Rachael Simpson-Jones spoke to toy retailers and found out that Christmas 2022 was the opposite of the turbulence that may have been anticipated earlier in the year.
The run-up to Christmas 2022 was a nail-biting one, thanks to several challenges that threatened quite the potential headache for toy shops. Postal strikes, stock availability, spending pressures, you name it; if it was threatening to derail Christmas shopping plans, we saw it. Happily, despite many dire (yet understandable) predictions to the contrary, it appears that the old adage – that people will always buy toys at Christmas, no matter what – proved true again last year.
Toy World caught up with Learning Express in the US, Toy Barnhaus. Midco Toys, Toytown, Smyths, Very, B&M and The Entertainer to find out how the festive trading period panned out. They told us that when consumers finally turned up, they certainly didn’t hold back.
Mark Buschhaus and Stephen Barnes at Toy Barnhaus reveal that 2022’s festive shopping period was one of their best ever, while Rick Derr, manager and owner of Learning Express in Lake Zurich, Illinois, tells us in his Letter from America that the final 10 days before Christmas could be summed up with the word ‘wow’. Grocers, too, enjoyed strong results, with Sainsbury’s posting a total sales increase of +7.1% – Argos sales were up the same amount – and Tesco saw its revenue jump +6.1%.
Dave Middleton, owner of Midco Toys, says that Christmas 2022 was his best in 20 years, with basket spend the same as previous years and signs of a cost-of-living crisis nowhere to be seen.
Alan Simpson, executive chairman at SMF Toytown, confirmed that he enjoyed a very strong year overall, with the week before Christmas being Toytown’s best ever, and B&M also reported a ‘monster’ final two weeks.
Very’s Toys, Gifts & Beauty category pulled off one of the online retailer’s biggest performances in 2022 and The Entertainer’s Gary Grant highlights the postal strikes as the ‘biggest single factor’ in the retailer’s strong December performance.
“It also doesn’t get any better for a retailer than when Christmas falls on a Sunday,” adds Gary. “We all had the benefit of a full final week’s trading, which was stunning.”
To read the full article, which includes NPD data, what products trended over the period, how the retailers fared post-Christmas and predictions for 2023, click here.
