What's a Furby? Do you think your little one will want one for Xmas?
Should you start looking now and beat the rush? Should Baldy get one for his little angel also?
All I want for Christmas...
Forecasters predict the hottest toys this holiday season, but Elmo's MIA
Wal-Mart
Toys R Us
Kay Bee Toys
Furby
FamilyFun Magazine
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Thanksgiving, and the traditional start to the holiday shopping season, is still nearly a month away, but if you're the parent of a young child, now is the time to start hunting for this season's hot toy.
Don't think you can use this year to catch up with last year's hot items, though. Previous favorites Tickle Me Elmo and Sing 'n Snore Ernie have been relegated to the bargain bins. This year, your mission is to find Furby.
It's already a challenge. Friday in Atlanta, a Kay-Bee toy store offered 600 of the furry creatures, which have a price-tag of $29.99. When word of the availability leaked out, parents began lining up outside the store two hours early. Within two-and-a-half hours, all of the toys were gone.
"This will be one of Kay-Bee's biggest sellers this Christmas," predicted Lou Cohen, Kay-Bee's Southeast regional vice president. "I think these will be bigger than Tickle Me Elmo."
Elmo, of course, set the recent standard for holiday shopping frenzies, but he was hardly the first product to do so. Since Cabbage Patch dolls came on the scene in the mid-1980s, toymakers have clamored to have "the" hot toy of the season. And while Furby appears to be this year's king of the hill, experts say there may be no clear winner.
"If you think back through the years, there isn't always one hot toy," says Bob Domine, toy editor of FamilyFun Magazine, which, since 1990, has kicked off October with its "Toy of the Year" awards, providing a fairly good barometer of what kids would be asking of Santa in the following months. (Previous winners included Tickle Me Elmo and last year's hit Sing 'n Snore Ernie.)
Technology was a recurring theme among this year's winners, but several basic toys with craft and activity themes also caught children's eyes.
Among the pre-school set, ages 3 and 4, School Bus (Play Hut, $24.99-$34.99), Bounce Around Tigger (Mattel, $30) and Fishin' Around (Milton Bradley, $19.99) ranked highest.
Children ages 5-7 preferred Sylvester & Tweetie Talkin' Tunes (Play-by-Play, $44.99), Renkley 3-Dimensional Paint Set (Poliusa, $24.99) and the Godzilla Rampage Game (Milton Bradley, $16.99).
Eight and nine year olds likes Impact Zone (Damert Co., $24.99) and kids from 10-12 were enamored with Reel Fishing (Playmates Toys, Inc, $19.99).
Notice that nowhere in there is there a Sesame Street character giggling, snoring, singing or grouching. Absent also, however, is Furby, which many media outlets have already dubbed this year's toy to own.
Domine said Furby wasn't ready when FamilyFun held its testing, so it couldn't be included in the results. He also noted it was unclear where the excitement surrounding the toy was coming from: children or their parents.
Retail analysts say they're expecting 1998 holiday season sales to be slightly lower than last year, chiefly because of retail expansion.
"There will be hot products, as there always are, but as Wal-Mart (WMT) gets bigger and bigger, they're going to need more and more toys to meet their sales goals," said Peter Caruso, toy analyst for Merrill Lynch.
Because of its widespread distribution, Wal Mart is an increasingly popular destination for toy hunting parents, Casuso said. More traditional retailers, such as Toys R Us (TOY), aren't as popular as they were a few years ago, he said..
Though the holiday season has yet to officially begin - and most popular toys are still on store shelves, some industry watchers say it won't be long before shortages of the "A"-list products start to crop up.
"If you're in a concentrated population area and if there are things you want and they're expected to be hot this year, it's not going to hurt you to make a trip to the store now," said Domine.
Of course, it's not like any of your hard work in securing these toys will matter by spring.
"The life cycle of toys gets shorter and shorter as kids' attention spans get shorter and shorter," said Caruso.
-- by staff writer Chris Morris
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