We are currently in the thick of the Ooshies campaign at Woolworths and Alice is just doing her best not to loose her mind.
OPINION
I’m convinced Woolworths might be after my last shred of sanity.
If you too are a parent (or maybe a Disney adult?!) you’re likely also in the thick of the Ooshie torment.
My days now often start with my four-year-old giving me a list of things he reckons we might possibly need at the supermarket – his not-so-subtle attempts to get us to Woolworths so he can get his hands on another packet of Ooshies. He’s an addict.
His addiction is only further fuelled by the hype these little bits of rubber are getting at his daycare. There’s even one imaginative little preschooler who has been telling the others about Ooshies that don’t even exist that he reckons are now in his collection – a glow in the dark Bluey or a pink Spongebob Squarepants Ooshie. (I gotta hand it to this kid, this is next level psychological warfare).
For those who are currently living in the beautiful peace that is not knowing about Ooshies, it’s the latest collectible campaign Woolworths is running to empty our pockets, sanity and dignity.
They’re little rubber figurines of Disney characters and there’s 40 of them to collect (plus some rare extras, but we’ll get to those). You get ONE Ooshie blind packet for every $30 you spend. The Ooshies have a little hole on their base where you can pop them on the top of a pencil, or you can display them in a plastic case (which yes, Woolworths will charge you $12 for. Yes, $12 for a piece of packaging – although it does come with two extra glow in the dark Ooshies that are additional to the standard 40 up for grabs). I have no clue why these are so popular. I love Disney, but I just do not see the appeal here. But still, here we are, caught up in Ooshie madness.
Woolworths understands the insanity they are inflicting upon us all, only too well. It’s our first rodeo with Ooshies here in NZ, but across the ditch Ooshies caused insanity in 2020 (as if Covid and Tiger King we’re enough to deal with).
Back then there was pandemonium over collecting the full set of 40 – and totally bizarre scenes when it came to the ‘ultra rare’ Ooshies. These are Ooshies that Woolworths tends to drop mid-campaign, making only a very small number available. In 2020 they produced just 100 Furry Thors and Furry Baby Yodas and Australia lost their collective mind trying to find them. One shopper listed a rare Yoda Ooshie for AUD$99,400.
A year earlier there had been similar scenes when a furry baby Simba was released in Aussie . It became headline news when a farming couple in Victoria found one and put it up for sale for $5,000. They planned to put the money towards their drought-stricken land – hoping to help turn things around, but immediately they were hit with abuse, including a couple of death threats.
Then, in a twist that shocked Australians, the couple were interviewed live on The Today Show, where they pulled out a pair of scissors and cut up the Ooshie, deciding no one should have it.
We’re yet to see scenes like that here, but, a limited edition Ooshie has just launched here – a furry Bullseye ooshie, of which only 150 exist. So far there’s just one listing online – a seller in Bayswater listing the Ooshie for $500. (A Woolworths spokesperson say they “strongly discourage the unauthorised resale of these items on third-party websites”).
There’s plenty of other Ooshie listings online too – there’s around 500 up for individual sale on TradeMe, but Facebook Marketplace has thousands of posts up currently. Many are free swaps, or sellers looking for a buck or two per Ooshie, but others are starting to test the waters a bit higher. A seller in Nelson is selling a completed collection in its case for a cool $1000.
THE MATHS
Getting your full set of Ooshies doesn’t come cheap.
Your best bet is to get swapping. There’s plenty of small community groups on Facebook swapping – or there’s a one public group ‘Disney Ooshies NZ Trading’ which currently as 11,600 members. Woolworths is also hosting an official nationwide swap day on Friday 7 August from 3pm – 5pm in stores, where you can bring your double-ups and trade with other collectors.
If you’re not swapping, or calling in your family and friends to help you out, the numbers are steeeeeeep for getting you to your finished set.
Say you somehow spent exactly $30 a shop and somehow got a different Ooshie every time (all statistically impossible), you’d have spent $1,200 at Woolworths.
But, what’s most statistically likely – to get a complete set of 40 through pure random draws – you’d likely go through 171 packets to get there. If you somehow spent exactly $30 each time (anyone else internally groan when their shopping is around $57 and they still just get that one Ooshie packet!?) that’s $5,130.
Don’t even get me started on the maths of trying to find yourself one of the rare Ooshies.
See you at the Ooshie swap on Friday, I guess?
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