Santa’s shop at the North Pole isn’t as busy as you would expect this time of year.
After an early frenzy of shoppers socking toys away for the holidays on layaway, the brief glimmer of hope for a turnaround in the beleagured toy industry has vanished.
Toy sales were down about 5 to 6 percent through the end of the third quarter, according to BMO Capital Markets toy industry analyst Gerrick Johnson. He expects sales will continue their negative trends in the coming weeks.
“The season got off to a nice, strong early start,” he said. But recent sales have shown that the early burst of buying reflected sales being pulled forward into September and early October as parents took advantage of layaway programs to buy holiday gifts.
In recent weeks, sales have been “decidedly negative,” Johnson said. “To be 5-to-6-percent down at this time of year is pretty dramatic,” he said.
If sales decline between 2 to 3 percent in the fourth quarter, when the industry rings up about 55 percent of its sales, sales will shake out at a decline of about 3.5 percent for the year, which would be the worst year for which Johnson has data. His records go back to 1980.
(1) If they’re talking about “recent weeks” as opposed to Sept (last month of 3Q), there was a little hurricane which the Northeast is still recovering from.
(2) This couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of far Eastern sweatshops.
If it comes to that, bugger both sides for behaving like backward children. And glad Obama won, since he’s less likely to emotionally decide to jump in than Mittens would be.
Funny, the rest of the article went on to explain there’s no “Must Have” toy this season driving sales. They also somehow ignored the continuing trend towards electronics and apps rather than plastic and fluff. Considering how many 3 year olds have their own iPads, it makes sense that toys are going to get less of a Christmas market share.
.
