September 13, 2013
Can Kids Help Improve Walmart’s Toy Sales?
Kmart commercials for its layaway program are not the only signs of Christmas Creep. Yesterday, Walmart released its annual list of hot toys for the season. This year, however, there is one notable difference from the past. This year’s top 20 list was chosen by kids themselves.
"We are taking the guesswork out of customers’ holiday toy shopping by turning to kids to tell us what the real top toys are," said Scott McCall, senior vice president of toys and seasonal at Walmart U.S., in a statement. "Kids told us they want interactive toys as well as classic brands. After hearing this feedback, we did what we do best. We made price investments to offer absolutely great savings on these holiday toys and more for our customers."
Walmart enlisted the help of 1,000 children between the ages of 18 months and 10 years. The list was broken out into four segments based on age and Walmart plans to keep them grouped together in special in-store displays throughout the holiday season. It will begin promoting special pricing on the items later this month in its circulars distributed around the U.S. The company also has a special section on Walmart.com to feature the kids’ choices.
The Christmas selling season is critically important for toy retailers. Educational toys and licensed items were among the most popular choices on Walmart’s list. The competition is expected to be intense this year as product supplies should be stronger than in the past.
BrainTrust
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
Will Walmart’s enlistment of kids to choose this year’s hottest toys help sales of those items during the holiday season? Will the effort result in Walmart getting customers into stores earlier this year to shop for Christmas?
Poll
Considering Walmart’s high volume-per-unit and high sales-per-square-foot relative to their competitors, the customers are already in the stores. In my opinion, the result will be that competitors will have to get into the game earlier than they wanted.
Walmart is doing something for parents that many may need – early guidance on what their child is likely to enjoy receiving for Christmas. Certainly the move could be seen as self-serving in that Walmart clearly started purchasing a lot of inventory in these items and now has to move them. Not sure that it will motivate shoppers to start their Christmas buying early this year as much as in past years, when there was a short supply of some hot toys.
I do think so. What a great idea to use the children to select the toys. Children do not look at the price, or the danger issues some toys present to certain ages, but they do know what they like. Parents have the option of the layaway plan even if the toys are over their budget. Seems like a win win to me, just a bit early.
Nothing can top kids telling you what they want. But knowing what your children want does not necessarily translate to buying it at Walmart.
I’m curious how they USED to decide what to stock, and I’m also curious how competitors make their selections. Though it sounds like a fine idea, I can’t help but think that some competitor has tried the idea already.
Making it easy to choose has always paid back. Making the choices easier by kids picking the list is a good move. Only hitch here is in the category of action figures and movie based merchandise, Christmas releases could change the choices based on what’s in fashion during December.
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Considering Walmart’s high volume-per-unit and high sales-per-square-foot relative to their competitors, the customers are already in the stores. In my opinion, the result will be that competitors will have to get into the game earlier than they wanted.
Walmart is doing something for parents that many may need – early guidance on what their child is likely to enjoy receiving for Christmas. Certainly the move could be seen as self-serving in that Walmart clearly started purchasing a lot of inventory in these items and now has to move them. Not sure that it will motivate shoppers to start their Christmas buying early this year as much as in past years, when there was a short supply of some hot toys.
I do think so. What a great idea to use the children to select the toys. Children do not look at the price, or the danger issues some toys present to certain ages, but they do know what they like. Parents have the option of the layaway plan even if the toys are over their budget. Seems like a win win to me, just a bit early.
Nothing can top kids telling you what they want. But knowing what your children want does not necessarily translate to buying it at Walmart.
I’m curious how they USED to decide what to stock, and I’m also curious how competitors make their selections. Though it sounds like a fine idea, I can’t help but think that some competitor has tried the idea already.
Making it easy to choose has always paid back. Making the choices easier by kids picking the list is a good move. Only hitch here is in the category of action figures and movie based merchandise, Christmas releases could change the choices based on what’s in fashion during December.