what are your recommendations for retailers in australia (as i don't wanna pay exorbitant amounts of money for shippng)??
I think it tells you something about my answer that I looked at my monitor and just started laughing!
This post has a list of Australian vendors that you might like to check out as a good list of options, but, in all honesty, shipping is the single biggest problem when it comes to online purchasing here. It’s why I focus so much on offline toys in my own discoveries, because buying from local online retailers isn’t affordable or justifiable for me. This isn’t easy for many of us, mind, but I’m in a situation where enduring the hell of offline shopping is better than paying $10 AUD for a parcel to arrive on my doorstep.
Australia Post charges so much for shipping that it is almost never affordable to purchase online from an Australian retailer. Most of them charge either flat rate shipping (Sensory Oasis for Kids charges $10 AUD flat rate shipping, which isn’t bad if you’re buying lots but is terrible if you only want one item) or somewhere between $8-$13 AUD shipping for a single toy. If they use a pre-paid Australia Post satchel, for example, it costs $8.50 AUD for 500 grams or less. That makes it easier for retailers to ship, but costs us a lot more, and sometimes retailers add a dollar or two (or more) on top of that for packaging and handling, to make a bad situation ridiculous.
If you want chewables, I’d check out Chewigem Australia: most pendants are $22 AUD but they only charge $7.50 AUD flat-rate shipping to Australia and NZ. If you don’t mind waiting a little longer for things to arrive, though, I’d actually just buy from Stimtastic, since most of their chewables are $10 USD or less (some much less). Even with the international shipping from the US, you’re saving money because the toys themselves are that much cheaper.
(My package from Stimtastic took nine days to arrive, so it isn’t a long wait.)
If you’re close to a K-Mart store and can get there in person, I’d recommend checking them out, as I’ve found a lot of stimmy items there, usually for good prices. (Check out our tag for some examples!) Their shipping fees, though, are a minimum of $10 AUD, so again you need to buy lots for it to be worth it, and that’s assuming you don’t buy so much you bump up the shipping to another weight bracket.
If you’re in Victoria (I believe there’s only a few stores elsewhere) Daiso is another great inexpensive department-meets-dollar shop for stimmy items. No online store, sadly, but fabulous if you can access it.
Otherwise, I would direct you to your local dollar shop (many stock spinners, fidget cubes and fidget pads now) or toy stores like Kidstuff and Toyworld. (Here’s our Toyworld tag for examples of the toys I’ve found there, including Tangles and Koosh balls.) Big W and K-Mart now also stock the Zuru Fidget Cubes ($13 AUD each) and all the major department store chains have spinners.
For online retailers, if you’re not after chewables, I’d direct Aussie stimmers to eBay, AliExpress and Banggood. You can get squishies, spinners, Tangles, chain fidgets, knock-off fidget cubes, boinks, fidget pads and other fidget-type toys. Many are $10 AUD or less, many are much less than that, and many listings have free international shipping. You’ll have to wait (anywhere from a fortnight to five weeks for me, depending on item and country of origin) for delivery from China, Hong Kong or Taiwan, usually, but it is so much more affordable.
As a case example, this weekend I bought four of the Tangle Jr Fuzzy knock offs ($12 AUD), three Tangle Jr knock offs ($3.87 AUD), a single Tangle Jr ($1.39 AUD) and three items from Banggood ($5.05 AUD) - a spinner cover, a chain fidget and a wooden fidget stick. So, that’s eleven things for $22.31 AUD, all with free shipping. That’s a spending spree for me, but I’m paying just over $2 AUD an item, averaged out. I’ve paid more for some K-Mart stim toys.
Yes, these toys are all knock-off versions, and that carries quality risks - you really don’t know ahead of time how good any one particular knock-off will be - but they’re affordable. The biggest downside for me in shopping on those stores is trying to find things. There’s often so many listings for each category (especially spinners and fidget cubes) that it’s confusing and overwhelming. There’s pages and pages of items, with a variety of shapes and styles and prices, and that doesn’t make browsing easy or simple.
Otherwise, my answer is to do what I’ve done - DIY it. Here’s our first DIY master post, and here’s the second. Of course, not everybody can do this for a variety of reasons, but there’s tutorials on both posts for lots of different toys, and hopefully there’s a DIY for you that suits your price, skill and access needs. I’ve made bead lanyards, slimes, weighted plush, marble loops, marble mazes, bead fidgets, bean bags, fabric chewables…
If any Aussies have a store with affordable shipping costs, please let us know, but right now I honestly don’t have a lot of recommendations because they’re all expensive.
- Mod K.A.