Prime Day becomes holiday testing ground for toymakers

Bloomberg

It hasn’t replaced Christmas, but Amazon’s Prime Day is becoming a holiday testing ground for toy companies.
Toymakers including Mattel Inc and MGA Entertainment Inc are using the e-commerce giant’s annual sales event to roll out new products and learn more about customers ahead of the critical holiday season.
For the first time, Mattel is gearing up for a global launch on Prime Day, including a new item from Hot Wheels. MGA released six new products as part of the event’s “early launch,” including four new Viro Rides scooters, and it has more releases planned for next week.
The invented sales holiday, this year set for July 15 and 16, generates revenue that toymakers would typically miss during the slow summer. And while those sales will still pale in comparison to the holiday-season windfall, there’s an added benefit as Prime Day offers clues to help companies plan for the surge around the corner.
“They’re learning about how consumers are changing their cadence of behaviour
offline and online through events like this,” Stephanie Wissink, an analyst at Jefferies, said.
“If they put out a unique item or launch a unique brand around this event, does it gain traction? What can they learn from it that they can apply in time for the holidays?”
July typically registers as one of the slowest months for toy sales.
Even if Prime Day sales accounted for 10 times the average day in July, it still wouldn’t match a typical day near year-end, Wissink said.