neighbors to buy them.