Inside the Stanley tumbler collector economy
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Inside the Stanley tumbler collector economy
Stanley tumblers have been having an extended viral moment on social media and on resale platforms, translating into serious cash. The cups — originally designed for heavy-duty outdoor activities like camping — may retail for up to $60, but lately, they can sell for hundreds of dollars on the resale market.
On social media, each Stanley tumbler drop is heralded on as an event by the cup’s devotees. The company released its 40-ounce, Arctic Twist tumbler just this week, immediately selling out. Last week, people were willing to line up at 3 a.m. for a pink Stanley x Starbucks cup.
These cups, which come in various sizes, are available on the secondary market through e-commerce platforms like eBay, Mercari and Poshmark. Consumers can also buy, sell or trade them through Stanley tumbler Facebook groups, which have tens of thousands of members.
They’re now even listed on StockX, an online marketplace that allows people to make anonymous offers on sneakers, streetwear and collectibles. To date, there have been more than 2,300 total trades of Stanley products on StockX.
The average resale price on StockX for the Watermelon Moonshine 40-ounce Stanley x Lainey Wilson tumbler is $215, while the average resale price for the pink 40-ounce Stanley x Starbucks tumbler stands at $186, according to data provided by StockX.
Fans of Stanley, which was founded in 1913, have long touted the brand’s cups for their durability and their ability to keep beverages hot or cold for long periods of time.
But beyond its utility, experts and collectors say the tumbler’s recent viral popularity has been thanks to savvy marketing strategies, the rise of wellness trends,, the sense of community it provides to collectors, and the thrill that comes with finding new cups.
Janae Thomas, a Stanley cup collector based in Tampa, Florida, has now amassed about 37 of them (not counting the ones that have yet to be delivered). Thomas believes she now has all of the different shades of pink.
“I think what attracts me to the Stanley cup is it’s a game of figuring out which ones I’m missing and then finding out where to buy them,” Thomas said.
How Stanley tumblers became so popular
In 2019, Stanley raked in $73 million in revenue, a figure that has increased 10-fold in just a matter of years. In late 2023, CNBC reported that the company was set to rake in $750 million for the year.
“That kind of 10x growth over four years is absolutely astounding for a company that’s been around forever,” said Ashwinn Krishnaswamy, a digital creator and founder of the branding agency Forge. “Their growth is predominantly driven by this 40-ounce tumbler.”
From its founding, the Stanley brand marketed itself as “a rugged camping and outdoors brand,” wrote Hannah Baggenstoss for Marketplace.
In an interview with Baggenstoss last year, Stanley Global President Terence Reilly described the brand as “green, male and hot.”
“That’s what Stanley has been, and we’re proud of that,” Reilly said. He told Marketplace that the company is known for its sustainability efforts and that the green Stanley thermos has been a top choice for construction workers, teachers and nurses.
But in more recent years, the Stanley cup has been able to expand its reach and tap into a female demographic.
Baggenstoss wrote that the e-commerce blog The Buy Guide, which was founded by three women, would link to the Quencher on their site beginning in 2017, leading it to sell out each time. Stanley‘s national sales manager, Lauren Solomon, reached out to the blog after Emily Maynard Johnson, who was on “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” made an Instagram post about a Quencher she had been gifted by The Buy Guide.
Stanley and The Buy Guide worked out a deal where The Buy Guide was able to buy 5,000 Quenchers at wholesale cost and keep all the profits (although they had to pay for warehouse space and shipping and handling fees), per the New York Times. These tumblers sold out in under a week. The Times said that The Buy Guide continued to promote Stanley Tumblers in exchange for a portion of the sales revenue.
Krishnaswamy said that Stanley has changed up its product strategy, turning the tumbler into something akin to a fashion accessory. He explained they’ve done this by releasing the cup in different colors and doing collaborations with different brands, like Starbucks.
“They make it this kind of item that’s desirable in the way that maybe collecting purses is desirable, or collecting fun fashion accessories is desirable,” he said.
In the fashion world, you’ll see similar collaborations – think of Target’s clothing collections with high-end designers, such as Prabal Gurung and Rodarte.
Krishnaswamy also pointed out that Stanley established a presence on TikTok and understood “how to talk as a brand” on the platform. He said a perfect example of this is the viral TikTok video where a woman’s Stanley tumbler was kept intact after her car had caught on fire. Within 24 hours, Stanley’s president made a video where he expressed sympathy for her and said they were going to send her not just more tumblers, but a new car.
@stanleybrand #stitch with @Danielle ♬ original sound – Stanley 1913
“That’s the kind of way that a company needs to respond to moments like that,” Krishnaswamy said. “It endeared more people to their brand and it brought new awareness to the product.”
Janae Thomas said another appealing element of Stanley tumblers is that they can provide people with a sense of community — they make these tumblers part of their identity.
Customers now identify as “Stanley people,” Thomas said.
“I think it does give you a sense of like, ‘Look at me. I’m so cool.’ Although I have seen in the groups recently, people saying like, ‘Oh, we’re not that cool are we, because everybody’s calling us dumb,’” she said, laughing.
The Stanley cup resale economy
The culminating hype over Stanley tumblers has generated a resale economy where people are willing to pony up hundreds of dollars for rare cups.
Krishnaswamy pointed out that Stanley is releasing limited edition collections with a finite amount of each item, which creates scarcity and fuels demand.
Krishnaswamy added that people are hearing about others lining up early at Target to nab their own Stanley, which further amplifies that demand. Plus, the core product itself is good, he noted.
Drew Haines, merchandising director, at StockX said Stanley products were first listed on the online platform back in November.
“At StockX, we control our own catalog. So we don’t allow customers to make listings, we add items to our marketplace based on the internal decisions that we make, based on what we see trending and where we see the culture going,” he said. While people aren’t allowed to make their own listings, Haines said StockX does also take into consideration what items their customers want.
Haines said there were a good amount of Stanley trades during the holidays, but demand has become “absolutely tremendous” during the last two to three weeks.
The resale prices he’s been seeing don’t surprise Haines.
“If it’s limited, if it’s rare, if it’s a sought after product, there’s a lot of demand for it. The prices can be two or three or four times what the original manufacturer’s suggested retail price was,” Haines said.
And this goes for clothing, sneakers and trading cards, Haines noted. He’s observed that the Stanley cups that do the best are part of collaborative collections.
Janae Thomas will of course try to buy retail, but she’s had to buy most of her cups through the resale market.
Some of her purchases on the resale market include a parfait ombre tumbler from eBay for about $115 and a lilac Stanley tumbler through Mercari for $240. The most she’s paid for a tumbler: $380 for a glass Stanley from a seller on Facebook.
Older Stanley cups, also known as the OGs, can be rarer and command higher resale prices, Thomas said.
“But the good thing is a lot of the people who have these OG cups have them because they’ve been collecting a long time. And at least in my experience, I’m starting to see they’re getting over it. It’s like the stock market. It’s like, ‘Okay, I’ve been doing this for five years, my $60 cup is in huge demand right now. I think that I can sell it for $200, even though it’s used.’ And so they’re much more likely to do it,” Thomas said.
Stanley collecting has been a source of derision, with some expressing confusion over how a cup can attract this much hype. But Stanley fans like Thomas said you can compare it to collecting sneakers or Beanie Babies. She explained that it’s a hobby, just like any other.
Thomas said that she is able to comfortably afford these tumblers.
“Are there better things I could spend my money on? Absolutely. But am I taking out loans to afford Stanley cups? Absolutely not,” she said.
While these cups can be expensive, Thomas said other items – like a nice purse – will run even more.
“We all have our vices,” she said. “If I wasn’t making a financial decision to buy Stanley Cups, I’d be making a financial decision to buy an expensive purse.”
Beware of dupes
Buying on the resale market comes with pitfalls, with some scammers attempting to sell fakes.
To verify a cup’s authenticity, some Stanley fans will post photos of a tumbler they want on Facebook groups to solicit feedback.
Thomas said that platforms like eBay and Mercari have policies on fake cups that help reassure her when she’s purchasing one. Mercari states on its website that any counterfeit goods are “eligible for return or compensation,” while eBay offers a money back guarantee if you receive an item that isn’t as described and you’re unable to resolve the issue with the seller. At StockX, Haines said that the company verifies every product sold on its platform.
Those who collect these tumblers have become savvy at spotting dupes. Thomas said she’ll examine whether the color is off, the handle is low or if there are any unnecessary markings at the bottom of a cup.
It’s easier to tell if a cup is fake in person, so if she’s buying online from a Stanley group, she’ll take extra precautions, such as asking for extra photos.
“Also, dupes are usually popular with new cups so when I look for more expensive, older cups, it’s a lot easier because they don’t have dupes for them, usually, and there are a lot less people who have them to sell,” Thomas said.
Are we due for a market “correction”?
Despite the high value of some Stanley cups, Krishnaswamy thinks their price will eventually come down because it can be hard to sustain trends in the long term.
Prices may fluctuate, but Haines said he thinks the Stanley brand has longevity, helped by the current president’s track record. President Terence Reilly used to be the chief marketing officer of Crocs.
“Crocs has had this incredible run of viral products, sold-out collaborations, incredible licensing deals with McDonald’s and Marvel and Shrek and Disney. And they’ve done extremely well,” Haines said. “I think that he was sort of the brainchild behind a lot of that strategy.”
Unlike collectibles that you may want to preserve, Haines said many people do generally buy Stanley cups with the intent to use them.
“Then that further contributes to the secondary market value of the products because at StockX, we only trade brand new products. We’re not trading anything used. The supply of new products shrinks as more people start to use their tumblers,” he said.
As new products shrink, the price will go up. It’s economics 101, Haines said.
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