Mattel Holiday Sales Driven By Name Brands

With the decade inching towards its conclusion and shoppers making their last-minute purchases, Mattel CEO CEO Ynon Kreiz says the last holiday toy shopping season of the 2010s has been about “big franchises” and “big brands.” This happens to the case for the company’s legendary Hot Wheels and Barbie brands, in particular, CNBC reported Monday (Dec. 23).

After it sold a whopping 500 million Hot Wheels products last year, the company plans to come out ahead of that figure this year. New additions to the Barbie brand encompass the Barbie Dream Plane and Judge Barbie. For its part, the Barbie brand rolled out in 1962 with the Barbie Dream House.

In separate news, toy discounts have plummeted this holiday season. There were fewer discounts on toys for online shoppers, even with an average of 15 percent to 18 percent price cuts going into Cyber Monday. Toy prices were slashed 31 percent last year, UBS Analyst Arpine Kocharyan wrote in a note noting online shopping trends monitored by Adobe. Price discounts were approximately 19 percent in 2017.

The shopping time spanning from Thanksgiving to Christmas was six days shorter this year, which is said to be the shortest time since 2013. At the same time, Hanukkah also begins 20 days later this year than it did last year.

Even so, Thanksgiving weekend shoppers showed that toys are still popular, with 33 percent saying they were buying toys as gifts compared to 34 percent last year per National Retail Federation data. Barbie from Mattel is still the most popular holiday toy for girls, while LEGO remains the top seller for boys. 

And, before the holiday shopping season, news surfaced that Walmart and Mattel were trying new ways to sell toys to children with an interactive video store featuring different “floors” with toys. The store is called KidHQ, and it allows users to browse through toys and has interactive “choose-your-own-adventure” type features. 

Mattel has Barbie’s DreamFloor, and users can help Barbie create her video blog, as they explore different toys.