Note:
The toy figure images shown on our website are intended solely as references for customization and are not available for purchase. As a professional ODM/OEM toy manufacturer, we focus on customizing and producing toy figures of comparable style. If you have an original figure design you’d like to produce, please reach out to us for a quotation.
| Compound | Hardness | Toy Behavior | Typical Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Non-Phthalate Flexible PVC ⭐ | 55 to 75 Shore A | Plasticized with DINP, DOTP or DIDP at 30 to 50 phr; soft, safe for squeeze play, passes CPSIA phthalate limits by design rather than by luck; paint needs a primer because plasticizer migrates | Almost every soft toy body, character figure, squeeze toy |
| Rigid PVC | 75 to 85 Shore D | Unplasticized, hard and dimensionally tight; takes fine detail and crisp pad print; brittle on impact so wall design and radii matter | Toy bodies, play sets, tracks, structural parts |
| PVC / ABS Alloy | 65 to 80 Shore D | Better impact strength than rigid PVC with similar paint adhesion; costs more per kilo; useful where a part will be dropped by a child repeatedly | Impact-prone toy parts, handles, wheels |
| ABS | 70 to 90 Shore D | Not a PVC part at all and carries no plasticizer risk; glossier native finish, harder to get a soft touch, needs its own paint system | Battery compartments, mechanisms, shells |
| TPE / TPR | 30 to 60 Shore A | Plasticizer-free elastic feel, no migration problem at all; higher material cost and slower cycle, weaker surface print | Soft grips, infant teether-grade parts, overmolds |
| Route | How It Works | Best Fit | Trade-Off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-cavity steel mold | One part per cycle from a single-cavity tool; lowest tooling cost, longest cycle per unit | Large parts, first production run, low volume trial | Highest unit cost; machine time is the bottleneck |
| Multi-cavity steel mold ⭐ | 2 to 16 identical cavities fill in one cycle; cycle time grows sub-linearly with cavity count, so unit cost falls fast | Any toy part above roughly 10,000 pcs | Tooling cost multiplies; one damaged cavity pauses the whole tool |
| Family mold | Several different parts of the same toy share one tool and one cycle, then are separated and assembled | Multi-part character figures, play sets | Parts must share wall thickness and color; balancing the fill needs care |
| Hot runner | Melt stays live in a heated manifold, so no runner scrap is produced each cycle | High volume, expensive compound, tight automation | Higher tool cost and more maintenance; overkill below ~50,000 pcs |
| Two-shot / over-molding | A second material is molded directly onto the first in the same tool: soft grip on a hard body, two colors with no paint | Grips, two-tone toys, parts that must not be painted | Dedicated two-station tool; material pairs must bond properly |
| Insert molding | Metal shafts, magnets or hardware are placed in the mold and encapsulated by the plastic | Wheels with axles, magnetic parts, sound module housings | Manual loading step; cycle cannot be fully automated |
| Rotational casting | Liquid plastisol is rotated inside a heated aluminum mold to fuse a hollow shell | Hollow soft vinyl collectibles from 100 pcs up | Hollow and light, but seams and paint primer are permanent issues; not the tool for toy-grade volume |
Why Our Toy MOQ Starts at 1,000 and Not 100 Our standard catalog figure is 100 pcs per design, and that holds for processes built on silicone or aluminum tooling, where the tool itself is inexpensive and disposable. Injection molding is the opposite: a hardened steel tool costs far more and lasts for hundreds of thousands of shots, so its cost has to spread across a real production quantity to keep the unit price sensible. 1,000 pcs is the floor at which the arithmetic works. Below that, the honest advice is to switch process rather than pay steel tooling prices for a hundred units. Tell us your real quantity and we will tell you which process fits it, even when that means quoting you less.
| Standard | Scope | Applies When |
|---|---|---|
| EN 71-1 ⭐ | Mechanical and physical properties: sharp edges, points, small parts, torque and tension on attached components, drop and tip testing | Any toy sold in the EU or UK |
| EN 71-2 | Flammability of toy materials, including whether they flash or spread flame | Toys with fabric, hair, or any fibrous or plush component |
| EN 71-3 | Migration of 19 heavy metals from toy material, tested on the actual accessible substrate | All toy materials, including coatings and printed areas |
| ASTM F963 | US toy safety specification: mechanical hazards, flammability, heavy metals, sound levels, plus specific clauses for projectiles and toy guns | Any toy sold in the United States |
| CPSIA ⭐ | US federal law: lead limit 100 ppm in accessible substrate, phthalate limits at 0.1 percent, plus tracking label and children's product certificate requirements | All children's products in the United States |
| ISO 8124-1/-2/-3 | International toy safety standard, closely parallel to EN 71 with regional differences | Markets outside EU and US, or a single international test set |
| AS/NZS ISO 8124 | Australia and New Zealand adoption of ISO 8124 | Toys sold in Australia or New Zealand |
| GB 6675 | China national toy safety standard, mandatory for domestic sale | Toys sold in mainland China |
| EN 62115 | Electric toy safety, covering battery compartments, accessible voltage, heating and short-circuit behavior | Any toy containing a battery, LED or sound module |
| ISO 2859-1 AQL | Acceptable quality limit sampling plan governing final inspection and batch acceptance | Every production run, recorded and shipped with goods |
| REACH SVHC | EU candidate list of substances of very high concern, with notification duties above threshold | Any product placed on the EU market |
| RoHS 2.0 | Restriction of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment | Toy versions with a light, sound or motor module |
| California Prop 65 | State-level chemical warning requirements for the US California market | Goods sold or shipped into California |
| ISO 9001 | Quality management system certification of the factory | Buyer due diligence and supplier qualification |
| Sedex SMETA | Social and ethical audit covering labor, health, safety and environment | Buyers with responsible sourcing requirements |
| Compound & Colorant Declarations ⭐ | Written statement of PVC resin, plasticizer type and dosage, stabilizer system and colorant composition per part | Required by test labs and by serious retail buyers |