Bunnings has sucked me in … and taught me some lessons

I’m a sucker for all things cute and fluffy – not adjectives you’d typically use when talking about a hardware store. It’s probably one of the reasons I rarely swing by Bunnings.

Type “fluffy” into the search bar on Bunnings’ website, and you get washing liquid, dog beds and rugs. All very practical, but not very appealing for someone who finds enjoyment in impractical things.

One thing (arguably of many) that I never grew out of is my love of soft toys. I have far too many occupying far too much real estate on my bed for someone who has been an adult for nearly a decade. Now, they’ve been joined by Bunnings-branded … bears.

Basically, Bunnings has cracked a code that has allowed it to expand into some new markets. Think: children, collectors … and at least one twenty-something woman who doesn’t especially need anything from Bunnings – least of all, another soft toy with diminishing marginal benefit.

“Blind boxes” – sealed packages containing random collectible items – have been around for a while, but in recent years, they’ve really taken off. Labubus, Sonny Angels and Smiskis are some of the most popular ones globally. Local stores such as Woolworths (with its Disney-themed “Ooshies”) have understood this lure of the unknown for a long time, taking advantage of the psychology driving our decision-making in their sales promotions.

For a while, I thought I’d escaped the hold of blind boxes: none of them really appealed to me.

While blind boxes aren’t technically counted as gambling because you don’t, strictly speaking, lose money (you always get something in return), the psychology works almost identically.

And, arguably, despite ending up with 11 plush bears from Bunnings’ line-up – including some duplicates – I like to think I largely evaded their blind box “trap” and snagged a bargain. Either way, there are several economics lessons I took away from the experience.

It all started with exposure. Unboxing videos have become increasingly popular on social media, with influencers opening products they’ve ordered or been sent, including the growing range of blind boxes.

The first few times I saw the Bunnings bears, I didn’t think much of them. Cute, but not necessary, I remember thinking. But there’s something called the “exposure effect”: a psychological tendency for people to develop a greater liking for things – whether it’s products or even people – the more they see them.

It’s one of the reasons companies pay for advertising. They don’t just do it to make customers aware that their products exist, but also to develop brand recognition and familiarity which makes us more likely to reach for those items when shopping.

It’s one of the ways that what we might think are rational decisions are not always as clear-cut as traditional economic models might assume. Often, our behaviours are influenced in ways that may not be rational or optimal for our wellbeing. That’s why there’s a relatively new branch of the discipline called “behavioural economics”: the study of how psychology, emotions and cognitive biases shape financial and economic decisions.

The line-up of different Bunnings bears – each with a nearly one-in-four chance of being “pulled” from any given box – was cute, but it was the one marketed as the “secret bear” (with a one-in-16 chance of being found) that caught my eye.

The “sausage sizzle bear” is a teddy bear wrapped in a slice of (fake) bread to resemble the iconic Bunnings sausage sizzle snags.

Clearly, not everyone would be swayed by this as much as I was. But it’s a good example of the effect of nostalgia: another thing that can increase our willingness to pay. Why? Because nostalgia is often linked to happy experiences and a sense of security. Pairing the cute teddy bear – which many of us already link to nostalgia – with an experience many of us are familiar with helps increase its appeal … at least for people like me.

Bunnings also created an artificial scarcity by making only a relatively small amount of some of the bears. Generally, things that are finder to hard, or limited in quantity, are seen as more valuable. That’s why diamonds or vintage items, for example, tend to sell for eye-wateringly high prices.

This scarcity is also the reason that the “sausage sizzle” bear has much higher asking prices from sellers on second-hand platforms such as Facebook Marketplace, Depop and eBay.

Seeing the bears pop up on these platforms, I decided that rather than going to Bunnings and buying potentially dozens of blind boxes (retailing for $12.50 each) to find the one I wanted, I was probably better off buying one someone had already found – even if it meant paying significantly more.

I settled for a sausage sizzle bear off Facebook Marketplace which was selling for $50: probably a better-value option than testing my luck with blind boxes and ending up spending lots of money with double-ups of bears I didn’t have a huge desire for, I thought.

Of course, the appeal of blind boxes is largely the element of surprise: not knowing what you might get. While blind boxes aren’t technically counted as gambling because you don’t, strictly speaking, lose money (you always get something in return), the psychology works almost identically.

Humans tend to enjoy a bit of uncertainty because it can boost excitement and trigger a bigger dopamine rush.

Plenty of people have probably gone to Bunnings to buy these blind boxes for that very experience. From Bunnings’ perspective, they bring a lot of value. Not only does it probably make a tidy profit from them (the bears would cost much less than $12.50 to manufacture), but they also bring foot traffic to its stores from people who might be tempted to pick up a few other things while they’re there.

Collectible items can also drive consumption in other ways.

When I first bought the sausage sizzle bear, I thought that would be the end. It was all I wanted. But the thing about collectibles is that they exploit psychological triggers such as completion bias: the tendency for people to feel compelled to complete something once they’ve started it.

When I found someone selling the full set of Bunnings bears for $60 on Facebook Marketplace, I jumped at the opportunity. Partly, it was driven by the idea that maybe, just maybe, it could be an investment. Most full sets I had seen in the secondhand market were fetching at least $100, and surely when the next instalment of bears is released, there will be people willing to pay a higher price for a complete set, I remember thinking.

But there’s also something called the endowment effect: a tendency to overvalue (and justify) items once we own them. While I’m yet to see many people selling a full set of the bears for less than $100, it’s also very possible they will be worthless in a year or two.

Nonetheless, I also ended up buying a bear from the first collection of Bunnings bears (released last year), which then led to me buying another four for $30 from a woman on Depop. Part of me thought it could add to my “investment”, but there was also a part of me itching to complete the two sets.

Awareness of these cognitive and behavioural biases can help us be a bit more rational in our spending, and bring us closer to the neat models of traditional economics, which are built on the assumption we always make optimal decisions.

While there are a handful of the ultra-rare “hoodie” bears from the first Bunnings collection (which would complete my two sets) on online secondhand marketplaces, most of them seem to have an asking price of at least $150 as a standalone item.

That’s probably not an optimal use of money for anyone, let alone someone with a mortgage. And even for an irrational consumer like me, I’ve decided that’s a bit steep … or is it?

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