I noticed very strange mass-buying of Playmobil figures and figure-parts (or figure-accessories, like f.e. hats) on ebay the last few weeks/months.
Some examples:
A seller puts 150 legs of one specific klicky in his shop, all stock is bought up within a few hours by 1 or 3 people who each have a total feedback of only between 0 and about 25.
Another seller puts 100 hats of a specific klicky in his shop, all stock is bought up within a few hours by 1 or 3 people max who each also have a total feedback of only between 0 and about 25.
A third seller puts ... etc etc.
I got curious and contacted a few of the sellers.
Result:
Since about July-August, there are indeed a lot more people buying up whole stocks of klickies and/or klicky-parts.
And now it comes:
I have been told (almost) all of the buyers who buy up (almost) entire stocks, have Chinese (sounding) names and the purchased Playmo has to be shipped to China or to mailboxes in Europe/USA owned by people with Chinese names.
One seller told me he experienced an increase of Playmobil being bought up by Chinese of about 200% to 300% over the last 2,5 months.
There are about 7,7 billion people on Earth. About 18% of them are Chinese.
Not sure yet how many of them have (recently) started to collect Playmo, but I think it will have (big) impact on prices and availability.
