"After a modest decline forecast for 2019, total toy industry dollar sales in the U.S. are expected to pick up again in 2020; and this trend is expected to continue through the end of 2021, according to The NPD Group’s latest report, The Future of Toys."

"Supercategories expected to post growth from 2018 to 2021 include Action Figures & Accessories, Arts & Crafts, Building Sets, Dolls, Games/​Puzzles and Outdoor & Sports Toys."

"In 2019, NPD expects the strongest growth to come from Action Figures & Accessories, Dolls, and Games/​Puzzles."

"Action Figures & Accessories has shown the strongest performance of any supercategory year to date through August 2019 due to strong performance in Action Figures (driven by Toy Story and Fortnite) and Battling Toys & Playsets classes (driven by Bakugan and Beyblade)."

"While Dolls has only been performing on par with the total toy industry year to date through August, with the two largest brands in the space both growing (L.O.L. Surprise! and Barbie), combined with the release of Frozen 2 at the end of 2019, NPD expects Dolls to return to growth for 2019."

"Games/​Puzzles has been relatively flat year to date through August 2019, despite the strong growth in Strategic Trading Cards Games (driven by Pokémon and Magic the Gathering). The consumer trends driving the growth segments within Games/​Puzzles include nesting (i.e., consumers staying home for their entertainment), younger and older adults engaging in play, and the social media sharing of noteworthy games which NPD expects to continue to drive growth through 2021."

Toy stores can promote these supercategories to adults who may not be up-​to-​date with current toy trends, especially Grandparents. During the average day, according to AudienceSCAN, the majority of Grandparents spend a minimum of three hours watching TV, and last year, nearly half took action after seeing TV commercials. Within the last year, Grandparents also took action after receiving direct mail ads, seeing ads in both print and digital newspapers and magazines and hearing ads on both digital and over-​the-​air radio. Also within the last year, 38.9% of Grandparents were driven to action by email ads. Their favorite types of emails to receive from businesses include coupons/​discount codes, limited-​time offers/​sales and new product announcements.

AudienceSCAN data is available for your applications and dashboards through the SalesFuel API. In addition, AdMall contains industry profiles on department stores and toy stores/​hobby shops, as well as lead lists at the local level. Media companies, sales reps and agencies can access this data with a subscription to AdMall from SalesFuel.