In the quiet arithmetic of retail planning, Woolworths launched a small collectible figurine promotion expecting children to lead the charge — and found instead that adults across New Zealand were the ones most swept up in the hunt. By early August, two-thirds of the Ooshies stock had disappeared from shelves, a result that surprised even those who designed the campaign. The episode is a reminder that the most powerful market forces are not demographic but emotional — that nostalgia, completion, and the simple joy of collecting do not observe the age boundaries that spreadsheets assume.