Swapocalypse Now: A Look at Figure Swapping and Its Impact on the Collector Community

“You’re doing a story about trolls who game Walmart and buy stuff, steal it, and return the box with other stuff?”

That question, posed by The Loyal Subjects Founder and CEO Jonathan Cathey, may be phrased for comedic effect, but it succinctly and accurately describes a practice known within the collector community as “figure swapping.” And yes, Jonathan, we are.

Figure swapping, in more specific terms, is when someone removes an action figure or an action figure component from its packaging, then puts a cheaper, less desirable one in its place. Some of these swaps take place directly in the toy aisle. Other times, a swapper will purchase a figure, complete the swap, and then return the fake to get their money back. 

There is no official data available about this practice because it is basically impossible to track. However, at least anecdotally, most collectors have encountered a figure swap before or are at least aware of them taking place.

At a surface level, this version of shoplifting may seem a bit perplexing, especially because toys are a non-necessity and because adults are the ones doing this. One New York City-based collector, who prefers to be identified by his Instagram handle, @swapthefig, has been collecting since he was a kid and sees swaps frequently. “I’d like to say little 10-year-old Johnny is fucking the system, but he’s really not,” he says. “It’s his dad.”

For collectors like @swapthefig or toy photographer Eric Hill (@heatfour on Instagram), the impact of figure swapping is primarily one of annoyance and frustration. Some collectors or “toy hunters” specifically prefer to shop in stores instead of online, and the chance of finding the right box but the wrong figure can be disappointing.

“Is there anything worse than thinking you finally found the figure you were searching for, only to pull it off the shelf and see it’s not the correct figure in the box?” Hill asks. “I personally had this happen to me at a Toys ‘R’ Us when I was searching for a Mandalorian figure. Trust me, I was not happy at the Clone Trooper staring back at me.”

Also, as @swapthefig explains, these unbought, unwanted collectibles take up room on the shelf that the store won’t fill with the figures that collectors actually hope to purchase.

“It’s not the major toy companies being like, ‘Oh, because of figure swapping, we’re not producing this or that.’ So it’s hard to see an effect on the industry,” he says. “But it definitely affects the collectors. Because the problem is that if you have stock that sits on the shelf for X period of time, the retailer’s not going to buy new stock. They’re not going to restock on stuff like that.”

Joey Rodriguez, who has been collecting Marvel Legends figures for more than 14 years, says he has seen as many as 16 swaps in one store before. And while he notes the same annoyance as other collectors, he says the real impact of swapping is on those who aren’t avid collectors. Parents or grandparents who are buying a toy for a kid, for example, could unwittingly bring home the wrong character, fake accessories, or a figure of lesser value.

“At least the collector comes across a swap and passes over,” Rodriguez says. “But a normal, random person who’s not a collector coming across it? That really could screw them up. They could waste their money. And toys aren’t cheap.”

Toys certainly aren’t cheap and, when reflecting on why some people participate in figure swapping, the high cost of collecting is what @swapthefig pointed to as a major cause. He specifically noted the cost of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends figures increasing twice in the past year, first from $19.99 to $22.99, then to $24.99. 

“You got six, seven figures in a wave, so you’re spending nearly $200 on a new set of figures. I get it,” he says. “I don’t condone it, but I get it.”

And while these articulated pieces of plastic aren’t imperative to survival in the way that food or clothing is, The Loyal Subjects’ Cathey says that collecting and fan culture can become all-consuming for a small percentage of the community. 

“For some, that is just the center of their universe. Comic books, games, toys, Marvel,” he says. “They don’t see outside that microcosm and it becomes sort of like an obsession. So I think it’s more compulsion, obsession. And it’s probably 0.001% that do it, by the way.”

Because of this compulsion and the idea of collectors wanting to form complete waves and sets, Rodriguez says that it’s most common to see swaps in multi-packs or figures with a Build-A-Figure component. He says those who only want one of the figures or that specific component will swap to avoid paying for the figure or figures they don’t want. 

“So they get what they want and they didn’t pay for it on top of it,” he says. “And they think that’s sticking it to the company. Like, ‘That’s what you get for putting something in a three-pack knowing everyone only wants the one,’ or whatever. And it’s that kind of mentality that some people have — thinking they’re just getting one over on the big man.”

Another way that some collectors use swapping to save money? Buying a higher- and a lower-end version of the same character, swapping them, and then returning the higher-end version. This means they can get a deluxe figure for the price of a standard figure, and the swap becomes even harder for shoppers to notice. “Again, that would really confuse people,” Rodriguez explains. “It’s the same thing, but it’s not. The articulation’s all different. The sculpts are different. The likenesses are different. Still a really big problem.”

For others, figure swapping is a way of making some easy cash. As @swapthefig explains, someone can go buy 10 figures on eBay or from a clearance bin for $10 each, then flip them for $25 each by figure swapping them.

All of this has driven some collectors, including @swapthefig, to shop primarily online. However, even that isn’t always a foolproof option. 

Figure swapping is also an issue for Amazon shoppers. Rodriguez, who previously worked at Amazon, says that people can easily swap the figure they bought online, put other things in the box, and return it under the false pretense that the item was broken. Then Amazon will sell the item as “used” at a discount, and the next buyer will receive whatever the original buyer put in the box. For this reason, Rodriguez encourages collectors to avoid buying used figures on Amazon, no matter how tempting the discount may be.

Hasbro’s pivot to plastic-free, windowless packaging made this practice even easier to pull off. While Rodriguez isn’t sure that plastic-free packing increased the number of figure swaps, he says those boxes make it much harder to detect a swap. “Me, when I was working at Amazon, if I had a windowless package Marvel Legend, I’m not going to open the box and see what’s in there,” he says. 

The windowless packaging has certainly been deeply intertwined with figure swapping since its inception. Upon Hasbro’s decision to remove all plastic, fans and experts alike raised concerns about the effect on figure swapping. Perhaps nothing encapsulates this better than a video by YouTuber Sentry, which is titled “How EASY is it to Swap Out Marvel Legends with the NEW Windowless Packaging?” The video has amassed more than 7,500 views at the time of publication and, while the description starts with “I do not condone Action Figure Swapping,” the video’s content demonstrates just how easy it is to perform a swap.

So who is responsible for fixing the figure swap problem? That’s where things start to get a bit more confusing. Collectors seem to agree that it isn’t on the manufacturers who create the action figures because the collectibles are literally out of their hands by the time they reach store shelves.

“Hasbro made their money when they sold to Target, to Amazon, to whoever,” Rodriguez says. “So Hasbro doesn’t care once it leaves them. I don’t mean that in a negative way. I think they made the product and it’s not their fault that someone is stealing their product. It’s 100% on the consumer who is stealing the product.”

That isn’t to say that companies like Hasbro aren’t aware of the problem. While the company declined to comment for this piece (as did Target and Walmart), the Marvel Legends team has acknowledged figure swapping during some of its fan-focused livestreams. 

According to a spokesperson for McFarlane Toys, the company hasn’t received enough feedback about figure swapping to consider it an issue. However, a spokesperson for the brand says that “Figure swapping is harmful not only to manufacturers and retail partners, but also ultimately ruins the joy of collecting for other consumers. When someone purchases a McFarlane figure, there is an expectation of quality. When a lower quality or subpar figure is swapped for one of ours, it wrongly associates us with that product or disappoints the next consumer who unknowingly purchases it.”

The Loyal Subjects’ Cathey, whose company produces BST AXN and Action Vinyl figures, says he saw figure swaps quite frequently in returned pallets of Action Vinyls, which often came in mystery box packaging. He doesn’t blame the specific retail workers who miss the swaps, either. “Does Jimmy who works for 15, 14 bucks an hour at Walmart care? No. He’s thinking about, ‘When can I get off and go smoke some weed?’ He’s not the toy police,” Cathey says. “It’s really not a manufacturer problem and it’s really a customer problem. Just be grown up. Just behave.”

However, it’s clear that some fans simply won’t behave. So what, if anything, can curb figure swapping in stores? Some fans, like @swapthefig and Rodriguez, have taken matters into their own hands, documenting the swaps on social media pages. The @swapthefig Instagram profile has amassed more than 10,000 followers, and the collector behind the page is sitting on years’ worth of photo submissions from collectors. Rodriguez has been an administrator for the Facebook page Action Figure Swap Outs for about five years. The page has more than 2,600 followers and a steady flow of community submissions.

Generally, these social media spaces are meant to highlight the issue and inform collectors that it is happening. However, that isn’t stopping the swaps. For some collectors, the solution is shopping exclusively from online retailers like Big Bad Toy Store or Entertainment Earth. Others suggest tamper-proof packaging, but figure swappers are savvy. (There have been documented swaps of figures that are packaged in a plastic bubble on a cardboard back.)

Other possible solutions include locking collectibles behind glass, creating a system that can track shoppers who make an unusual number of returns, and somehow making it easier for retail employees to see what is supposed to be inside the packaging of returns. According to @swapthefig, Target has taken a step in this direction. He saw a new pop-up system in action that shows the employees what every scanned return is supposed to look like. He also approved of a new system from NECA, which offers a tag on the store pegs instead of a figure. Shoppers bring that to the register, pay, and then redeem the figure from NECA. 

Despite these promising steps, the lack of centralized responsibility for figure swapping — along with the fact that it doesn’t seem to have a significant cost for manufacturers or retailers — makes it seem unlikely that the practice will ever stop entirely. Figure swappers have been around for decades, and they will likely keep making the toy hunt harder for fellow collectors and toy lovers.

As Cathey puts it, again quite succinctly, “They get the milk from the cow and then they return the cow. And then they ask the seller of the cow to pay them for the milk.”

This article was originally published in Issue No. 17 of The Pop Insider. Click here to read the full issue!