The death of Funko Soda

[Tusken]

What caused a popular line to die off as I really did enjoy the soda line and thought they had something with it outside the norm of Funko.

[BigM]

This isn’t super surprising. There has not been anything that has come close to the popularity of pop except maybe mystery minis. But even then, they’re blind boxes which have been done by many other companies and Funko has other styles of them. Plus they’re no where on the same level of recognition in pop culture.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely love many of their lines outside of pop but every line that is a hit is temporary and can’t compete against pop. There’s a reason why it’s been going on over 10 years and is going to outlast the life span of Wacky Wobblers.

If you love a line, buy it, talk about it, share it. If enough people buy it, they’ll make it. However, at this point I don’t see anything overtaking pop in popularity. People thought Dorbz would have the staying power before Soda.

Circling back, this has been brought up before and part of it comes down to displaying them (boxes are easier to store and set on top of each other) and also the nature of the product being blind buys means some people buy multiple to get a chase and then end up with duplicates that they have to unload. They also just aren’t as popular as Pop.

Soda has had its time and who knows they could continue making them.

[Jchillin92]

I was collecting the anime ones. Sad they never made any one puece ones

[SpaceDude]

I really enjoy collecting the soda line!! Hope it doesn't end forever.

[mikechickenhead]

I actually loved the sodas

[jmosh42]

I was collecting the anime ones. Sad they never made any one puece ones

Same! Hopefully they at least bring that line

[Jchillin92]

I was collecting the anime ones. Sad they never made any one puece ones

Same! Hopefully they at least bring that line

Facts

[FireEmblemZack]

I think two factors additionally are price and properties.

When Soda started, they were cheaper than POPs and when Soda started to end they were more expensive than POPs. Makes it a lot harder to justify especially when retailer exclusives are starting at $18.

For properties, they shifted to do what POP does and do "fast fashion" aka the trendy IPs of the month. Stuff like Ted Lasso and Squid Game or the latest Marvel show that people would forget in a week that just sat on shelves and clearanced out. Versus when the line started it was seasoned, well-known longtime classic characters.

I love Soda so much still, I really miss this era. Soda got me through some sad times (yes I know that sounds cheesy) during the early pandemic and it allowed me to meet my friends in the Funko space!

[Scotty]

I think two factors additionally are price and properties.

When Soda started, they were cheaper than POPs and when Soda started to end they were more expensive than POPs. Makes it a lot harder to justify especially when retailer exclusives are starting at $18.

For properties, they shifted to do what POP does and do "fast fashion" aka the trendy IPs of the month. Stuff like Ted Lasso and Squid Game or the latest Marvel show that people would forget in a week that just sat on shelves and clearanced out. Versus when the line started it was seasoned, well-known longtime classic characters.

I love Soda so much still, I really miss this era. Soda got me through some sad times (yes I know that sounds cheesy) during the early pandemic and it allowed me to meet my friends in the Funko space!

Great assessment Zack. I really liked the original waves of Soda as well becaue they hit on all the classic characters of my youth. If they had kept making those items, I would have kept buying them. But I can't remember the last Soda I bought it was so long ago.

[jmosh42]

I think two factors additionally are price and properties.

When Soda started, they were cheaper than POPs and when Soda started to end they were more expensive than POPs. Makes it a lot harder to justify especially when retailer exclusives are starting at $18.

For properties, they shifted to do what POP does and do "fast fashion" aka the trendy IPs of the month. Stuff like Ted Lasso and Squid Game or the latest Marvel show that people would forget in a week that just sat on shelves and clearanced out. Versus when the line started it was seasoned, well-known longtime classic characters.

I love Soda so much still, I really miss this era. Soda got me through some sad times (yes I know that sounds cheesy) during the early pandemic and it allowed me to meet my friends in the Funko space!

This is true. Trend chasing only takes you so far. It seems like they didn’t really plan further than the initial release

[Katers]

I think two factors additionally are price and properties.

When Soda started, they were cheaper than POPs and when Soda started to end they were more expensive than POPs. Makes it a lot harder to justify especially when retailer exclusives are starting at $18.

For properties, they shifted to do what POP does and do "fast fashion" aka the trendy IPs of the month. Stuff like Ted Lasso and Squid Game or the latest Marvel show that people would forget in a week that just sat on shelves and clearanced out. Versus when the line started it was seasoned, well-known longtime classic characters.

I love Soda so much still, I really miss this era. Soda got me through some sad times (yes I know that sounds cheesy) during the early pandemic and it allowed me to meet my friends in the Funko space!

I also think that the end of the limited piece counts, and putting them out on shelves in stores contributed to the problems sodas have had. The unlimited supply quickly oversaturated the market, and took the sodas from something special to just something you bought, often to complete a set. It took the thrill of victory away. I can remember in the early days doing immediate preorders of exciting drops, but that unlimited? I can wait until payday to order!

And once they were out on shelves, we started seeing all the problems we saw with mystery minis. Opened cans, empty cans, picked over inventory. Plenty of sodas I wanted, but was unable to get online and only found opened on shelves.

I miss adding new sodas to my collection. But I don't miss trying to figure out where they're going to go for display or storage! The occasional new soda at a Fundays experience, or a convention, keep them going for me and cause a lot fewer problems.

[Mr Yac]

What caused a popular line to die off as I really did enjoy the soda line and thought they had something with it outside the norm of Funko.

i loved the soda line, limited pieces on super obscure characters was so much fun to watch every new wave to see who might pop up next. but greed killed them just like it kills nearly every other form of collectible, the ever increasing edition sizes ballooning to insane numbers (i don't care what anybody says 9000 of something isn't limited) and then to add extra salt the marvel crap getting infinite edition sizes was the death blow, i don't know who is in charge of decisions like that but i hope the genius who thought that infinity people on this planet wanted the chance to own a soda of black panther's mother received a very poor job review that year.

[Scotty]

"...i hope the genius who thought that infinity people on this planet wanted the chance to own a soda of black panther's mother received a very poor job review that year."

Too funny

[DrunkoPop]

What caused a popular line to die off as I really did enjoy the soda line and thought they had something with it outside the norm of Funko.

i loved the soda line, limited pieces on super obscure characters was so much fun to watch every new wave to see who might pop up next. but greed killed them just like it kills nearly every other form of collectible, the ever increasing edition sizes ballooning to insane numbers (i don't care what anybody says 9000 of something isn't limited) and then to add extra salt the marvel crap getting infinite edition sizes was the death blow, i don't know who is in charge of decisions like that but i hope the genius who thought that infinity people on this planet wanted the chance to own a soda of black panther's mother received a very poor job review that year.

I 100% agree and if I may add the Cooler idea got way out of hand. Like what was I going to do with all of these different coolers? We were guaranteed a random chase. What if I didn’t like it. Coolers had to stop at some point.

[Squird]

I don't think they were ever as popular as people thought. A lot of flippers buying six at at time to get the chases made it look like the line was a hit. Anyone trying to sell a common will tell you there was NOBODY buying them unless you dropped your shorts.

Once they started doing the unlimited editions and raising the prices...who cared.

They were fun while they lasted.

I saw somewhere that the original intent for soda was more in line with the Rokimoto figures that Mike's doing now and I can see that.

[DrunkoPop]

I don't think they were ever as popular as people thought. A lot of flippers buying six at at time to get the chases made it look like the line was a hit. Anyone trying to sell a common will tell you there was NOBODY buying them unless you dropped your shorts.

Once they started doing the unlimited editions and raising the prices...who cared.

They were fun while they lasted.

I saw somewhere that the original intent for soda was more in line with the Rokimoto figures that Mike's doing now and I can see that.

All fair points. I use to frequent Pop swaps and Toy shows. I almost
never ever seen them there. Unless it was a Chase and it had to be extremely popular.

[Rxiempire]

I think because they stopped doing chase sodas in the funday boxes and other box drops along with the increase in number count so they could supply the Walmart and target stores made whatever chase they were having didn't hold any value because you could still go to the store and buy whatever sodas and take a chance at chase if they were a smaller count so they could have sold out would have made them more desirable

[jmosh42]

The extremely high numbered sodas were very off-putting. At some point you just knew you could wait it out and get them on clearance later on.