From the mid January, 2008, an infrequent disaster of sleet and frost has raised havoc with most of southern China area and the whole valley of Yangtze River. Southern power network in emergency, transportation in Beijing-Zhuhai Expressway disrupted, Beijing-Guangzhou Railway blocked. The 20-day long disaster suddenness drifts hundreds of millions of people into calamity. So distribution of toys between north and south is unsurprisingly interrupted. Market of this Spring is doom to be different.
Mid- and small-wholesales commodities in north in short supply
Though the sleet attacked southern China, toy distributors in northern area could hardly bear the cold. Goods could not arrive on time due to heavy traffic jam in highway, railway and airline. They had to helplessly see off the prime period for domestic sales in Spring Festival. However, it was a blessing in disguise for some powerful distributors, who had enough stock. All of their stocked goods have been sold off, raising sales in large margin.
Before Spring Festival, Wang, an owner of a Linyi-based toy store in Shandong phone called TOY INDUSTRY. “Snow in the south affects my a lot. I had made painstaking effort to prepare order from Guangdong for Spring Festival sales. Now it is blocked in midway. I can only sell my stock to sustain my business. I don’t know when can I get my goods, and I am extremely anxious about it. If it came here too late, I can only count on Lantern Festival.”
Jiangsu and Zhejiang were two disaster area heavily struck by sleet. Qiu Guochang, general manger of Hangzhou-based Wansheng Trading said that, it was unusually cold around Spring Festival in the city, making the whole West Lake into a gigantic ice. He noted that, earlier analyse on market predicted better sales this year against last year. However, impacted by extremely bad weather, some goods failed to arrive at destination in time and some promotion event could not be carried out in planned way. Qiu estimated that, he had lost about 20 percent of sales, and it was maintained at the same level as last year.
Due to under stock, local wholesales markets took a holiday and closed earlier than previous years.
Wangj Jian, owner of Wuxi-based Huobao Educational Toys, considered it a cool festival as well. Snow damage coincided with traditional holiday, holding up traffic in the city. Wang said he can only go to office by foot. Fortunately, the weather turned better at the end of holiday, heating market. Department stores saw similar sales like before, but the period for brisk sales was shortened. Highlighted products of toy makers came in a disorder way and do not last a long time, affecting overall business to some extent.
Ma Zhenlin, general manger of Beijing-based Feichi Industrial and Trading Co., believed that, unsmooth traffic between the north and the south indeed harassed distributors a lot. Distributors with solid foundation of funds and mostly cooperated with department stores might began to make stock one month before Spring Festival. They would be affected less. At the most, continuing stock might be affected in later time. However, it would be a bitter defeat for wholesalers with no power financial support. Insufficient stock impeded their sales by the occasion of Spring Festival. In addition, department stores, supermarkets or other toy selling places would shift pressure to vendors, since most of the latter had assumed bottom-line sales quota. Vendors have to digest the balance when they fail to fulfill the quota, which would affect development in the future.
Mr. Liu from Shenzhen-based Sci-top, an R/C model developer and maker, confirmed that, highway goes northwards has been frozen. Goods could not be delivered, resulting idle order. Sales of his company this year was not as good as that in previous years, Liu noted. Fortunately, his clients had good comprehension, for it was really a force majeure. Mutual relationship has remained the same.
Flourishing of transformable toys in south
Compared with North China, southern area came in a stable way. Guangdong Toys Street’s director Mr. Zhong told TOY INDUSTRY that, although atrocious weather had reduced the amount of travelers, their store was as busy as before, and sales remained the same.
Bestsellers in Toys Street should be Hasbro’s Transformers line. Classic models of Bumblebee, Optimus Prime and Megatron were warmly received by consumers, which always were priced at around 200 to 300 RMB yuan. A model of Bumblebee at 129 yuan frequently went out of stock. It even saw a higher price online as over 200 yuan. Super fans always kept an eye on shelf, running to buy it as once as it was available. Zhong reviewed that, 100 units could easily sold in one week. On the other hand, Bandai’s Power Rangers, distributed by Lingdong also went well.
Guilin, Guangxi was also in a bitter cold his Spring Festival. Li Wei, from Kids’ Dept, Guilin Weixiaotang business plaza, considered that sharp reduce of tourists affected local market, since Guilin is a tourist city. Nevertheless, owing to local consumers, Weixiaotang saw satisfactory sales this year.
“Anyway, it is Spring Festival. Kids have lucky money and adults are more generous than at ordinary times. A toy can be presented to relatives or friends as gift. During this occasion, Hasbro’s Transformers, Double Horse’s R/C airplanes and Yongmei electronic piano are all out of stock,” Li noted.
On the other hand, Auldey’s Superblade series with medium price point were once sold out. Barbie as the Island Princess maintained her resplendent market for several seasons, which are still young girls’ favorite.
Gundam model kits are always the classic series from Bandai, attracting fans both north and south. Guangzhou-based ToysWonder is the distributor for the series in Guangdong. Lin Gang, general manger of the company said that, they lost quite a number of orders due to the bad weather. This affected their business a lot. However, southern cities like Guangzhou enjoyed good sales, gaining a growth against last year. Promotion event was organized in store, which had positive effect.
A business of mouse
In Chinese lunar calendar, 2008 is a year of “mouse”. It is known that, various toys, accessories, hanging gifts and houseware in mouse image prevailed in market.
Yizheng Lefu Toys situated in Jiangsu is a maker engaged in plush and cloth business for a dozen year. Wu Pengfei, its general manager told TOY INDUSTRY that, a pair of mouse hanging decoration had been sold well. With festive style, the lovely mice contain lots of folk propitious symbol. According to Chinese folk saying, mouse could symbolize ability, wisdom, fortune and more offspring. It has good popularity.
Last year, one Shanghai-based company rolled out an interactive toy, Fortune Pig Ruby, which rapidly went popular throughout China. This year, the company continued to launch a similar toy in style of Mickey Mouse. However, it was somehow desolated in market.
Chen Peisheng, a toy distributor in Beijing held that, the product adopted a concept of 80th anniversary of Mickey Mouse, as well as more specious function. These raised the price point of the product, which finally affected sales. Additionally, campaign of the product had not launched at right time might be one of unfavorable factor. █
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