The high demand made defects with some of the toys more prominent, with some customers complaining that they had issues initiating the hatching process (which involves interacting with the egg over a period of time), or that the batteries in the toy within did not have enough capacity left to complete it (necessitating manual extraction). The New York Times and The Globe and Mail documented the organisation of raffles and waiting lists for the toys, and sellers on websites such as and eBay selling Hatchimals at over three times their suggested retail price of US$60, if not higher.
The firm compared the phenomenon to those surrounding Cabbage Patch Kids and Tickle Me Elmo. By late-October, Hatchimals occupied multiple spots on NPD Group's top ten list of best-selling toys in the United States, including first, second, sixth, and ninth place. On launch, demand for Hatchimals was extremely high, which led to them being designated as the "hottest" toy of the 2016 Christmas shopping season. In 2017, Spin Master introduced Hatchimals Colleggtibles, a line of miniature, collectible figures in a blind bag form. On launch, five possible species were available: Bearakeet, Burtle, Draggle, Penguala, and Owlicorn. Hatchimals was officially launched on October 7, 2016, backed by advertising on television and digital platforms, such as social networking services. This idea evolved into a concept for a robotic creature that would hatch itself from an egg, necessitating the design of a mechanism for the hatching, and a material for the egg itself. In 2014, Spin Master's head of robotics James Martin explained that his team hated the popularity of unboxing videos on YouTube, and envisioned a concept for a toy that could "unbox" itself.