Last year Disney’s Frozen was the top toy seller by a long shot. And it kept that spot for a long time, but now Star Wars toys are slowly overtaking it.
This is what several retailers are saying to Stuff magazine. So far, stuffed animals and toys of the Frozen characters were quite popular. But, somewhat unsurprisingly, now the Star Wars mania is taking over.
“There was a definite peak for Frozen toys and merchandise in November and December 2014, and subsequent drop-off in January 2015. Search demand for Star Wars toys has been two to three times that of Frozen toys over the past two to three months”, says Grant Osborne, founder of digital marketing consultants First Digital.
In total the search volume for Star Wars toys in September this year was over four times compared to October 2014. One of the most searched Star Wars-themed toys are the LEGO play sets, Osborne notes. Usually people are searching for very specific toys that they have seen or heard about. Costumes are also pretty high on the list, probably due to Halloween.
Light sabers are topping the lists in stores, too. The Australian branches of Kmart are expecting to sell 45 000 light sabers by Christmas, the Brisbane Times reports. The demand for Star Wars LEGO sets is also huge and may end up overpassing the supply. Kmart says the Star Wars figurines have already overtaken the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Transformers.
The predictions are that the demand for Star Wars toys will keep rising fast as the movie premiere approaches this December. While this is usually a dream come true for retailers, it also comes with it’s own set of problems. One of them is that the demand is higher than expected and may end up too much for the supply chain. So far though, the stores are more than happy with the growing popularity of Star Wars.
The biggest winner though is Disney. The company is leading the toy market by a huge margin. Last year it was Frozen, now it is Star Wars. Next year there will be more big Disney movies, so it is a pretty safe bet that the lead will continue.
