Whenever I find myself complaining about toy prices these days and food prices these days, etc I realize how much I sound like my parents when I was begging for the latest TF or GI Joe back in the ‘80’s. My Dad back then: $4 for some cheap plastic toy? That’s insane!
There are 2 primary reasons for the huge price increase the last ~8 yrs (give or take), and 2 secondary reasons that I often hear misunderstood as primary reasons.
Main Reason 1: technology. Specifically tablets, phones, game systems, YouTube, etc. Kids are “graduating” from toys to these as entertainment at younger and younger ages. So toy sales to kids, the big volume of sales, is shrinking fast. The growth of adult collecting can’t hold a candle to the mass unit sales Hasbro used to see through WalMarts and the like. WalMart orders a LOT fewer toys these days than they used to, because they sell a LOT fewer. So the days of small margins on huge volume are gone and never coming back. The options at this point are:
Option A) get higher margins per toy
or
Option B) accept the smaller market means smaller profits and that’s just the new reality - accept that increasing profits quarter after quarter forever just isn’t possible with toys anymore.
Cause #2: the US Stock Market. It will not allow any company to accept B above. Any CEO that tries will be replaced. It *will* be option A above or heads will roll. Period.
Minor Reasons:
1) Labor costs continue to rise year over year. I think this is a good thing personally.
2) Materials cost more year after year. This is actually a very small impact on individual toys.
So how do I deal with the hikes?
Being more choosy, buying fewer “meh” figures.
Waiting for sales.
Not much else I can do.
