Periodically, Nintendo will rerelease old amiibo or release new ones into the wild, and then let the collectors fight over what scraps they released. This tends to drive up secondhand amiibo prices, with or without scalping coming into play.
As a longtime amiibo collector, these are the sellers that I use for getting amiibo for cheap and on a limited budget, and tips . I’m talking specifically about amiibo figures – if you’re only interested in the functionality, please reference our guide on other forms of amiibo here.
In addition, we have an Amazon-specific guide on cheap amiibo collecting here.
1. Understand amiibo prices and how reprints change prices
There’s two kinds of amiibo, as far as pricing is concerned. There’s Nintendo Wii U and 3DS amiibo, which are sold for $13 when officially released, and there’s Nintendo Switch amiibo, which are $16. Amiibo that are rereleased from a Wii U era are usually sold at $13 on shelves, while the Smash Ultimate line, for example, goes for $16.
At the time of this writing, the Wii U-era amiibo are actually more expensive overall because they haven’t been rereleased much, so there’s not been new supply to bring down the prices. Nintendo has done an acceptable job of reprinting as many amiibo as possible to keep prices down, but some exceptions are incredibly expensive. Reference amiibo card tier lists like the one previously linked to determine which amiibo are most expensive secondhand.
If you’re getting spooked by the ridiculously high prices for some secondhand amiibo, you can manufacture your own amiibo using NTAG215 chips. This Amazon Affiliate link is our recommended NTAG215 seller, and Amiibo Doctor gets a commission from all sales made. Thank you for supporting amiibo information!
2. Best Buy
Yeah, it’s it’s in the name. Whenever an amiibo is put out, Best Buy usually sells their stock last. While I’m sure Best Buy corporate isn’t particularly thrilled at that fact, it works out really well for us – you can often pick up amiibo that came out months ago for their normal MSRP, long after the prices have gone back up. (It’s also a great place to flip amiibo.)
If your local physical Best Buy store is sold out, odds are the online store is too, unfortunately. But the reverse is not true – if the online store is sold out, the physical store may still have some.
3. Gamestop
Gamestop’s suuuuper dead, man. If you have a Gamestop that actually sells out of amiibo quickly, you’re probably living underneath Gamestop’s corporate HQ. Check your brick-and-mortar Gamestop store to see what they have, because the odds are nobody’s looked at the amiibo since 2019.
Don’t bother checking Gamestop’s online store – they pack in a lot of fees and unnecessary prices, and horrible shipping.
4. Play-Asia
Nintendo, reasonably so, loves Japan. Thus, we should buy from Japan, because they have more amiibo than they know what to do with.
Nintendo also hates Europe, but Europe hates Nintendo, so they have more amiibo than they give a shit about. Are you noticing a pattern?
We can get amiibo for usually pretty close to MSRP (before exchange rates) through play-asia.com. Things tend to spike up near the holidays, so you’re better off not buying amiibo from them after about mid-November, and waiting through the month of January.
Amiibo Doctor 