Most toy retailers had Merry Christmas
The popularity of Disney’s Frozen license and a final surge of spending allowed most U.S. toy retailers to grow sales this past holiday season, according to new data from NPD.
The global information company said sales among the retailers who participate in its tracking service and represent an estimated 80% of U.S. volume grew 4% to $18.08 billion from $17.46 billion. The toy category got off to a rocky start during the 2014 holiday season with sales the week of Black Friday down 2% from the prior year and Cyber Monday week sales up 1%, according to NPD. An extra shopping day the week of Christmas compared to last year was thought to have helped the category grow with sales Christmas week up a very strong 27%.
“From Black Friday week to the week before Christmas, holiday toy sales were looking relatively flat,” said Juli Lennett, president of the toys division at the NPD Group. “But with the procrastinators shopping in droves the days before Christmas, perhaps aided by plunging gas prices, the toy industry experienced a merry Christmas after all.”
In terms of sales performance across major toy categories, top performers were building sets, and youth electronics which grew 13% and 11%, respectively. Those categories were followed by action figures and games/puzzles which both grew 9%. The infant/preschool toys and all other toys categories were the only ones to experience dollar sales declines when compared to 2013, dropping 5% and 0.4%, respectively.
Licensed toys, which represented 31% of total industry sales grew 7%, and as expected, Disney’s Frozen was immensely popular. Frozen captured the top spot overall as well as the top gainer among all toy properties for the year based on absolute dollar growth, generating $531 million in 2014. While Disney’s Frozen did not capture the top spot in any of the 11 super categories NPD tracks, and was the top property in only four of the 100 subclasses (Paint Kits, Fashion Styling & Dress-up, Children’s Puzzles, Electronic Entertainment), the property was represented in 39 different toy categories.
“Disney’s Frozen was the big news story in the toy industry in 2014,” said Lennett. “It wasn’t due to that one hot toy that was a category killer but because of the varied breadth and sheer number of toys. Disney’s Frozen had over 300 different items on store shelves this year.”
2014 TOP SELLING TRADITIONAL TOY ITEMS*** RANKED ON DOLLARS
Rank Item Manufacturer
1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fig Asst Playmates Toys
2 My First Disney Princess Frozen Snow Glow Elsa JAKKS Pacific
3 Hot Wheels Car Basic Asst Mattel
4 LeapFrog Explorer Licensed Software Asst LeapFrog
5 Galaxy Tab 3 Kids 8GB Samsung
6 Minecraft Core Steve W/Accessory Jazwares
7 Zoomer Dino Asst Spin Master
8 Barbie 3-Story Dream Townhouse Mattel
9 Nabi 2 8GB Bundle 7" Tablet Fuhu
10 Disney Frozen Sparkle Doll Asst Mattel
Source: The NPD Group/Retail Tracking Service
***These lists capture all widely distributed SKUs sold in the U.S. by retailers (including e-tailers). The lists do not include items that are exclusive to specific retailers.