Um .. so Is it more difficult to find pony sets now n days?

[LightingElectricDream]

Guys I have come back into collecting after a 3 year brake. And alot has changed. I can't find hardly a thing anymore.

I am looking for baby items like sandboxes and stack toys even bottles!

Are they becoming more rare or is everyone taking a brake from the holiday sales?

What's going on these days?

[starrynights]

Ponies have became a lot rarer and pricier, sadly...

[Barnacle_lady]

I think it has also to do with the pandemic. A lot of people stay inside and rather wait until it's safe to go out.

[banditpony]

I know for me it just doesn't seem worth it to sell the tiny little items anymore.. It just seemed like no one wanted them. (My assumption was it wasn't worth buying $1-2 items when shipping is like $5+ now)

[SaraMari]

Hmm I've seen people selling accessories in FB groups, I just bought some ribbons, combs and xylophones the other day

[lovesbabysquirmy]

between postage increase, sloooooooooooooooow shipping, people's distrust of Ebay, and concerns over the pandemic, a lot of business has been taken to Facebook Marketplace, etc.

[LightingElectricDream]

Well if anyone here needs to make a sale I am in the market for pretty pal accessories. I have a wanted posted up in the wanted topic. As I dont wanna turn my topic into a sale thred.

Very frustrated I can't find a simple pink sand box or wagon or stack toy. And it's so frustrating. It never use to be like this and yes I do belive that the virus has caused alot of price inflation. I was in the market for betty spaghetty dolls before the pandemic hit and got a lot of dolls for very little. Now I go and look at dolls I had already bought they're asking $75 for a single doll that I paid $16 for that doll and 10 others in the same lot.

The pony market is not necessarily this bad but some things I see make me wanna puke. I mean really???

I get people have lost jobs and can't go out and risk their health by thrifting but some people really need to take into consideration what is resell value and what is basically over scalping. For example $55 for a flawed molasses candy cane pony with highlighter Mark's and mismatched head and dread locks. Obviously a none collector selling.
But even some of the pony knowledge people are pushing prices to the max.

I mean the seller can ask whatever they want. That is fine..but you have to wonder if the item is worth asking this much and it not selling. I feel the less I cave the more prices might go down. It's gotta get to a point where it's just no is no.

It might take me years but I refuse to pay over inflation of prices.

That went on to a rant..but no really I can't find thing posted for sale at all.
I am wondering if there will be much of a community in the next 20 years. And every little piece will be so expensive and antique that new collectors will not be able to enjoy what we do they won't be able to obtain hardly a thing just beacuse by that time it will be 60 years old lol!

[LadyAmalthea]

I only started collecting (as an adult, anyway) a year ago, and I can tell you that prices have gone up even since then. I think shipping is the biggest problem; when looking at Ebay prices, one has to figure the shipping price into the total cost of the item, and as someone else said, that means tacking an additional 5 bucks to every purchase, no matter how small. So that $3.00 stack toy easily becomes $8, and who wants to pay that. Yet the seller's only making $3, less whatever fees Ebay takes. So a lot of people don't even bother to list that stuff.

Accessories are probably harder to find, because less of them survived our childhoods. I picture my mom trying to clean up and put away toys after we (my siblings and I) left home...there was probably a jumble of random plastic pieces that she had no idea what went to which playset, or whether it was MLP or Barbie or something we didn't care about or would miss. The ponies themselves survived, because she knew what they were, but those random colored rings that went to the stack toy? Trash. (Actually, I am very lucky; my own parents don't really get rid of much, and 90% of my pony stuff survived the empty-nest culling, at least until a flood that happened a couple years ago, but that's another story! I'm just generalizing how it maybe went down in most households.) Some accessories just rarely pop up; if I didn't have my childhood pink sandbox (it also came with twins Jebber and Jabber if that helps your search), and my xylophone with mallet, I don't think I'd ever get another one! I'm so irritated that I no longer have my twin stroller that came with Sniffles and Snookums; I gave up trying to replace that a long time ago.

Your best bet is probably to do like you have, put up a wanted post on here, so that other collectors that have an extra might see it. If I had a spare one of any of those items you listed, I'd offer them to you!