Richard Gottlieb

Toy Fair New York
February 17, 2008

Toy Fair is here and I notice from the weather forecast that we are not expecting any snow much less a blizzard.  Toy Fair with its ability to generate cold and messy weather is apparently no match for global warming.   

This is going to be an interesting Toy Fair for several reasons:

1. This will be our first occasion as an industry to be in the full glare of the press since 2007’s product recalls.  New York is a world media headquarters so expect to see a lot of more reporters and cameras this year.  I anticipate that instead of the accustomed nice puff pieces, we may find some of the questions this year to be more pointed and more about safety then about what’s new.  I was just interviewed by National Public  Radio about PVC so we can be sure that that will be on a number of reporter’s agendas.  Undoubtedly lead and magnets will be as well.
2. We had a very successful Dallas Toy Fair so the question will be what does that do to attendance by manufacturers, buyers and sales representatives.  My prediction is that we will be surprised by how busy Toy Fair is this year. 
3. The toy industry is exploding with new product paradigms so I am anticipating that we will see exciting new additions to robotics and Internet enhanced toys as well as some other emerging categories.  Also look for “Green” and “Made in the USA” as major front of package call outs for some companies.
4. Finally, this will be many retailers first confrontation with higher prices.  We saw this in Hong Kong and we will see even more of it in New York.  Look for increases in the high single digits and or products that have been reduced in value (lower piece counts, chips that don’t hold as much memory, etc.) in order to keep the prices down.

It will be an exciting Toy Fair and undoubtedly an exciting year.  This year, let’s hope it’s for the right reasons.

Posted by Richard Gottlieb on February 17, 2008 | Comments (0)