“This encourages people to plan ahead to avoid shortages”: Christmas toy trends are already known

Chez King Jouet, Stitch est l'un des succès attendus de Noël prochain. – Jenny Bernard

C’est la dernière ligne droite pour les magasins spécialisés et la grande distribution bien avant les fêtes de fin d'année. Les rayons des enseignes d'Alès dans le Gard, se remplissent.  

Tick ​​tock, tick tock. With two and a half months to go until Christmas, the countdown to December 25 has already begun for some toy brands. At the Joué Club store in Alès, the first catalogs were distributed last weekend so that subscribers could have them on the official start date of this Wednesday, October 9. At competitor King Jouet, “six pallets” were received in recent days. “And that's nothing, two weeks ago we received nineteen!“, exclaims Mikaël Dombre, head of the brand, with a smile. On the large-scale distribution side, shelving is also being prepared with the arrival of the catalogues for the All Saints' Day holidays.

Trends

Unanimously, one of the key trends for next Christmas is the character Stitch, a little alien who appeared for the first time in 2002 in a Walt Disney animated film. “The strong demand for Stitch started two years ago without anyone really knowing why, “, says a still surprised Jean-Philippe Petit, manager of the Joué Club store with his wife Hélèna. The second expected success is Bitzee, the virtual pet that you can actually touch and that caused a lot of sweat on parents' foreheads last year, due to stock shortages. This year, the brand also offers it with Disney characters.

For the rest, no surprises: we find the Lego brand which evolves with its range Welcome to adults and offers for example, bouquets of flowers, Mario Bross or heritage monuments like Notre-Dame-de-Paris. "It's a range for collectors, people remember their childhood“, says Jean-Philippe Petit, from Joué club. Board games " are also all the rage. We play as a family and this helps children put down their screens", continues the manager, enthusiastically.

Sales spread out over time to avoid shortages

Apart from Joué club, the catalogues will be available during the All Saints' Day holidays. Most of them have validity dates that stretch until the beginning of December. “Everything in the catalog is on sale until that date“, explains Mikaël Dombres of King Jouet. “This encourages people to plan ahead to avoid shortages“. “This allows for restocking in the event of a shortage to try to meet demand“, explains Jean-Philippe Petit of Joué club.

But not only that: it also allows customers to save money by buying products at better prices. Because as noted every year by the federal consumer union UFC Que choisir: ” Toy catalogs generally guarantee their prices until the first days of December, between the 3rd and the 6th for the most part. The brands are no longer bound by the prices that are displayed thereafter with the exception of Joué Club." A statement confirmed by the brand manager: "Price increases at Joué Club are a myth. The prices go all the way through our catalog, i.e. to December 31st.“

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