An economical solution allows you to find toys sometimes sold for between 40 and 70% of the new price: these are sites specializing in second-hand or reconditioned games and new, slightly dented toys. Here are 7 of them.
If you are parents or if you have children in your family, your mission this year is probably to find the Christmas toys who appear on the list of your cherubs. And if these games are one of the big Christmas trends, you still have to do it in advance before they are out of stock. A quest that may seem impossible to achieve, especially since toy prices are soaring this year. “An increase in the average price paid per toy of 5% since the start of the year”, was noted by Frédérique Tutt, toy market analyst for Circana. Blame it on the inflation of recent months. So to avoid spending too much, without necessarily having to reduce the number of gifts to buy, what are the solutions? The latest December 2023 issue of magazine 60 Million consumers emphasizes the sites specializing in used or reconditioned games and the new toys are a little dented. On some of these platforms, toys are sometimes sold from 40% to 70% of the new price. Here are 7 sites to remember for your Christmas shopping:
Solidarity purchases on the Label Emmaüs and Rejouons Solidaires sites
You might not know it, but Emmaus has its own online site, label-emmaus.co, which offers for sale and at very affordable prices all kinds of games and toys for children. Simply search in the different categories and filter your search according to price, condition or even the desired brand. They also have a special selection of “Playmobil, LEGO, Meccano” games, very often popular with young people. As an example seen by our colleagues from 60 Million consumers in their investigation, “THE Lego Disney Star Wars 8 years + new is offered at 18 euros (while we find it more around 60 euros elsewhere) and the new Playmobil Superset bastion of knights is priced at 27 euros.
In this second-hand solidarity niche, we also find the Rejouons Solidaire network, with its site rejouonssolidaire.fr. The teams collect many toys, games and books. They sort them, test them and clean them before offering them for sale at low prices. “On average, toys are sold at 60% of the new price: 7 euros for Barbie with her clothes and accessories“ for example, notes the National Consumer Institute.
Ladycocotte.com and Kidibam.fr, specialized in the sale of reconditioned toys
You are certainly familiar with the sector of reconditioned household appliances, or even telephones, but toys can also be repaired, cleaned and packaged as if they were new. Several companies specialize in this offer, such as the site ladycocotte.com. On this platform, the games and toys come from individuals and after being restored, they are “sold for 40 to 60% of the new price, depending on their condition“, note our colleagues. The majority of items are in “very good condition”, and “30% are like new (no difference between used toy and new toy)”, specifies the investigation.
The site kidibam.fr offers more than 5,000 references of games and toysagain coming from individuals, “at 50% of the new price on average, and up to 70%.” To give you an idea, you can find the Burnham Raiders battle ship Playmobil at 49 euroswhere the Bionicle Toa Pohatu 8687 LEGO for 12 euros instead of 25 euros.
Board games with very little damage and stored
To get good deals, there are also online stores that sell new board games, often very fashionable, but slightly dentednotably le-passe-temps.com, ludum.fr And ludifolie.com. You’ve probably already been put off by the idea of buying a damaged item. And yet, this partial damage generally does not impact their playability. To give them a second chance, the items are carefully sorted and put back on sale at a discount.