- Dollar is Not Plunging—So 'Calm Down': Market Strategist
- Strategists Say Markets Have More Upside — But How Much?
- Hirschhorn: Risk-Averse Traders
- Roginsky: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Financial Reform
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- TV Series Inks Unique Deal For Fight
- First Time Buyers Rescue Housing: Realtors
- Dollar General Trades Higher After Its IPO
- Fed Reform? Not So Fast.
- White House Plans to Freeze Spending to Cut Deficit
- Week Ahead: Investors Go for Quality, Assess Recovery
- Hedge Fund Billionaire Paulson Reports New Citi Stake
- Cramer: 5 Earnings Reports to Watch Next Week
- Court Rejects 'Clawbacks' for Alleged Stanford Victims
- Cities With the Most Home Price Reductions
- Tax Credit Sparking First-Time Home Sales: Realtors
- Investors Cut Back US Stocks for Bigger Growth Abroad
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
MOST SHARED
- Today's Market Action
- Microsoft's Bill Gates Praises Apple's Steve Jobs For 'Saving the Company'
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- Israel: Leader of Business Innovation
- Week Ahead: Investors Go for Quality, Assess Recovery
- Israel Going Green
- Inside Wal-Mart's Acai Berry Juice Maker
- China's Role as Lender Alters Dynamics for United States
- Seeking Innovation in Health Care
- CNBC TRANSCRIPT: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping America Great
This blog will look at the winners and losers in the retail space. Who has the right strategy to capture consumer dollars? It also will look for trends in consumer spending and how that will impact the economy.
Families across the economic spectrum are cutting back this holiday season and toy makers have responded by offering a range of price points for some of the most popular brands.
![]() |
Source: toysrus.com Barbie goes "green" (and pink and blue ...) with this backpack made of recycled Barbie fabrics. |
"Manufacturers have really broadened their price points," said Reyne Rice, a toy-trend specialist for the Toy Industry Association. "So, whatever lifestyle brand a child is into, there’s a price point that fits into Mom or Dad’s wallet."
For example, Disney’s [DIS
Loading...
()
] Hannah Montana products fall in a range of price points, from the basic doll, to the mid-tier one that sings, and to the high-end doll that comes with karaoke or dance mats. There’s also a Hannah Montana Malibu House that sells for $150.
Even Barbie is checking out a few other neighborhoods.
Mattel [MAT
Loading...
()
] offers Barbie dolls as low as $6 or $7, though for the high-end fantasy, there's the three-story Diamond Castle playset. The castle, which retails for $120, is modeled after the one in the DVD “Barbie and the Diamond Castle."
While the bargain Barbie options are out there, Mattel's giving Santa an extra nudge to splurge, by offering a $50 prepaid Visa gift card when shoppers buy $100 worth of select Barbie products.
More Retail News:
- Wal-Mart Profit Tops Views, but Forecast Trimmed
- Retailers See More Returns, Some Loosen Policy
- Best Buy Cuts Forecast Macy's Posts Smaller-than-Expected Loss
There’s another trend in Barbie land this year — she’s gone green! Why? B Cause. No, really, that’s the name of the Barbie line of green products: "B Cause." Sold exclusively at Toys “R” Us, the line includes everything from backpacks to diaries and cosmetic sets, all made with recycled fabric and trim from former Barbie fashions. (Which means that they’re not natural-fiber beige, they’re hot pink, electric blue and lime green!)
![]() |
Green is having a "major influence" on holiday toys this year, according to TIA. Aurora has a line of Ecoplush organic products, focused on arctic and endangered species such as polar bears, penguins, pandas and lemurs. Happe’s Rapelli Game incorporates wood and bamboo to plant the seeds of recycling and USAopoly’s Planet Earth games aims to get kids thinking about the planet beyond their backyard.
And, there’s an increase in products that TIA calls the "Get up and move" toys. They include everything from Hasbro’s [HAS
Loading...
()
] U-Dance to the Jakks Pacific [JAKK
Loading...
()
] 5-in-1 Ulti-Motion Swing Zone Sports, aimed to get kids off the couch and moving.
Rice said that’s due to increased concerns about childhood obesity.
From 'On the Money':
"We don’t want couch potatoes — we want our kids to be up and active … not wait until adulthood to start exercising," Rice said. These products "get them up and moving."
Speaking of which, Rice thinks this year’s Elmo is one of the best Elmos ever — he gets kids participating in his singing, joke-telling show, not just watching idly.
Elmo Live’s $59.99 price point may be a little steep for some families this year but Rice said so far, pre-orders have been strong.
There will be a lot of tie-ins with DVDs, from Hannah Montana to Indiana Jones. But the one that’s stirring up the most dust — that’s fairy dust — is Disney’s Tinkerbell. The DVD sold one million copies in two days and the related products are expected to be hot sellers this year.
Less glittery, but still popular are board games, which are expected to be big sellers this year as many families, still smarting from high gas prices, choose "staycations" for the holidays.
How many points would you get in Scrabble for “staycation?!”
Recent Holiday Central Posts:
- Christmas on Consignment: Luxe Without the Guilt—or the Pricetag
- Finally, a Cheery Holiday Forecast for Retailers
- Hot Holiday Toys: Will Elmo Reign Again?
- Holiday Trimming: Retail Sales Estimates Come Down
- Online Retailers May Have a Jollier Holiday
- OMG! Xmas Sales Are Starting Already
- Retailers Offer All the Frills, at Half the Price
- Warren Buffett and Bill Gates spoke to Columbia students, and Buffett made the students a startling offer.
- For the chief of cable company Comcast, growth has been about making deals – generally very large deals.
- Some companies may start using insurance to shift carbon risk from their balance sheets to maybe... yours?
- The president and founder of Genesis Today wants to improve America’s health, and thinks Wal-Mart can help.
- Switzerland's privacy watchdog is taking legal action to force Google to make changes to its Street View service.
- A wealthy, distracted Texas driver crashed his million-dollar Bugatti Veyron sports car into a salt marsh, say police.














