The Ultimate Guide to Selling Funko Pops in Ireland (2026): App Values vs. Reality

We do not buy Funko-only collections — this guide exists because we would rather give you an honest picture of the market so you can sell your collection yourself, with realistic expectations, than leave you chasing a number that the Irish market simply will not produce.

Quick Answers: The Most Common Questions

If you are looking for a specific answer and do not want to read the whole guide, these cover the basics. For the full picture — and the reasons behind each answer — everything is below.

Why won't Irish shops buy my Funko Pop collection?

Most retailers have reduced or stopped pre-owned Funko buying because the margin no longer works. Commons sell for €7–€8, which after platform fees, staff time, storage, and listing costs leaves very little room. The storage cost per item is high relative to return, and buyer expectations around condition generate disproportionate after-sales issues. Shops that do still buy focus narrowly on specific high-value items with documented recent sales, not general collections.

Is Pop Price Guide or HobbyDB accurate for Ireland?

No. Both platforms aggregate primarily US market data. Irish sellers face a smaller buyer pool, higher postage costs to export, and a market that is currently well-supplied with competing stock. The real-world value for most items in Ireland is considerably lower than US-based app estimates suggest. Always use eBay Sold listings filtered for European buyers, sorted by most recent, as your pricing reference.

How do I know if my Funko Pop is a fake?

High-quality fakes are in circulation, particularly for valuable vaulted and Grail items. Check the serial code on the box base and the figure's foot, examine paint quality closely (fakes often have slightly off colours or uneven application), and assess the vinyl weight — fakes frequently feel lighter. For any item with significant value, opening the box to examine the figure directly is the only reliable method. A sealed box is not verification.

What is the best way to sell Funko Pops in Ireland in 2026?

For individual high-value items with documented sold history: eBay, priced from actual sold comps and shipped tracked. For mid-range items and specific sought-after characters: Irish Facebook collector groups at realistic prices with good photographs. For bulk clearance of an entire collection: a bulk buyer, accepting 10–30% of app value in exchange for the convenience of a single transaction. Vinted and Adverts.ie work for low-value individual sales but require patience and realistic pricing.

Are Funko Pops a good investment?

For the vast majority of releases, no. Commons and standard figures depreciate once they leave retail. A small number of genuinely limited items have held or grown in value, but predicting which ones at point of purchase is extremely difficult, and those items represent a tiny percentage of total production. Funko Pops are enjoyable to collect. They are not a reliable investment vehicle, and the financial position of the company that produces them adds additional uncertainty about the long-term status of the brand.

Why is Funko struggling as a company?

Funko over-committed to licences, over-produced, and built its business on a pandemic-era surge in sales that did not last. In 2023, the company destroyed between $30 and $36 million worth of its own inventory because storing it cost more than writing it off. By November 2025, it had filed with the SEC acknowledging "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue as a going concern, carrying approximately $241 million in debt and having reported significant losses through 2025. Tariffs, declining retail partner orders, and falling consumer demand have all contributed. Read the full coverage here.

Why Is My Funko Pop Worth Less in Dublin Than on an App?

Pop Price Guide and HobbyDB are built around the American market. They pull from US eBay listings, US convention sales, and US collector communities — where the buyer pool runs into millions of people, disposable income is higher, and shipping a package interstate costs a few dollars.

When you look at an app and see €500, you are looking at a theoretical US ceiling price. It assumes the right buyer exists, in the right country, with the money ready, wanting your specific item, right now — and that it is in perfect, grading-eligible condition. In Ireland, that buyer pool shrinks dramatically. The number changes with it.

It is worth noting that this is not just our assessment — you will find collectors within the Irish and UK Facebook groups themselves pointing out that these apps have not been accurately updated for some time. App values from HobbyDB and Pop Price Guide are based on US data and bear no meaningful relationship to what an Irish buyer will actually pay. If experienced collectors are saying that in their own spaces, it is worth taking seriously.

Here is the only pricing rule that matters:

• Active listings = what people are hoping to get. Fantasy pricing.
• eBay "Sold" listings = what people actually paid. Reality.

Go to eBay. Search your Pop. Filter by "Sold Items" on the left. Sort by most recent. Look specifically at what shipped to Europe or Ireland. Then subtract eBay's fees (around 13%), any payment processing (2–3%), packaging, and your time. That number is your item's actual value. Not the app. Not what it says on Reddit. Not what someone once sold one for in 2021.

The Company Behind the Pop: What's Actually Been Happening

It is worth knowing a little about the company before putting too much faith in your collection holding value.

In early 2023, Funko announced it was destroying between $30 and $36 million worth of its own unsold inventory — sending truckloads of figures to landfill because paying to store them cost more than writing them off. Their own warehouses were so full they had been renting shipping containers just to hold the overflow. NPR covered it at the time, and Kotaku published footage of pallets being fed into shredding machines. This was not a minor logistics adjustment — it was the product of years of over-committing to licences, printing figures for properties with limited fan bases, and treating mass production as a substitute for demand.

It did not get better. By November 2025, Funko filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission acknowledging "substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern" for the next twelve months. The company had gone through three CEOs in a year, reported a $41 million loss in Q2 2025, cut 20% of its workforce, and was carrying around $241 million in debt due for repayment in September 2026. The Herald covered the full picture in detail.

We are not speculating here. This is the publicly filed position of the company whose product you are hoping to sell at app value.

The "Commons" Problem: What 90% of Collections Are Actually Worth

The vast majority of any Funko collection consists of "commons" — standard retail releases of popular characters that were available everywhere. Your Darth Vader. Your standard Spider-Man. Your Eleven from Stranger Things. These were produced in enormous quantities, stocked in every HMV, GameStop, and Smyths in Europe, and given as Christmas presents to people who may have wanted them or may not have.

These pre-owned items sell for €7 to €8. Sometimes less. That is not a lowball offer from a cheeky buyer — that is the market. When supply is effectively unlimited and the buyer who "needs" your common Pop either already has one or can find it in a closing-down stockist for a fiver, the price has nowhere to go but down. A collection of 200 commons is not worth €4,000. It is worth perhaps €1,400 if you have the time, patience, and storage to sell them individually over several months. More likely less, because the market is simultaneously flooded with other people doing the same thing.

The "Grail" Problem

The term "grail" has been so thoroughly overused in Funko circles that it has lost most of its meaning. Collectors use it to describe anything that is "vaulted" — meaning Funko has stopped actively producing it. But vaulted does not mean rare, and rare does not mean valuable.

Funko regularly re-releases updated versions of vaulted figures, often with minor variations, which erodes any scarcity premium on the original. A figure being vaulted simply means Funko has moved on to the next licence. It does not mean there are not thousands of them in circulation, and it does not mean a new buyer has any particular reason to pay a significant premium for yours over the re-release or a similar item from a different collector.

Genuine grails — items with documented, consistent, recent sold prices well above retail, that are not being re-released and for which there is active demand — do exist. They are far rarer than the collector community tends to believe, and finding one in your collection is the exception, not the norm.

One Scandal Away From Worthless

Funko Pops derive their value entirely from the relevance and reputation of the character or person they represent. That relevance can evaporate overnight. The Johnny Depp situation saw Pops tied to his likeness lose significant value almost immediately, with many sellers unable to move them at any price. Similar things have happened with anime voice actors, musicians, and other public figures when controversy arrives — as it occasionally does.

If a meaningful portion of your collection's supposed value rests on figures tied to a living public figure, that value is one news cycle away from looking very different.

Why Are People Selling? Understanding the Exit Wave

The number of people trying to exit their Funko collections right now is significant, and understanding why matters for your own pricing decisions — because they are all competing with you for the same thin pool of buyers.

People are downsizing for a few consistent reasons: they have fallen out of love with the format, they have run out of shelf space in a way that is no longer manageable, they need money, or they are consolidating into a smaller, higher-quality collection and Funko no longer fits that picture. In many cases, it is a combination of all of these.

The result is that the secondary market is being supplied by a wave of motivated sellers and met by a relatively small number of buyers — most of whom know exactly what the market looks like and are in no rush.

Why Shops Have Stopped Buying Funko Collections

This is one of the most common frustrations we hear, and it deserves a direct answer.

Shops that once bought in Funko stock — either selectively or in bulk — have largely moved on for a straightforward reason: the maths stopped working. A shop buying a common at €4 to sell at €8 is tying up money and space for a product that requires significant customer management (condition complaints, return requests, buyer expectations) for a gross margin of €4 before costs. It is not a viable business model when that same floor space could hold a single high-grade figure that sells for €180.

For bulk lots, the situation is worse. Buying a collection of 200 items requires storage space, staff time to photograph and list every item individually, and the carrying cost of sitting on stock for months. The few businesses still operating in the bulk Funko space — including some UK-based sellers who move significant volume on platforms like Whatnot Live — are doing so at very tight margins, buying cheap and selling cheap in volume. They are not paying 80% of app value. They are paying what the economics of their model support, which is typically 10–30% of theoretical value. That is not a choice. That is the constraint.

We have access to international buyers and discounted shipping rates that most individual sellers do not. Even with those advantages, the Funko market moves slowly because of the sheer volume of competing stock available at any given moment.

The International Shipping Reality in 2026

Sellers who believe they can simply bypass the Irish market and sell internationally need to understand what that actually involves right now.

UK buyers now face import VAT and potential customs charges on goods arriving from Ireland post-Brexit. Many UK buyers will actively seek to purchase from within the UK to avoid these fees, reducing demand from what was historically one of the strongest export markets for Irish collectible sellers.

EU buyers are technically accessible, but the European collector base tends to be more demanding on condition and more aggressive on price than Irish or UK buyers. The cost of tracked international postage to most EU countries, combined with the risk of transit damage, makes the net return on low-to-mid value items negligible.

American buyers are, for practical purposes, gone from the equation. US import tariffs introduced in 2025 have created a situation where buyers may refuse to pay the import duties on arrival, leaving sellers facing return costs — or the item being destroyed — with nobody willing to pay the fees to resolve the situation. The risk is entirely with the sender. For a €15 common Pop, it makes no financial sense whatsoever to expose yourself to that.

The "international buyers exist" argument, which was reasonable four years ago, requires significant qualification in the current trade environment.

The Business Reality: What a Shop Can Actually Pay

This one is worth spelling out clearly, because we get enquiries regularly where the expectation is that a business will pay 80–90% of app value for a collection.

A business buying stock is not a charity and is not operating at the same risk level as a private collector selling to a friend. Consider what that business then has to do with what it buys: staff time to assess the collection, storage space, individual photography and listing for every item, ongoing platform fees (eBay takes around 13%), packaging materials, postage, return handling when a buyer is unhappy with condition, VAT obligations, and the carrying cost of stock that may sit for months before selling. If that business pays €400 for a collection with a theoretical app value of €500, it has made €100 gross before any of those costs. That is not a business. That is a losing proposition.

Shops that buy Funko at all are paying what their cost structure allows. If that number seems low, the honest alternative is to sell the collection yourself — which is entirely possible, and which the rest of this guide covers in practical terms. But going in expecting a business to absorb all the cost and risk while returning 90% of theoretical value to the seller is not a realistic starting point.

The Hidden Costs of Selling It Yourself

Vinted and Adverts.ie

Both platforms attract buyers who are aggressively price-sensitive. You will be dealing with people who want near-new condition for well below market value and who will raise a dispute if the corner of the cardboard has a crease. For offloading a handful of low-value items, fine. For a collection of any real size, it is time-consuming and often demoralising.

eBay

eBay remains the right platform for anything with genuine resale value, but the cost in time and admin is significant. As of 2026, eBay has introduced stricter tax reporting requirements for sellers above certain transaction thresholds, packaging compliance declarations for some categories, and charges approximately 13% in final value fees. Add packaging, postage, and your time photographing and listing each item, and your margin on a €15 common is effectively gone. For higher-value items it can still make sense — but it requires discipline, accurate pricing based on sold comps, and the ability to absorb the occasional difficult transaction.

Facebook Groups

The Irish and UK Facebook collector communities remain the most realistic peer-to-peer option. But sellers consistently undermine themselves: bad photos, complex pickup conditions, pricing based on app values rather than market reality, and posts riddled with conditions and disclaimers that tell a potential buyer you are going to be difficult to deal with. If you price fairly, photograph well, and engage normally, Facebook groups work. If you are using them to find someone who will pay US app prices without the inconvenience of eBay, they will not.

The Condition Problem: Mass Production and Mint Expectations

Funko Pops are mass-produced items. They are manufactured by the million, packed in cardboard boxes, shipped in bulk across the world, and stacked in retail environments. Boxes get dented. Windows get pressure marks. Print registration occasionally drifts. This is the product, not a defect.

The collector community has developed an expectation of absolute box perfection that has no relationship to how the item was made or distributed. If your potential buyer pool is limited to people who require grading-eligible box condition, that pool in Ireland is very small. Price for the actual market, not the theoretical one.

The Fake Problem: Why "Never Opened" Doesn't Mean What You Think

The counterfeit Funko market is significant and improving in quality year on year. High-grade fakes with convincing boxes, plausible sticker serials, and acceptable paint work are in circulation, particularly for high-value Grail items and older vaulted figures.

For any professional buyer, the box has to be opened to examine the figure — checking paint quality, vinyl weight, and serial number consistency. The sealed box is a step a professional buyer will need to undo before they can assess what they are looking at.

Sellers who attribute significant value to sealed condition on high-value items should be aware that a knowledgeable buyer will want to open it regardless.

So Where Does That Leave You? Practical Options for 2026

If you have genuine rarities with documented recent sales on eBay Sold — limited exclusives, early vaulted items with consistent demand, Chase variants — then eBay is your best option. Price from actual sold comps only, factor in fees, ship tracked, and be patient.

If you have a large collection of commons, the realistic options are Facebook groups at fair prices, Adverts.ie for small bundles, or finding a bulk buyer who takes the whole lot in one transaction at 10–30% of app value. Yes, that number is painful. It reflects the risk and cost they are absorbing on a product with an uncertain resale timeline in a saturated market.

If you are thinking about "levelling up" — moving away from mass-produced vinyl and into pre-owned collectibles that have a genuine secondary market — that is a conversation we are happy to have. Vintage carded Star Wars, NECA, McFarlane, and similar lines attract serious collectors and have a track record that the Funko market simply does not. But a word of caution: if your primary motivation is buying to resell at a significant profit, be careful. That model works on very specific, well-researched items. It does not work as a general approach to the collectible market. Most items, most of the time, do not produce the returns that optimistic sellers hope for. Anyone telling you otherwise is either very lucky or selling you something.

Why We Are Not Currently Buying Funko Collections

The honest answer: the economics do not work at the prices sellers reasonably expect, the storage cost per square metre is high relative to the sell-through value, the buyer pool in Ireland for anything beyond the most popular characters is thin, and the condition complaints are disproportionate for a product that is fundamentally mass-produced.

We would rather be straight about that than waste your time or ours with a conversation that was never going to end well for either side.

What we do buy — selectively — is pre-owned and vintage action figures with a genuine secondary market. If you have vintage carded figures, pre-owned NECA, McFarlane, or similar items, get in touch and we will give you a straight assessment.

Final Verdict: Should You Sell Your Funko Collection?

If it is taking up space and you want it gone: yes, on the basis of realistic pricing. Clear the room, take what the market will actually give you, and move on.

If you are holding out for app values: you are going to wait a long time, and the direction of travel is not in your favour. Funko as a company has warned publicly that it may not survive the next twelve months without new investment or a buyer. The secondary market for its products reflects that uncertainty.

The Funko situation did not crash dramatically — it deflated slowly, and a lot of collectors are still standing in the middle of it wondering why the number on the app has stopped matching the reality. The sooner you engage with what buyers are actually paying in Ireland right now, the better the decision you will make about what to do with your collection.