More Articles By Lauren Kellachan

• Made To Move
  Enticing the video game crowd back to the toy aisle is tough these days, so piquing retailers' interests in a category like remote control takes more than just a snazzy controller—buying decisions can be made based on anything from price to performance, styling to sophisticated features. More
  
• Imagine that! The role of a lifetime...
  Everyone can relax. The world of imagination is still very real. Electronic bells and whistles associated with many of today's toys and the media pelting kids get virtually from the crib stage have not diminished the basic desire for tutus and tiaras, swords and superhero capes. What is innate from the time children enter the world until starting school—walking, talking, sens... More
  
• Michaels adds another chapter to scrapbooking
  Preserving memories is a big business that Michaels crafts stores hopes to collect on with two experimental Recollections scrapbooking stores opening this summer. More
  
• Déjà cool
  Taking a step back is today's forward thinking. Retail is retro and as adults renew contact with familiar feel-good brands that remind them of simpler times, a new generation is being introduced to some pretty neat stuff. Old Navy ads hawk preppy rugby shirts in a take-off of TV's saccharine sitcom, The Brady Bunch, as designer Todd Oldham revamps varsity funk college dorm décor at Targe... More
  
• Ringing up baby
  Here in the United States 8.7 million kids joined 63.6 million children in the last decade, according to Bureau of the Census 2000 figures, with more than four million births last year alone reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. With 26 percent of the total population under the age of 18, the 1990s marked the biggest baby boom since the 1950s and impacted the toy industr... More
  
• Ringing up baby
  Infant/preschool supercategory registers most revenue More
  
• Fashioning fantasy
  Role-playing, imagination in one of its purest forms, guarantees that kids will at some point want to dress up as someone else—likely as a role-model or hero. Time was, the transformation from kid to wannabe was accomplished with props from family closets and attics. While this may still be true to some extent, there's a lot more out there to materialize the imaginations and dreams ... More
  
• The Generation Game
  A need for real live interaction, away from the computer screen and back into the family room, has people looking at board games and puzzles with newfound appreciation. And manufacturers are responding in kind with a host of new offerings geared to support this rekindled enthusiasm for family interaction. More
  
• Spring forward
  Signs of spring are cropping up in toy stores as the weather begins to break into more temperate climes. Consumers, having had their fill of the sedentary months, look again to the outdoors for fun. Retailers in areas guided by the changing seasons are moving their spring and summer fare front and center. More