On April 10, the three-day 2024 Shenzhen Toy Fair concluded successfully. During the exhibition, the organizers organized a number of forums and meetings to help manufacturers gain insight into market development trends. On April 7 (the day before the exhibition), the “2024 Toy Marketing and Sustainable Development Forum and Chinese and Foreign Toy Awards Ceremony” was successfully held. At the meeting, Li Shiyao, New Media Director of the Chinese and Foreign Toy Omni Media Center, released the “2024 Chinese and Foreign Toy Trend Trend Report” . The following is a selection of parts of the report, hoping to inspire friends in the industry.
MESH— The Next Children’s Toys Trend
In the past few years, the children’s educational toy market has focused a lot of attention on STEAM toys. As an interdisciplinary educational concept, STEAM has been deeply rooted in cultivating children’s creativity, hands-on ability and thinking ability, and is bound to continue to be popular in the future.
But at the same time, more and more parents are now paying more attention to their children’s mental health problems – about 20% of the world’s 1.2 billion adolescents aged 10-19 may have mental health problems. They hope to use toys to help children eliminate negative emotions and cultivate their physical and mental health. In 2023, it will gradually become a MESH outlet.
The word MESH was born 10 years ago – an abbreviation composed of the first letters of the English words mental, emotional and social health. It is commonly used in the field of children’s growth and development. The term has been widely spread after the outbreak, and a system covering different age groups has been developed. A MESH toy standard certification system may be completed in 2024. Manufacturers can put relevant labels on product packaging boxes to enhance scientific sex.
The MESH trend has become one of the trends that toy giants and associations in the two mature markets of Europe and the United States are paying attention to. Toy manufacturers can combine the concept of MESH in product development and marketing promotion, and use mental health and emotional relief as breakthrough points to seek business opportunities.
Toy Trend 2 — Pay Attention To The “Emotional Value” of Older Children
Children’s mental health issues deserve attention, and the “emotional value” of adults cannot be ignored.
The default audience for traditional toys is children under 14 years old; now “old children” over 14 years old are becoming an important group of toy consumers. According to Circana statistics, sales of “older children’s” toys in European and American countries have risen to nearly 30% of the market share in 2023, which to a certain extent makes up for the impact of the decline in the number of newborn children worldwide on toy consumption.
The research and development of children’s toys should pay special attention to safety, puzzle, education and other attributes, while the research and development of older children’s toys focuses on meeting the emotional needs of consumers. Zhimeng’s 2024 China Consumption Trend Survey shows that 64% of consumers pay more attention to spiritual consumption. Young consumers attach greater importance to spiritual consumption and begin to create a world where “spirituality pleases themselves” for themselves.
In recent years, the domestic trendy toy market has exploded, extending from blind boxes, which were the first to emerge, to figures, models, plush, cotton dolls, trendy building blocks, and decompression toys… In addition to maintaining the playability that toys should have, these products also Its additional emotional stimulation, new experience, good looks, emotional culture and other factors can well meet the needs of “old children” to release their emotions and please themselves mentally.
The latest data from Taobao and Tmall show that consumers under the age of 24 account for a high proportion in the trendy toy field and are growing rapidly; among them, the proportion of female consumers has exceeded 60%; plush toys are expected to become the next tens of billions trend track. Many traditional children’s toy companies have also seen the spending power of older children and have rapidly expanded in directions that meet the needs of older children. How to be keenly aware of the changing needs of “older” consumers requires continuous learning.
IP Cooperation for Pan-entertainment
Looking at the global toy market, whether it is children’s toys or trendy toys; whether it is major toy giants or domestic toy brands, there is a trend of closer integration with IP. At present, the proportion of IP-licensed toys in the European and American markets has reached about 40%.
It is worth noting that high-quality IP is limited after all. In the current environment of the development of toys for all ages, toy brands are fiercely competing for IP. The scope of IP authorization is constantly expanding, and the scope of IP that toys can be integrated into and combined with is getting wider and wider.
From the most common animation IP in the past, it has gradually expanded to film and television, games, variety shows, short videos, national trends, cultural creativity, sports, aerospace and many other categories. Even horror and fantasy themes, which were relatively rarely touched upon by toys in the past, have become a hot topic in the toy field this year, driven by the interest of older children’s consumer groups.
In addition, IP licensing cooperation categories continue to be subdivided and extended. For example, some toy brands are involved in various animation and game peripheral products (millet) – badges, pendants, cards, photo cards, stand plates, ornaments, stationery, jewelry, accessories, etc. When toy manufacturers cooperate with IP in the future, they will also need to make corresponding adjustments in product development ideas, channel expansion, marketing and promotion, etc.
Mini and Compact
The economic situation is unstable and consumers have become more rational and calm. Products with affordable prices and extremely cost-effective products (such as multiple functions, suitable for a wide age range, and durable for many years) will continue to be a hot spot this year.
Miniaturization is an important trend extending from the ultimate cost-effectiveness. Toy brands reduce the cost of materials, transportation, and warehousing by compressing the size but with a small amount or even no functions. For example, Hasbro’s Furby elf will sell for $70 in the regular version in 2023. This year, it will launch a handheld mini version (Furblets), priced at $10 on Amazon. The interactive functions are similar, but the size is reduced several times. In addition, Mattel has also launched a mini version of Barbie, and Funko’s mini fashion line is also constantly introducing new products. There will be more new products added this year.
In the domestic market, mini scenes, small ornaments, movable building block figures, etc. created by building block brands are all small and exquisite toys; in addition, various cute blind bags, cute beans, mini beans, etc. are all derivatives of mini trendy toys. These products are finely made and have low unit prices. I believe they will have greater development potential in the future.
Diversify Sales Channels
As market trends change, toy sales channels have also continued to evolve in recent years.
Offline, traditional toy channels are mainly wholesale, supermarkets, specialty stores, and schoolside stores. The rise of “big children’s” toys has led to the development of diversified new channels such as trendy toy stores and boutique department stores.
At the same time, the trend of rational consumption and pursuit of benefits has promoted the development of “affordable” channels. For example, discount stores and toy warehouses have emerged in China in the past two years. The former mainly sells food items that are on sale at the beginning, and then expanded to department store categories.
For toy manufacturers, the sales price of discount stores will be much lower than the market price, which is more suitable for clearing inventory rather than distributing items on sale; the latter is characterized by The location is remote, the decoration is simple, the products are complete, and the prices are lower than the market. Currently, it is also facing problems such as how to attract customers, how to increase repurchase, and how to deal with price controls by the brand.
Overseas affordable chains such as Dollar General Corporation are also expanding quietly, and some big brands have begun to lower their profile and use small packages, simple packaging, etc. to set up shop, turning them into products to test the water and reach the sinking market channel.
Online, in addition to traditional e-commerce such as Taobao, Tmall, and JD.com, there are also social e-commerce represented by Pinduoduo; interest e-commerce represented by Douyin and Kuaishou; and content e-commerce represented by Xiaohongshu. ; The trendy online shopping community represented by Dewu; the comprehensive two-dimensional peripheral sales platform represented by Bilibili membership purchase; the crowdfunding platform represented by Modian; and the extremely popular live streaming e-commerce on the above platforms…
It is worth noting that 1688, a B2B channel representative, has started to settle on Taobao this year and has fully embraced the C-side, which may bring new opportunities; in addition, Chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms such as TikTok Shop, Temu, and AliExpress offer the ultimate cost-effectiveness Rising rapidly and sweeping the world, it may continue to challenge Amazon in the future. The numerous channels mentioned above provide more business opportunities for the transformation of toy sales.
Future Outlook
In addition to the above five major trends, the “2024 Chinese and Foreign Toy Trends Report” also shares three keywords that may have a profound impact on the toy industry in the future.
1) Artificial intelligence: ChatGPT will be released at the end of 2022, and OpenAI’s Wensheng video model Sora will be born in 2024… AI technology has developed by leaps and bounds in the past few years. How will AI be organically combined with toys in the future to create more intelligent products, even in the future? It provides help in production management, creative marketing and other aspects of toy companies, which is worthy of continuous exploration.
2) Tolerance and diversity: Some brands incorporate various ethnic and national cultural elements into product design, and even consider the needs of special groups and minority groups such as blindness, deaf-mute, autism, Down syndrome, etc. The trend of inclusiveness reflects society’s increasing emphasis on diversity and equality, embodies the humanistic care and warmth of toys, and will also deepen consumers’ goodwill and recognition of the brand.
3) Environmental protection trend: I believe friends who are engaged in foreign trade have deep feelings. In recent years, overseas merchants have increasingly higher requirements for environmental protection. Not only are the materials used environmentally friendly, the production process has also been taken into consideration by overseas toy giants. The replacement of environmentally friendly materials and the popularization of environmentally friendly concepts will inevitably take a long time. No matter what, companies must have the awareness to actively change and adapt to environmental protection trends.
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