NPD’s Melissa Symonds examines recent toy market sales data and how different price points are performing in the last few weeks before Christmas.
The UK toy market has sold over £2b YTD October 2022, but sales are down -4% on the same period a year ago, as concerns about the increase in the cost-of-living impact consumer shopping habits. Despite consumers being more price conscious this year, most of the value loss is actually from the lower price points. Toys under £10, which account for two thirds of the volume sold so far this year, lost sales of £64m, as shoppers have reigned in impulse purchases and non-essential toy purchases. Perhaps consumers concerned about their overall spend may be saving for a higher priced toy purchase for Christmas? This is a similar pattern to what we’ve seen in the past when the UK economy is weak, as unplanned purchases are easily cut out and parents say no more often to pester power.
Despite this decline in the low price points so far this year, we’re still seeing growth in the Collectibles segment, up +12% in value and now accounting for one in every five toys purchased. However, the average selling price of collectibles has increased by +12% and is now £6.31. One of the fastest growing collectibles ranges is Squishmallows,which is also the fastest growing property in the UK Toy market. Furthermore, it hasn’t shown any sign of slowing down – especially with the recent introduction of licences to the collection. In addition, we’ve seen continued growth from Pokémon Trading cards after a strong 25-year anniversary last year. At the time of writing (mid-November), the success of the Qatar World Cup Stickers has also been driving the collectible market and could also potentially help slow the decline in low price items in December.
With a full shopping week in the run up to the big day, there’s still everything to play for. Melissa examines other price points and how these traditionally perform throughout December, as well as highlighting which line has shown the most Item Progression according to the latest data, and finding out which are the current Top Properties and Top Gaining Properties in the UK toy market.
To find out more, read the full article, which appeared in the December edition of Toy World, here.
