During this shopping season, everyone is ruminating on the best children’s toys to attack on Black Friday and Cyber Monday for their little one’s Christmas morning delight. Christmas lists predict gadgets like coding robots and Baby Shark products - but what is really selling on eBay?
We dive into eBay’s Toys and Hobbies category to look at a few of the highest performing subcategories[1]:
Collectible Card Games
Building Toys
Action Figures
Figure 1. Listings supply and weekly sales, broken out by price.
Source: ShelfTrend Supply Demand Report, Top 1000 listings, November 2019
Collectible Card Games
In the Collectible Card Games category, the leading brands are [2]:
Pokemon, with 49% of sales
Yu-Gi-Oh! with 35% of sales
Magic the Gathering with 7% of sales.
Most sales in the Collectible Card Games category derive from lower prices - the single packets. In Figure 1 we see that the strongest sales came from the $1-$5 price band. This is also the price band with the most listings.
Figure 2. Listings supply and weekly sales revenue, broken out by price.
Source: ShelfTrend Supply Demand Report, Top 1000 listings, November 2019
However, when it comes to revenue, higher priced products are also performing strongly. The total revenue from products priced over $60 is about the same as the revenue from products priced under $60. This reveals an opportunity for sellers, as there is relatively little competition at these higher prices.[3]
Building Toys
Figure 3. Listings supply and weekly sales, broken out by price.
Source: ShelfTrend Supply Demand Report, Top 1000 listings, November 2019
The Building Toys category is largely comprised of Lego. To be more precise, minifigures make up 72% of sales by top-ranked listings. Of those, 34% are Marvel characters and 22% are DC.
Given the success of minifigures, the majority of sales fall into the lower price band. The $1-$10 price band makes up 68% of sales, and then sales drop off significantly as prices increase (Figure 3).
Figure 4. Listings supply and weekly sales revenue, broken out by price.
Source: ShelfTrend Supply Demand Report, Top 1000 listings, November 2019
Revenue paints a different picture. Figure 4 reveals that overall, products priced up to $30 are earning similar revenue:
<$10 earned 24% of total weekly sales revenue
$11-$20 earned 21%, and
$21-$30 earned 23%.
Action Figures
In the Action Figures category, the leading brands are:
Star Wars leads with 21% of sales and 22% of revenue
Transformers makes up 14% of sales and 20% of revenue
Avengers came in with 7% of sales and 8% of revenue.
Figure 5. Listings supply and weekly sales, broken out by price.
Source: ShelfTrend Supply Demand Report, Top 1000 listings, November 2019
When it comes to price and demand, there isn’t a huge sales spike at the lower price points. Instead, sales are fairly consistent across the <$10, $10-$20, and $20-$30 price bands (Figure 5). Consequently, the $20-$30 band achieves the highest sales revenue.
Product price is largely reflective of the size and complexity of the figurines.
Educational Toys
Best-selling mini metal fidget spinner
Even though Christmas lists have been naming coding robots and other MENSA Kids products as the toys to buy, the best-selling items in the category is actually Fidget gadgets. From Fidget cubes to the best-selling mini metal fidget spinner, these products make up 19% of sales [4], which is more than science kits at 10%, or solar powered toys at 7%.
For the most part, sales are driven by lower-priced items. However, the standout toy is the the Anki Vector Robot, which is driving up revenue in a much higher price band (Figure 6).
Figure 6 Listings supply and weekly sales revenue, broken out by price.
Source: ShelfTrend Supply Demand Report, Top 1000 listings, November 2019
Unbranded products dominate in this category, making up 72% of sales. The best selling brands are:
Leapfrog, with 4% of sales
Smart Technologies with 3% of sales,
Amscope and Anki at only 2% each.
Final Take-aways
So what can we learn from the Toys category this Christmas? The main lessons are:
Buyers don’t see Christmas-giving as an education opportunity
Buyers aren’t spending more on educational toys in the lead up to Christmas, instead they’re turning their attention to Lego and Collectible Card Games.
There are opportunities to sell higher priced products on eBay
Although cheaper prices tend to yield more sales, often they are not delivering the highest revenue. The cheaper end also tends to be fiercely competitive. Look for those sweet spots of higher revenue and lower competition.Use eBay data to your own benefit
Christmas lists and word of mouth can only help you so much. To really get a grasp on what buyers are gravitating towards, data and numbers are your best friends.
Whatever the case, take these insights and liven up your business with the spirit of eBay data!
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[1] Source: ShelfTrend, 30 day sales of top 100 listings, November 2019
[2] Source: ShelfTrend, November 2019
[3] Source: ShelfTrend, Based on average weekly sales from top 1000 listings, November 2019
[4] Source: ShelfTrend, 30 days sales from top 100 listings, November 2019