Hurry-up Offense

Yes, friends, this is going to be one exciting month in the toy business. Every holiday season is make or break, but this December—like no other in recent memory—has “nail biter” written all over it. It’s been a long time since the season’s final weeks felt so much like the last two minutes of a football game—one in which your team is behind by a touchdown, with no time-outs and 80 yards to go. But that’s the situation in which the business finds itself in 2007, the year that will live in infamy, as time ticks away towards Christmas morning.

Thanks to this year’s reputation-destroying toy recalls, it’s still anyone’s guess what consumers will do. Despite all of your efforts to point out the positive steps being taken by toy and game manufacturers to ensure that the children’s products on the market this holiday season are truly safe, consumers remain adamant about their intentions to avoid buying Chinese made playthings, and still just as suspicious about your claims to have changed your ways. Almost daily, another press release announces that someone somewhere has published a guide or launched an online store that promises to be the best place to find “safe” toys. I, for one, hope your efforts at self-enforcement of toy safety standards make consumers’ mistrust disappear as soon as possible.

In the meantime, those toy manufacturers currently producing toys domestically should be commended for giving consumers a viable alternative to another year of “plastic by the pound” beneath the Xmas tree. (I’ll be the first to admit, though, that all those light-and-sound enhanced fire engines are a lot more fun—at least for the first 15 minutes—than a fire truck that looks like it was someone’s final project in wood shop.) Also, on behalf of America’s specialty toy stores, thank you toymakers of Europe for offering up your own alternatives to Chinese-made toys, or at least doing a good job of creating a perception of offering up such alternatives. A glance at our What’s Selling page this month shows that U.S. consumers will pay more for imports if they believe those imports have met a higher safety threshold. All you need to do is see how many specialty toy retailers are raving about sales of Playmobil, Plan and European brands represented in the U.S. by International Playthings to see that dynamic in action.

It seems a long time ago that the NPD Group said toy sales in the first half of the year were tracking 3 percent ahead of the first six months of 2006. It feels even longer ago that NPD announced 2006 was the toy industry’s first up year after several years of steady declines. While that year-over-year gain was modest—less than 1 percent—it was a breath of fresh air, regardless. And despite this year’s fumbles, there’s a still a chance for the toy business to pull out a similar win.

As I write this, Black Friday is still a few days away and consumer blogs are positively giddy over early announcements of retail’s pending 'door buster’ sales. Despite the wariness left over from the China situation, excitement is clearly building among those for whom the holiday season’s spirit is a mysteriously renewable resource. Like the feeling upon seeing the year’s first snowflake, the holiday season has a power to instill wonder and uplift in a way far beyond its surface. Here’s hoping that spirit inspires parents to see past the toy business’ turmoil to glimpse the core of well-meaning at the heart of those who work hard to foster child’s play.