As (probably) the world's largest reseller of Beanies at the time, this was 100% nothing to do with a Chinese supply crunch, as far as I was ever aware.

It was 100% to do with Ty corp's very clever handling of distribution, limiting where, who and how many Beanies could be sold.

There was a huge over-supply of the less rare Beanies and a huge under-production of the rarer ones. All done on purpose.