Littlest Pet Shop was one of the biggest toy brands for girls in the US in the 2000’s owned by Hasbro. The toy brand consists of little plastic animal toys with bobble heads and built a huge fandom of collectors all over the world, building a whole community of fans on all kinds of platforms especially on YouTube.
Unfortunately, the brand went downhill in 2013 when they released Generation 4 of Littlest Pet Shop (LPS). Fans raged about how they did not like the new pets and wanted the old LPS back, many even went as far as calling Hasbro and demanding the old pets back. Hasbro continued to release more generations after G4 and it only got worse from there.
In 2024, Basic Fun bought the licensed LPS brand and decided to bring back the beloved nostalgic toy brand but there were many mixed reactions. Wave 1 of G7 went generally well, but there were many quality complaints about wave 2. Many complained about grainy eyes, squishy heads, and bad/lazy paint jobs. Numerous fans of the toy brand have been and were complaining about these issues and how Basic Fun needs to work on these issues and make improvements. A user on Instagram commented, “Why does it seem like the LPS just keeps decreasing in quality? Obviously, they’re doing their best but it sucks waiting this long for these kinds of LPS to be cheaply made with very common mistakes that can be easily fixable.”
Many who grew up with the toy brand and have collected since childhood are LPS YouTubers, called LPSTubers, who made and still make videos with the collectible toys. One of the most known LPS series on YouTube is ‘LPS Popular’. LPS Honey, a very well known Littlest Pet Shop YouTuber in the community who is also an ambassador for the LPS brand, made a video explaining why G7 quality dropped. Honey said she spoke to Basic Fun workers and asked questions about why the quality went down and how fans have been complaining.
Honey reveals how because Basic Fun factory prints the pets’ eyes directly onto the pet possibly explaining the grainy eye complaints. Back when LPS was owned by Hasbro, eyes were hand-painted onto pets which explains why fans think this is a disappointing quality drop. Honey states how Basic Fun reports, “Moving forward we are going to get the pets eyes printed properly.”
Next, Honey clarifies the squishy head dissatisfaction and glosses over how Basic Fun puts the LPS into ovens during the molding process to mold the plastic into a certain degree. If taken out too late, the plastic will become squishy which clears up the squishy plastic concerns. Many think this is a lack of quality checks and Basic Fun needs to do better.
On the bottom of LPS’ packaging, there is a code starting with ES or KX. Honey goes on and explains how these represent how LPS are made in two factories due to the overload of love and support from fans during the comeback of the brand during wave 1 and how the company had to quickly find a second factory for the toys to be produced. She explains how wave 1 and wave 2 might look different due to this- KX factory pets having an almost wonky look but good hard plastic and ES factory pets looking normal but having softer squishier plastic.
This connects to how because there was a short notice of wave 1 getting so popular and having to find a second factory, this could explain why wave 2 pets were rushed and have poor traits. Basic Fun was also going through a bankruptcy during the time they took in LPS which is the biggest licensed brand they own out of all other toy brands they have.
Currently, we are in wave 3 of Littlest Pet Shop G7 and unfortunately, we have not seen any improvements. Fans were excited how Basic Fun brought back some of the most favorite LPS molds such as Shorthair Cats, Cocker Spaniels, Great Danes, Collies, and Dachshunds but many were not satisfied with the poor quality.
“These are questionable, I hope they look better in person,” said one LPS collector on Instagram about wave 3.
Will Basic Fun listen to fans’ criticism or will they continue to ignore fans?
