Spain's toy retailers have noticed the impact of the global economic environment, which caused a decrease in toy sales during 2008's Christmas selling season. Consumers were more cautious in their spending and industry results were less positive than previous years. Despite such, most product categories remained relatively stable.

According to Juguetes B2B's research among toy retailers, 2008's Christmas campaign in Spain saw that the consequences of a consumption decrease as a result of economic stagnation were mixed. 53 percent of retailers said they thought that last year's holiday season was "regular," compared to 46 percent who said their results were negative. The findings contrasted with the prior year in which 47 percent of retailers summed up their holiday sales as "good," 35 percent as average and 18 percent as worse.

Overall for 2008 as a whole, the results were clearer. 92 percent of respondents reported that their toy sales were down, with an average drop off of 10 percent, while just over 7 percent of retailers said that their toy sales were up. Moreover, profit margins were down according to 71 percent of participants in the survey, while 21 percent said they were flat. Toy sales in November, considered the pre-holiday period in Spain, dropped at 53 percent of retailers, as opposed to the nearly 27 percent that saw a similar performance to the prior year and another 20 percent that said they outperformed 2007 during the similar time frame.

Retailers agreed that the global economic situation had its largest impact after summer ended. Consumers became more cautious and reduced Christmas expenses either by buying fewer toys or by choosing to purchase cheaper ones. Some of the study's respondents also thought that many consumers were afraid of spending money due to the media's treatment of the economic situation. However, some retailers pointed out that 2007 was a particularly good year for Spain's toy industry, leaving 2008's results to look even worse when comparing performance.

54 percent of retailers said that their toy sales are still mainly concentrated within the Christmas season. For many, though, sales are beginning to pick up during the rest of the year. A full 45 percent of retailers said that their toy sales are increasing during the rest of the year as a result of toy purchases for birthdays and other celebrations, as well as the wide range of offered toys and the release of catalogues during other times of year.

While the time frame of when toys are bought may be changing, who is doing the buying remains fairly constant. Similar to previous years, mothers were said to have made 56 percent of toy purchases during 2008's Christmas campaign, which in Spain lasts until early January. Beyond mom, 23 percent of toy purchases are made by fathers, 19 percent by other relatives (mainly grandparents and uncles) and 2 percent by children's themselves.

When deciding what to buy, product price and television spots are the most important factors influencing what is purchased, followed in order by brand of the product, retailer's advice and packaging.

Looking forward, in order to extend product supply and catch children's attention, retailers said they planned to include greater numbers of other entertainment products in their stores, including (in order of preference) children's books, collectables, gifts, multimedia and DVDs. Part of the rationale for such a move was to counter that children in Spain, as seen elsewhere, prefer electronic devices at earlier ages in lieu of traditional toys.