30th Oct 09
Christmas best-sellers set to be credit crunch toys
by Natasha Redman
The best selling toys this Christmas has almost halved as parents reduce spending on hi-tech gadgets and opt to purchase traditional, simple games for their children.
Toys expected to be Christmas best-sellers this year are mostly under £40 and include Lego, Monopoly, pump-action Nef guns, racing cars, Sylvanian Families and talking, moving, fluffy hamsters, according to the Toy Retailers Association.
Each year retailers choose the 72 most popular toys and break down the list to the top 12 ‘Dream Toys’ that are most likely to be given as gifts to children. The average price has dropped from £40.63 to £22.89 as shops and manufacturers cater for those families hit by the recession.
Retailers have already began cutting prices of toy with Asda selling more than 100 toys at half price as Sainsbury’s is taking 50 percent off the price of all toys, equating to a £12 million reduction.
Head of Lego in the UK, Marco Ilincic, said that the majority of toys that had been chosen this year don’t involve technology.
Expensive battery-operated gizmos are out and classic toys that have entertained children for many years are back in, even if it has been given a new twist. Nerf have launched a new version that fires projectiles over 50 feet, while Lego has moved into board games allowing children to design their own three-dimensional boards, characters and dice.
The world’s most famous board game, Monopoly, has also received a touch up, with the release of the new Monopoly City version, which introduces sky scrapers, property auctions and planning permissions.
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