Retailers Pin Hopes on Tried and True Toys : Dolls, Bikes and Talking Bears Top Christmas List
Without a new smash hit like the Cabbage Patch Kids or Trivial Pursuit games to lead the way, the toy industry is counting on the old standards to energize sales this Christmas season.
Dolls, bicycles, teddy bears--including two that capitalize on high technology--and other old favorites seem to be back in vogue this year, say manufacturers, retailers and industry observers. And, even though general retailers have expressed doubts about the bounty of holiday shopping, toy sellers can count on sales increases of as much as 15% from last year, according to industry observers.
But that’s still far below last year’s boom, when the seemingly endless Cabbage Patch family, and similar spinoffs, boosted sales 50% from the year before.
A major reason why toy sales won’t post a record level of growth this year is that the industry’s product lines are aging, said Harold Vogel, an analyst with Merrill Lynch in New York. With most of the major toy items 3 to 4 years old, there is nothing really new on the market to seize buyers’ attention, he said.
Sears, Roebuck & Co., one of the nation’s largest toy sellers, expects traditional toys--dolls, bicycles and board games--to be among the chain’s top sellers this Christmas season.
Tough Act to Follow
N. John Campbell, an analyst with the investment firm Pemberton Houston Willoughby Inc. in Vancouver, Canada, said the toy industry won’t be able to top the growth that it experienced in 1984, when Coleco’s Cabbage Patch Kids, Hasbro-Bradley’s Transformers and Selchow & Richter’s Trivial Pursuit were in their first full year of sales.
Still, Cabbage Patch dolls remain big sellers--they have accounted for 80% of Coleco’s sales so far this year, according to Barbara Wruck, a vice president at the company that stole the 1983 Christmas season with the lovable dolls. The sales are supplemented this year by new lines of the dolls, such as twins, “preemies” and a series that features the familiar dolls, clutching passports and dressed in the full regalia of a particular country.
The Cabbage Patch Kid “was an anomaly,” analyst Vogel said. “It would be ill-advised to expect it to happen again. It was abnormally successful.”
That’s not to suggest, however, that the toy manufacturers aren’t trying for another best-selling toy. Coleco has on tap a “Rambo” doll to capitalize on the popularity of the Sylvester Stallone movies, but that won’t be in the stores until spring.
For the holidays, two companies are marketing high-tech teddy bears; one has eye and lip movements synchronized to recorded stories and songs, and one has a silicon chip that enables it to talk in garbled “bear talk.”
But analysts question the affect the teddy bears will have on this year’s sales. K mart also anticipates a year of “people getting back to the basics,” with stuffed animals, dolls, toy trucks and bicycles expected to be big sellers, according to spokeswoman Barbara Palazzolo. The discount retailer would settle for matching last year’s performance, when sales in its toy department were up a whopping 40% over 1983.
Some retailers said they are seeing the benefits of the toy industry’s push to make toy shopping a year-round pursuit rather than a seasonal event.
Manufacturers have helped make it that way by introducing products throughout the year and by producing entire lines of related toys rather than single products, said Morinda Christopher, corporate communications director for New Jersey-based Toys R Us.
Action figure sets such as the He-Man, Transformer and veteran G.I. Joe dolls, for example, can start with a single figure, with accompanying figures and accessories ranging from costumes to castles available to expand the set and increase sales. Hasbro’s My Little Pony line of soft plastic ponies began several years ago with 10 figures and now includes 60 separate ponies, a castle, a stable, a grooming parlor, a baby pony nursery and dozens of outfits in which to dress the figures. Such supplements are bought throughout the year, Christopher said.
At Toys International’s store at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, sales during the early fall increased 18% to 20% from the same time last year, manager John Bryant said. He added that his store and other toy retailers at the giant shopping center are carrying almost double the stock they did last season.
Jo An Rickerson, manager of a Toy City store in Orange--one of 10 Toy City outlets in Orange and Los Angeles counties--said she began seeing $400 layaway purchases as early as September, an unusually high level of early buying compared to previous years. Shoppers were reserving both expensive items and a fairly large volume of lower-priced merchandise, she said.
Computerized Animals
The closest thing to a phenomenon this season is an odd combination of the cuddly and the complex: the computerized stuffed animal.
Some retailers have crowned the two main competitors in this new category--World of Wonder’s Teddy Ruxpin and Axlon’s A. G. Bear--as the successors to the Cabbage Patch Kid.
Toys International’s Bryant said that, as of early September, his store had 400 shoppers on a waiting list for the Teddy Ruxpin bear, an animated plush teddy bear wrapped around a tape player. When one of the 13 available cassettes is inserted and the player is turned on, the bear will “read” a story and sing songs, all with synchronized lip movements.
A. G. Bear has a heart made of a computer chip that enables it to respond to its owner’s words with garbled “bear talk.” A. G. was developed by Nolan Bushnell, the inventor of Pong--a Christmas favorite a decade ago--and the founder of Atari and the Chuck E. Cheese pizza parlor chain.
Analysts and manufacturers are less optimistic about the success of the bears than most retailers, calling them “faddish” and citing their high prices--Teddy Ruxpin retails for about $80, which includes only one story tape, and A. G. Bear sells for about $30.
But many retailers say that the two bears are selling as quickly as they are placed on the shelves and are expected to continue selling well into the Christmas season.
Items to teach children math and spelling also are expected to sell well, according to Kip Power, Southern California regional manager for Toys R Us. Electronic products dominate that category and include a $50 robot by Playskool, designed to teach a variety of subjects, and a number of “pre-computers,” which, at $40 to $60 each, enable a child to type answers to questions into a keyboard. An electronic voice corrects wrong answers and praises the child for right answers.
Industry analyst Campbell said such products, because they are often priced higher than other toys, can suffer in bad times. He predicted that they would “hold their own” in the market this season, but he said that, “when parents get in a belt-tightening mood, that’s the area they cut back on.”
Doll sales are one segment of the market that seldom suffer cutbacks and that are doing especially well this year.
Wruck credits the Cabbage Patch Kid with the rejuvenated interest, but others in the industry have attributed the boom to a renewal of interest in toys that spur children to use their minds.
Kathy Thorpe, marketing manager for Hawthorne-based Mattel, said that today’s parents, because they are generally older and have more formal education than their parents, “want their kids’ toys to stir the imagination,” she said. “That’s what dolls are good for.”
Barbie Changes
Mattel’s major thrust has been to revamp the 26-year-old Barbie doll into a yuppie version called “Day-to-Night Barbie.” The new doll comes with a pink business suit, an office and has enough other outfits to carry her from college graduation into a career as a veterinarian, a reporter or any number of other occupations.
“We want to show that ‘we girls can do anything, like Barbie,’ ” Thorpe said.
A little girl’s world also can include action figures such as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, according to Thorpe.
Mattel found that girls also buy such dolls and has introduced the Princess of Power “fashion action” doll series.
A tendency to disregard traditional sex roles is seen in the increasing number of boys playing with dolls other than G.I. Joe-type action figures.
Male Cabbage Patch Kids have been popular with boys, said Christopher of Toys R Us.
And Hasbro is introducing “My Buddy,” a cloth-bodied doll that the manufacturer advertises as designed for the “rough-and-tumble” boy.
