The $30 Starbucks Holiday Cup That's Reselling For Over $200

It's only early November, and we're already seeing Black Friday-like mania at Starbucks locations nationwide. Customers are reportedly coming to blows — all over a sweet little bear. Starbucks' 2025 holiday menu may have felt lackluster without any new drinks, but if you felt bored by the typically exciting annual menu rollout, one of the things you may not know about the Starbucks holiday menu is that it has a counterpart in a yearly holiday merch drop. For 2025, that includes a new item that folks are frantic to get their paws on — and resellers are taking advantage of.

According to Starbucks' website, the Glass Starbucks Bearista Cold Cup is a glass vessel intended for the chain's cold drinks. In addition to helpfully keeping your iced lattes or matchas chilly, this cup is shaped to look like a bear — a gummy bear, really. It's wearing a green Starbucks-branded beanie, which holds a striped reusable straw. At $29.95, it's easy to see the Bearista cup's collectible and giftable appeal. But presumably, Starbucks did not anticipate just how excited its fans would get over this glass bear.

Sure enough, comments on various Instagram posts and Reddit threads reveal that customers have been fighting in-store over the seriously limited Bearista quantities, largely due to the fact that Starbucks did not set a purchase limit. In many cases, it appears that one or two customers snatched up a store's entire stock to then resell. Since the chain began selling these cups, Bearistas have indeed popped up on eBay and Mercari for as much as $500, sometimes more. Going from $30 to over $200 is no small jump, but when the demand is high, it appears that some will pay.

Starbucks may have changed its standard holiday cups, but its customers have clearly moved on. This year, the Bearista is the only holiday cup that matters, and the social media clamor is loud. The Bearista glass (and other holiday merch) dropped in stores November 6. Starbucks only sells this merch in physical locations, which meant that Bearista-interested customers began camping out as early as 3 a.m. to nab their cup. Starbucks was clearly not prepared; some locations had a meager one Bearista. This has further fueled many customers' obsession with tracking the Bearista down.

Social media users overwhelmingly express frustration that Starbucks sent stores mere handfuls of glasses and that resellers came out on top by being able to clean out local supplies. "If these sell out before I can get one, I'll be broken-hearted," one user commented on an Instagram post unveiling the glass. "One of them [is] mine," warns a TikTok user. "I will fight you for it." On Reddit, Starbucks baristas report that they were getting calls to their stores the day before the glasses hit shelves, signalling the pandemonium that was to come.

If your own Bearista hopes have been dashed, try setting your sights on Starbucks' other hyped holiday merch drop: Hello Kitty travel mugs and tumblers. Or, you know, save yourself the stress and support your local coffee shop.