Changing Landscape of Toy Imports for the Holiday Season in 2022

Everyone is gearing up for the holiday season and manufacturers & retailers are also ready with their inventories. Traditionally, the importers in the US market would prepare their stocks of season’s goodies, especially toys, during the year’s second half to meet the increasing demand during the holiday season.

Following are the primary HS Codes for toys:

• 9503:Tricycles, scale models, etc, puzzles, parts, etc
• 9504: articles for arcade, table, or parlor games, parts
• 9505: festive, carnival, or other entertainment art, pts

Manufacturers would stock up on their inventories of toys in or around October, leading to the highest surge in toy imports in the US market around this month of the year. In a surprisingly new development in 2022, August has become the month of stockpiling replacing October.

Here is what our Trade Data Intelligence Platform – Intel has to show.

For 2014-21, October remained the primary month of accumulating toys inventory with an average of 15% of the total annual imports volume(basis TEU) of toy imports. At the same time, other months only held approximately 7% of the total yearly imports volume of toy imports.

However, in 2022, August surpassed every month with 14% of the total annual imports volume vs October with 8% of the yearly imports volume.

The cause for the shift can be traced back to the supply chain disruptions in 2021. Issues like supply shortages, factory disruptions, labor strikes, pent-up demand, growing cargo wait times, and many more pushed the manufacturers to prepare well for the Holiday season and keep their business running. This highlights how businesses and global supply chains are adapting to manage unprecedented supply chain disruptions.