YOU
can spin them on your nose, chin, finger or tongue. Some include LED lights;
others resemble a ship’s wheel, or even a skull and crossbones. Originally
designed to help calm children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder or
autism, it swept the world earlier this year as a toy that everyone could play
with.
Retail sales have undoubtedly
slowed recently, says Mark Austin of ToyWorld, a trade
publication—good news for the schools that have banned the toys as too
distracting for pupils. But the spinner has created a new “fidget” category of
playthings. And the global toy industry has learned lessons from its surprising
success.
The
fad started in America in February. By May, all 20 of the top-selling toys on
Amazon, an online retailer, were either fidget spinners or fidget cubes, a
close relation. There have been many such crazes but none that spread as fast.
Frédérique Tutt, an analyst of the global toy market for NPD, a data company,
says the spinner took just three weeks to cross the Atlantic and go global. No
one knows exactly how many have been sold but NPD estimates that at least 19m
were sold in the 12 rich-world countries that it tracks (including USA and the
biggest European markets) during the first six months of this year. Others put
the figure at over 50m.
Big toy retailers, the usual
arbiters of what sells, were initially caught flat-footed. Fidget spinners were
a plaything that children themselves discovered and shared on social media,
particularly on YouTube and Instagram. No person or firm had a patent on
spinners, so with no licensing fees to pay, anyone could make them. They are
produced in huge quantities in China, often by firms that previously
manufactured smartphone accessories. Others were made using 3D printing. That
has been a boon for small shops, which have been able to stock these unbranded
goods from wherever they can find them.
Big
retailers usually plan their inventory as much as 18 months ahead of peak
seasons such as summer or Christmas; schedules are often tied to toy-filled
films such as the “Star Wars” and “Cars” franchises. This is where most of
their attention, as well as their marketing and advertising budgets, goes. So
it was easy for big retailers to miss the eruption of fidget spinners online.
After the fidget spinner,
both manufacturers and retailers know they must respond faster to signals from
social media. A Californian company, MGA, which was founded in 1979, spotted
that children were watching YouTube videos of other youngsters opening
presents; to take advantage of this “unboxing” trend, it managed to produce the
L.O.L. Surprise! doll, which contains several layers of gifts, in just nine
months. It has become another best-seller.
The spinner’s successor may
be the roller, an oblong object weighted at either end. Mr Moulsher started
importing Japanese Mokuru rollers into Britain in July and has sold about
40,000. Learning from the fidget fad, he hopes the new school term and a smart
social-media strategy will see sales rocket. Teachers, be warned.
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