Stormy Weather

Whew, what a summer! Sometime in mid-July I'd remarked to our editorial intern that, “You know, it's normally really much busier than this,” after yet another day of scant pickings as to interesting toy business news to post to our website. Of course, that brought the jinx down hard—and it was non-stop thereafter with the one word popping up over and over again that, by now, I'm sure you're all tired of hearing: recall.

First, of course, it was RC2 because of lead paint—a shock, to say the least, considering Learning Curve's reputation for quality and the Thomas the Tank Engine Wooden Railway's status as standard-bearer for the wider universe of specialty toys and what sets them apart from more mass market products.

Then there was Fisher-Price, which, frankly, wasn't exactly shocking on first blush, considering its history of significant recalls and preschoolers' uncanny ability to turn any toy in front of them into a deadly weapon. But the scope of the recall was certainly a surprise: nearly a million toys, 83 SKUs in all, all bearing the most popular preschool properties on the market—Dora, Diego, Elmo and his Sesame Street pals—because of lead paint. “This is going to be bad,” I thought to myself, and it was. Until it got worse.

Mattel followed up shortly thereafter with its recall of approximately 436,000 Cars toys because of, yes, lead paint, and, to add insult to injury, snuck into the same announcement a few sentences that it was also recalling a massive 18.2 million toys worldwide that had been released in the last five years because of concerns about the safety of the magnets they contained, should those magnets come loose.

Suffice it to say, the phones here did not stop ringing for a week—and from what we've heard from you out there on the industry's front lines, ours weren't the only ones.

By the time you read this, I'm expecting the media frenzy, the politicians' statements about greater government enforcement, and consumers' widespread consternation over big business and how manufacturers “care only about profit” to have subsided to its typical dull murmur. It will be interesting to see, though, whether parents can back up their talk about not buying toys made in China by actually not buying toys made in China. As every media report in the world after the Mattel story broke reiterated, 80 percent of the world's playthings are made in China, so parents will have a tough time making that intention stick.

If they try hard enough, there are certainly companies out there still producing product in the U.S., although not anywhere near the numbers you'd need to restock a toy store entirely with American made product. But if one threw into the mix the many European playthings made under the more reliable conditions of the European Union, a small toy store might just be able to do it—not that I'm recommending such a move.

But if our feature story this month about preschool toys is any barometer, European designed and manufactured toys are undeniably on the upswing at independent retailers (and at Target), so alternatives to Chinese-made playthings are growing.

I've yet to hear much about whether U.S. manufacturers plan to do anything beyond more closely monitoring their Chinese suppliers. That extra level of attention is no doubt needed, but it has me wondering: At what point does the extra cost involved with making sure your overseas suppliers are reputable nullify the savings from using those suppliers?

'Safe' and 'save' are similar sounding words, but their meanings are far from related. Following this summer's recalls, toy business watchers (including myself) are wondering which one is more important to your business in the long run.

For the last several years you've told us how much you've enjoyed Richard Gottlieb's “Minding Your Business” column in the pages of Playthings each month. Well, there's more where that came from. Head over to Playthings.com to read Richard's new blog, Out of the Toy Box, where he promises a steady stream of “sometimes funny, always unique” insights into the latest developments in and around the toy business.