Brawl in aisle 9? Not this holiday season

Allison Linn Senior writer • Profile • E-mail

Add another item to the long list of woes already facing retailers: the dearth of must-have items expected to fly off the shelves this holiday season.

As the traditional holiday shopping season kicks off, there are no stand-out toys or electronic gadgets that are expected to spark the frenzy seen in years past, when late-night lines snaked through the streets and parents came to blows trying to get that much-coveted gift for their kids.

“The lack of a hot toy is one of the reasons we’re going to have one of the worst Christmases in 30 years,” said C. Britt Beemer, founder of America’s Research Group and co-author of “The Customer Rules.” “There’s no reason for parents to kill themselves to go out and buy that hot item.”

Of course, it’s far from the only reason analysts expect an especially tough holiday season, as retailers battle the gloom of a deep downturn in the economy and financial markets. The International Council of Shopping Centers is predicting that sales in the crucial November-December season will rise a paltry 1.7 percent over last year.

A season without a must-have item is just adding insult to injury.

“The big challenge this year is to get people in the stores, because there isn’t really that one must-have product that gets people all excited,” said Stephen Baker, a consumer electronics analyst with NPD Group.

With toys, Beemer said the buzz of a must-have item can boost overall sales for several reasons. For one thing, parents seeking a hard-to-find gift may just go shopping more because they are hunting for that item, perhaps picking up more items along the way. For another, parents who didn’t get that item sometimes end up spending more on other gifts for their children to compensate.

In years past, holiday shopping manias have been sparked by toys including Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids, as well as by video game consoles including the Xbox and PlayStation 3. Retailers have sometimes been able to spark a run on the shelves by offering extreme bargains on items such as DVD players, elevating them to the same kind of “must-have" status.

Others downplay the importance of a must-have item. While such a cultural phenomenon can generate buzz, longtime toy analyst Chris Byrne said the most important thing for retailers is that they are able to accurately predict what will sell, so they aren’t left with either empty shelves or a glut of merchandise at the end of the season.

Byrne, who is content director for timetoplaymag.com, is expecting overall toy sales to be flat this year. But he still thinks certain toys will be in high demand and may even become scarce. Those include the Bakugan game products and Elmo Live, the latest iteration of the interactive Sesame Street character doll.

“There isn’t one must-have toy that everybody’s talking about that’s leading the news, but there are ones that have people already out there trying to scour the stores,” he said.

Byrne notes that the Bakugan action figure and game series may prove especially popular because there are plenty of low-priced components for budget-conscious consumers.

But some of the other toys making many “hot” lists this year will be too costly to reach “must-have” status this year. Elmo Live is selling for around $60, while last year’s Elmo toy retailed for just $40. Biscuit My Lovin’ Pup, an interactive dog toy, sells for about $150.

“These higher price points are totally unreasonable for this economy,” Beemer said.

Many of this year's highly promoted items are just new versions of toys or gadgets people are already familiar with, such as the Elmo doll, the iPhone or game consoles such as the Wii.

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