{"id":582118,"date":"2026-08-27T16:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T16:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/582118\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T16:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T16:44:11","slug":"the-disney-ooshies-craze-is-over-but-at-what-cost-to-kiwi-shoppers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/582118\/","title":{"rendered":"The Disney Ooshies craze is over – but at what cost to Kiwi shoppers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Woolworths reported a major sales boost<\/a> for the first eight weeks of the 2027 financial year, thanks in part to the Disney Ooshies campaign.<\/p>\n

New Zealand sales increased 4.2% in the eight weeks since the start of July, while Australian sales rose 7.6%.<\/p>\n

Wilkinson said while the Foodstuffs\u2019 Smeg knives promotion was being driven by adults, the Disney Ooshies had a following across a wider range of age groups.<\/p>\n

But he said it also had an element of escapism to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cEscapist themes are very successful for business,\u201d Wilkinson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world is pretty confronting out there at the moment and although it seems a bit crazy, its being able to immerse yourself in those simple pleasures and perhaps a bit of a hark back to when you were young.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a bit of fun. People are really hanging out for fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think potentially it may have surprised some. It\u2019s potentially hooked some people that wouldn\u2019t have necessarily been candidates for that in the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilkinson noted the role of celebrities getting behind the craze, pointing to rugby star TJ Perenara as one example.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably quite a good example of how social media\u2019s driven some of this stuff as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Grocery Commissioner Pierre van Heerden told Newstalk ZB\u2019s Mike Hosking supermarkets have a lot of levels to pull in a competitive environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big players have worked out these things help them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where consumers need to start taking a good look and saying well what do I want \u2013 do I want a fair price or do I want free stuff?\u201d<\/p>\n

It comes amid persistent cost of living pressures for many Kiwis, including food prices.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe average consumer that is struggling isn\u2019t going to go off to free stuff. The average consumer that struggles is looking at the price [of food products].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yesterday, Woolworths reported a major sales boost for the first eight weeks of the 2027 financial year, thanks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9526,1975,138,3013,20491,286741,23852,4187,46617,2398,185,194,111,139,69,254614,1523,10903,16739,97,223,61,6923,92],"class_list":["post-582118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-another","tag-at","tag-business","tag-but","tag-chased","tag-collectable","tag-consumers","tag-cost","tag-craze","tag-disney","tag-is","tag-kiwi","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-ooshies","tag-over","tag-popular","tag-shoppers","tag-supermarket","tag-the","tag-to","tag-what","tag-woolworths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}