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Toy-focussed newsagents benefit from extraordinary toy sales growth

The latest toy sales basket data analysis by the NPD group based on sales data from independent toy retailers, not newsagents, for The Australian Toy Association reveals terrific results in the toy space. Newsagents active in toys with a defined department offer would be doing as well. The headlines from the October sales analysis are excellent

  1. October is the 8th consecutive month of double digit dollar growth.
  2. All major categories posted growth:
    Youth Electronics +86 %
    Arts & Crafts +68%
    Games & Puzzles 48%
  3. Average price grew 3%
  4. 19 of 20 Key Manufacturers grew for month
  5. YTD Games & Puzzles largest growing category
    – With building Sets the largest $$$ gain
  6. Top 5 gaining properties Oct 2019 v Oct 2020
    BLUEY
    NINTENDO
    OUR GENERATION
    LEGO SUPER MARIO BROTHERS
    POKEMON

These are excellent results revealed in this comprehensive report. Here is a snapshot from one page of the NPD report FYI:

Now, bringing the analysis closer to home and looking at data for toys in newsagencies, and specifically newsagencies where toys are 10% or more of revenue, the results are excellent. In October, those businesses meeting this criteria reported year on year revenue growth in toys of 65% or more.

These stores typically have a permeant toy department offer in-store with established brands and regular enhancement of range. Typically, they cover all ages from baby to 80+ because, as the sales this year have shown, everyone can be a toy customer.

Diving even deeper, newsagencies with a webstore more than 3 months old saw 25% of toy revenue come from online.

While it might be reasonable to say these results are Covid related, the reality is that some ope the growth will stick as some shoppers have discovered new retailers and new ways of in home and out of home entertainment.

Suppliers and analysis I speak with in Australia and overseas are predicting a good year for toys in 2021 on the back of what has been achieved in 2020.

Now, to a footnote – there are a couple of categories within toys that some old and tired retailers wrote off as done and over. These categories have lead the growth and delivered extradorinaiy sales. My point is saying this is that customers tell you what’s hot and not more so than tired old retailer eyes.

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Newsagency benchmark

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  1. Steve

    We are 162 per cent up for the quarter year on year in this category Bluey is our hero product. We love seeing young kids drag in their parents to our store upon sighting our display of Bluey plush, books and games in our front windows. This is a demographic who don’t traditionally shop in our channel.

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  2. Jackson

    In regards to ”bluey”, do you have any recommendations for suppliers Mark?
    It’s been very hard to find at a decent wholesale price.

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  3. Jonathan Wilson

    One thing I have noticed in the toy market as of late is an increase in the amount of stuff being sold that’s clearly copyright violating. (like the knock-off mini Nintendo I saw the other day at a temporary mall kiosk at Grand Plaza shops here in QLD) Why more isn’t being done to stop the sale of these illegal copyright violating items is beyond me…

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