Yesterday, Funko, a popular manufacturer of physical and digital collectibles, launched the drop of its new set of NFTs dedicated to Harry Potter. While many collectors acknowledged that the physical figurines redeemable for the NFT Harry Potter Funko Pops looked unique and captivating, the toy company did not manage to finish the drop without losses. As per its representative Nicci, 13,538 Standard Packages and 4,822 Premium Packages out of 62,000 remained unsold, totaling 18,360.
Read also: The Biggest Droppp Failure: 53% Squid Game Funko Pop NFTs Burnt
With rough estimations, it seems that almost 29.4% of the collection was unsold and subsequently burned according to Funko’s tradition, which disposes of NFTs that do not find their owners during the drop. However, seasoned Funko NFT collectors like the team behind the Gastlecast YouTube channel suggest that the calculation of the lost digital Harry Potter Funko Pops should consider the type of packages, as Standard and Premium sets had a different number of NFTs.
While each Standard Package contained five collectibles, the number of NFTs in a Premium Package was extended to seventeen, unlike a traditional set of fifteen items frequently provided by Funko in the past. Based on this difference, the total loss is smaller than the one estimated with a general calculation, amounting to just 21.76%.
These statistics sparked lots of discussions in the collectors’ community, mainly because there are many possibilities for its interpretation, making it unclear whether the drop was successful or not after all.
Some collectors, including the Gastlecast team, find the results of the drop an indication of a negative trend in Funko’s position in the market.
Indeed, the significant amount of unsold NFTs adds up to the impression caused by the lack of participants in the recent Funko drops. The recent one, dedicated to Squid Game, has experienced a particularly notable negative trend within the NFT community. Despite the immense popularity of the TV show and efforts made by Funko and the Droppp marketplace to enhance the user experience, the results were disappointing. The unsold NFTs, estimated at 53%, mark a significant setback, referred to by the Pop in Stock Funko NFT tracker as "the biggest burn percentage so far in the Droppp and Funko NFT world."
The drop of the Mickey and Friends Funko NFT collection has met a similar fate, selling only 47.24% of all collectibles.
Furthermore, Pop in Stock reported a broader pattern of the downturn, with only "two of the last eight drops sold out."
It appears that many collectors have refrained from participating in the Harry Potter Funko Pop drop due to frequent issues with shipping, even though many of them found the designs used for the molds of physical figurines, redeemable for collecting Royal, Grail, and Legendary sets of digital collectibles, truly creative. Reportedly, collectors regularly received damaged or incorrect figurines, while some did not receive any figurines at all. Even though Funko has a reimbursement plan for such cases, it pays only $30 to affected customers, which is much less than many collectors have to pay for NFTs to be eligible to get a physical figurine.
Furthermore, collectors complain about the disproportionately low value of the exclusive figurines given for collecting NFTs, while in certain collections, their designs bear too much resemblance to standard physical Funko Pops.
Alongside these negative opinions, there were also many positive comments about the drop. For instance, user Living Aloha noted that "Funko's Harry Potter NFT drop has been running for 27 minutes and has just surpassed VeVe's entire revenue for the month of January 2024 ($554,352.44) with 36952 mints for a gross revenue of $560,184.52."
Whether the calculations provided by Living Aloha are correct or not, it is at least obvious that the digital Harry Potter Funko Pops have gained more attention than some of the previous collections launched by the toy company mentioned earlier.
In addition, considering the total number of NFTs in the collection may be useful for assessing its success.
For instance, in the case of the Squid Game Funko Pop, 11,462 Standard Packs and 11,440 Premium Packs were burned out of a total of 42,000 packs initially available. Meanwhile, the number of unsold Harry Potter Funko Pops was smaller than the number of burnt Squid Game NFTs, whereas the total number of Harry Potter collectibles was much greater.
Even if this is not an indication of any long-term improvement for Funko and a result of the mere popularity of the Harry Potter films in the first place, it may be safe to view the drop as a comparative scenario rather than an isolated failure. Thus, despite the high burn percentages, the total number of unsold Harry Potter Funko Pops was relatively smaller compared to the burnt Squid Game NFTs.
Read also: Funko NFT supreme drop list - past and upcoming WAX NFT drops
What is in the Harry Potter Funko Pop collection?
The WAX NFT drop of the Harry Potter Funko Pop collection took place yesterday at 11 AM PT. As mentioned earlier, the Premium Packs for the Harry Potter Funko Pop NFT collection, priced at $29.99, contained seventeen items instead of the usual fifteen, while the Standard Packs, priced at $9.99 each, offered five NFTs.
At the time of publication, Standard Packs were valued at 13.80 USDC, while the price of Premium Packs surpassed 43 USDC. According to the official Droppp website, the most popular digital cards were rare Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, valued at least 0.15 USDC, as well as uncommon Albus Dumbledore, sold for the minimum price of 0.05 USDC.
Interestingly, to promote sales, Droppp "raised the purchase limit to $120 for the Harry Potter NFT drop. It was limited to $60 before," as per DisTrackers, a Funko Pop news account on X.
The Harry Potter Funko Pop NFT collection introduced seven physical collectibles, including the widely distributed Freddy Funko as Death Eater, with 3,000 figurines planned for release. The Legendary type included Viktor Krum with Shark Head, Merperson, Hungarian Horntail, Fleur Delacour with Bubble-Head Air Mask, and Cedric Diggory with Bubble-Head Air Mask, each having 2,200 collectibles. The rarest physical collectible was Grail Harry Potter with Gills and Grindylow, limited to 999 items.
The redemption window for this magical collection is scheduled for May 22, 2024, at 11 AM PT.
