NYTF Success or Failure?
The 2026 New York Toy Fair was kicked off, as always, by the Toy Of The Year Awards. Attendance to this event has been growing so quickly in recent years that we should give a special shout out to the Toy Association team for landing Pier Sixty as a terrific venue which was able to comfortably accommodate the enthusiastic crowd.
From my customary seat at the second table from the back, the evening provided numerous chuckles due to its completely over the top musical score. “The music swells as Russell Crowe (not him, the young, skinny one) stands on the bow of a clipper ship, his loyal dog by his side. Cannons fire! Honor and the nation are saved!” Sorry, I think I just missed the Preschool Toy of the Year.
Toy of the Year was garnered by Spin Masters’ Primal Hatch but it was even more gratifying to see the Awards themselves dominated by nominees from small and medium-sized companies – roughly half by my count. It was especially exciting to see an out of the blue win in the Collectible of the Year category by Wigglitz! Who?!
It was also a great plus that some Oz-like power from behind the great green curtain had mercifully been able to limit (mostly) the speechifying of the many award recipients. Congratulations! to all award winners and nominees as well as the toy industry as a whole for raising $1 million for children in need. Because all toy product names seem to now have five or six words in them (search engine friendly?), I would like to propose a new award for the fewest number of words in the name of a toy. Something radical – like – Spirograph”.
On Saturday morning, things were a little slow to start and I did notice several former exhibitors walking the show rather than paying for the booths. The Toy Association seemed to be leaning a bit on The Ant Farm Effect – if you make The Ant Farm visibly smaller it will look like there are more ants in it. But the exhibitors I spoke with were much happier. The difference was their dance cards were full and they were having quality meetings.
The usual complaint is that Walmart and Amazon are the majority of the toy business and I don’t have to be here to do business with them. That. is. true. But the real message you should be taking home is that this is an opportunity to diversify your retail base. Focus on mid-tier and smaller accounts. Put together a plan to cater to them. Work it. If I can be in a place where I can see 35-40 of my customers over three days, I want to be there. Besides, I will never pass up an opportunity to skip going to Grand Rapids.
A special word on Target – Target Buyers do not want to see your product in the physical world. They would probably prefer if you didn’t exist in the physical world either. They largely operate like inventory clerks except that they now have laptops instead of tiny slips of paper. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether I’m speaking tongue in cheek here or not. That said, I’ve had a couple of exhibitors tell me that they were able to turn a quick meet and greet at New York Toy Fair into a physical presentation of their physical product by a physical sales or marketing person and that was enough to push the ball over the top. I know. It’s a roll of the dice …. But it’s your roll of the dice – take it!
I judge a trade show based on what I hear from exhibitors. If they’re coming away happy and thinking it was worthwhile for them, then it was. The trick is to focus on what the show offers you and not on what it doesn’t. Focus on what you can accomplish and put together a plan to do it. Execute.
I can honestly say that I was thoroughly skeptical before I headed to the New York Toy Fair and even well into Saturday but I came away hearing directly from exhibitors who were very happy with the results and that evidence changed my mind. If Exhibitors were generally very happy with the show – that’s a success in my book. So, bring it on again next year. I will be practicing what I preach and using the opportunity to meet forty to fifty of my clients in a concentrated three-day window. I will still complain that the floors of the Javits Center are amongst the hardest on earth but I will also be quietly happy that the smaller show footprint has left me with fewer miles to go before I sleep.
All the best,
Tom Keoughan
Crazy Year But Finishing Strong
This will certainly NOT be a good year for the toy industry but at least the holiday sales season appears to be finishing strong. While American households are feeling pretty dour in opinion polls, they seem to be spending heavily both online and in the stores.
Annual sales volumes will be negatively affected by what had been a constantly changing tariff environment which led both retailers and manufactures to hit the “pause” button. In the end that left manufacturers with about ten weeks less time to produce goods and ship them to the States. That will likely mean that some popular items will sell out quickly with less than optimum sales volumes. One silver lining is there shouldn’t be many left over goods and consequential markdowns.
Additionally, we are experiencing a bifurcated economy. While inflation is lower, prices remain high. Tariff inflation is particularly tough on the toy industry due to the difficulty in switching manufacturing out of China. Even if you manage to move your production elsewhere in Southeast Asia like Vietnam or Indonesia or Thailand you are still facing a 19% tariff rate. Additionally, these alternatives don’t have the infrastructure of suppliers, logistics or skilled workers so that production can actually cost more in the end. High prices mean that less affluent households have been pulling back while upper and middle – income consumers are racing ahead. Overall holiday sales may be robust, but much of that is likely because in a K-shaped economy the top part of the K has a greater effect on total consumer spending while the lower part of the K has greater numbers in terms of population.
What does this mean for toy industry hiring? As we have said before, toy hiring rebounded in July as companies found firmer footing. That has continued through Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving, search starts have slowed but that’s just part of the annual cycle as companies watch and wait to see how holiday sales turn out. They then typically crunch numbers through mid-January.
My gut feeling is that holiday sales will be strong and that then hiring will regain momentum. While the overall January pay days for toy companies will be down, there seems to be a feeling that we’ve made it through the woods and can begin to breathe a bit easier. Unless of course another monkey wrench is hurled in our direction. And I must say that in the current environment the chances of encountering random monkey wrenches are greater than normal.
In an alternative universe, come January uncertainty will reign. Companies will wait for some event which signals greater certainty about the direction of travel. That event could be geopolitical. It could be to wait until New York Toy Fair when companies have a better indication of how they will fare in 2026. It could even wait until after the April L.A. Toy meetings.
It’s impossible to know which of these scenarios will play out. I’m leaning/hoping towards the first one but….. My advice (as almost always) is to remain cautiously optimistic. Husband your resources. And move forward while remaining on high alert.
Walk Don’t Run.
Happy Holiday Sales Season
All the best,
Tom Keoughan