Ahead of Easter, maker of viral egg decorator toy is caught between China tariffs and egg price surge
Easter is a very big deal for Curtis McGill and Scott Houdashell, inventors of the ‘Eggmazing Egg Decorator,’ a battery-operated toy with a unique spinning action that lets kids color eggs with markers in a mess-free way.
“Over the past six years, we’ve been the No. 1 toy on Amazon leading into Easter,” McGill said in an interview with Bagable.com. “Last year, for three weeks ahead of Easter, we sold an Eggmazing Egg Decorator every six seconds on Amazon, 24 hours a day.”
McGill and Houdashell, who founded their Hey Buddy Hey Pal toy company in 2015 (they logged $13 million in total sales last year) to launch their flagship Eggmazing Egg Decorator product, estimate they’ll sell nearly 700,000 of them this year through Walmart, Target and CVS stores and online. “About a third of our sales will come from Amazon,” McGill said.
While this should typically be the most exciting time of the year for the toymaker, McGill is concerned and anxious for two reasons — the new 10% US tariffs on Chinese imports and the ongoing surge in egg prices.
Both issues directly impact his business.
“It’s unknown and scary”
President Donald Trump announced 10% tariffs on US imports from China on Feb. 1, 2025. The United States imports over $400 billion dollars worth of consumer products from China— everything from clothes, shoes to cellphones, video games and electronic items.
China is also the world’s leading maker and exporter of toys, producing over 70% of the world’s toys, according to research firm IbisWorld. A majority of toys sold in the US are made in China. This includes the Eggmazing Egg Decorator.
“We initially started making them in Vietnam and manufactured them there for three years,” McGill said. “We then moved production to China. We did this to bring down production costs. But, we may see those savings taken away with the enactment of new tariffs.”
Because US-based brands that source seasonal products from China manufacturers order them for delivery months in advance of the key sales period, McGill said the new tariffs on China likely won’t affect this year’s shipments for Easter.
“All my products for Easter shipped before the first of the New Year,” he said.
The company, however, also has a Christmas ornament decorator product (using the same mechanism as the Eggmazing Egg Decorator but for tree ornaments).
“I’m going to start manufacturing the Christmas product in about a month and I’m very concerned about tariffs on those and for my Easter 2026 deliveries of Eggmazing Egg Decorators,” McGill said.
He expects to start negotiating purchase price rates with his retail customers (who account for two-thirds of the toymaker’s business) for next year’s Egg Decorator orders at the end of this month and will finalize most of the purchase orders in March.
“I could agree to a negotiated price and wake up the next morning and it could be 50% tariffs on China,” said McGill. “It’s unknown and scary because once I lock in those orders I don’t get the leeway to adjust my prices because of changes in tariffs.”
Most businesses in this situation would be left with the option of either fully absorbing the higher cost of imports or passing along the higher expense to their customers by raising retail prices.
“In the seasonal product realm, you get one opportunity every year to negotiate prices with your retail customers and one opportunity to deliver, and then you’re waiting for the next Easter and Christmas,” McGill said. “From my standpoint, as the the guy that does the financials for our business and makes the deals with the large retailers, this has me very concerned.”
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If there’s no other wiggle room to avoid passing the 10% tariff-triggered price increases to customers, McGill said the company would look at a 3% to 3.5% overall price increase “for us to be able to maintain the margin that continue to do business as we have before,” he said.
The Amarillo, Texas-based company could try to eat the tariff-related costs and make its own operations even leaner.
“We do a lot of work with just five to six employees,” McGill said. “I’m not sure how much leaner we can become. Then we look at our products. Instead of eight markers, do we only offer six next year?”
McGill and Houdashell had their Eureka moment behind the Eggmazing Egg Decorator while celebrating Easter with family, friends and plenty of children.
“We were decorating eggs and all the kids got up and left the table because watching an egg turn brown in vinegar water isn't any fun,” McGill said. “They were bored.”
As McGill recounted, his friend got a hot glue stick, a cordless drill, a spoon and markers and that became the first iteration of the egg decorator. The pair self-funded their idea, launched their company and produced 10,000 Eggmazing Egg Decorators in 2017, which sold out in 23 days.
Houdashell and McGill also appeared on Shark Tank in 2018 and landed an investment from Shark Tank judge and investor, Lori Greiner.
Will egg prices dull Easter celebrations?
Meanwhile, the ongoing surge in egg prices is also weighing on McGill’s mind. Egg farmers are struggling with extreme production shortages caused by a wave of bird flu that has resulted in the culling of millions of egg-laying chickens.
“I do think we will still see people decorating eggs for Easter,” said McGill. “They may not be hard-boiling four dozen but fewer eggs, and utilize some plastic eggs and wooden eggs that we sell as well.”
“Fortunately for us, our egg decorator machine works with a variety of eggs,” McGill added. “Even with egg price inflation, we're hopeful that people aren’t going to abandon the Easter egg decorating tradition but will maybe make do with fewer real eggs. I believe in the power of the Easter egg.”