When Lori Fowlkes first saw robotic Zhu Zhu Pets toy hamsters in September, she remembers her kids started jumping up and down and saying “Please! Please! Can we buy them?” Seeing a fully stocked shelf, she decided to hold off until Christmas.
That was “before I knew that the hamsters would soon be off the shelves and more scarce than an H1N1 vaccine,” said Fowlkes, 32.
Now she would give her right arm for one.
Zhu Zhu Pets, which retail for about US$10 (NT$323), are this year’s bona fide must-have toy, following in the footsteps of past crazes for Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids. On resale Web sites like eBay and Craigslist, they fetch $40 or more. Vital accessories such as the hamster car and funhouse are sold separately.
By many counts, the toy is an unlikely hit. They’re in a field crowded with toy pets. The hamsters, which scurry around, make noises and drive cars, don’t always work the way you expect and have a limited range of action.
“Honestly, I don’t really get it,” said BMO Capital Markets analyst Gerrick Johnson. “But I don’t need to get it for a toy to be hot.”
The toys do have several factors that make them compelling, Johnson said: fun accessories and scarcity — sometimes when something is hard to obtain it makes people want it more. And they have one big thing going for them in tough economic times: they’re cheap.
“The last couple of years the robotic pet has been very popular, but those have been very expensive, like Hasbro’s US$250 robotic dinosaur Kota the Triceratops,” he said. “But here’s a version of a robotic pet that only costs US$10.”
Hasbro’s line of lower-priced Furreal Friends robotic animals have not hit the same chord, perhaps because they still cost more, are immobile and don’t have any accessories.
Zhu Zhu Pets, aimed at 3- to 10-year-olds, have rushed in to fill the void. But unlike past “It” toys made by large manufacturers like Mattel’s Tickle Me Elmo and Tiger Electronic’s Furby, Zhu Zhu Pets are made by tiny Cepia Inc. of St. Louis. The company was started by toy industry veteran Russ Hornsby, 56 and has just 16 employees in the US and 30 in China, making their success even more unlikely.
Even if the product remains impossible to find for the holidays, the craze sets Cepia up for a strong 2010. Hornsby estimates the company will sell $100 million in Zhu Zhu Pets by the end of the year. It’s always hard to tell how long a toy will stay hot, but, based on bookings, he says that will grow to $350 million to $400 million by the end of next year as production ramps up.
BMO analyst Johnson agreed 2010 will be big for Zhu Zhu Pets.
“I don’t know what Chinese New Year is coming up, but as far as toys are concerned next year will be the year of the hamster.”
(AP WITH STAFF WRITER)
蘿麗.福爾克斯記得她今年九月第一次看到機器玩具倉鼠「豬豬鼠」時,她的孩子開始蹦蹦跳跳地說:「拜託!拜託!我們可以買這個嗎?」看著架上滿滿的存貨,她決定等到耶誕節再買。
三十二歲的福爾克斯說:「在那之前,我沒想到這個玩具倉鼠這麼快就會賣光,而且比H1N1疫苗還搶手。」
現在,她願意花任何代價換一隻玩具倉鼠。
售價約十美元(新台幣三百二十三元)的「豬豬鼠」,是繼往年搶手玩具「搔癢娃娃艾蒙」和「捲心菜寶寶」後,今年真正必買的玩具。在eBay和Craigslist等零售網站上,一隻豬豬鼠至少可賣到四十美元。不可或缺的玩具配件如倉鼠的汽車和遊戲屋,則需另外購買。
許多人沒有料想到這個玩具會如此熱銷。一群電動倉鼠擠在一塊地上,四處亂跑、發出聲響,還開著車子的它們不會總是符合你的預期動作,動作的變化也有限。
BMO資本市場公司分析師蓋瑞克.強森說:「老實說,我實在不明白。不過我不需要搞懂一款玩具為何會熱銷。」
強森說,這些玩具的確具有若干讓人無法抗拒的特點:有趣的配件及其稀有性──有時因為取得不易,人們反而更想得到它。而且在這不景氣的年代,它們最吸引人的點就是:價格便宜。
他說:「過去兩三年,電子寵物相當熱門,但它們的價格一直很高。例如『孩之寶』賣兩百五十美元的機器三角龍『Kota』。但現在有這種只賣十美元的電子寵物。」
孩之寶生產的低價電子動物「毛毛玩伴」就不像豬豬鼠一樣熱賣,可能是因為它們還是比較貴、又不會動,也沒有任何配件。
目標族群鎖定三到十歲兒童的「豬豬鼠」,已在積極趕貨。但不同於往年的「必買」玩具都是由大廠生產,如美泰公司的「搔癢娃娃艾蒙」和虎牌電子公司的「菲比小精靈」,生產「豬豬鼠」的「賽皮雅」(Cepia)公司是聖路易斯的一間小公司。該公司的創辦人是在玩具界經驗相當豐富的羅斯.賀恩斯畢,五十六歲的他手下只有美國十六名及中國三十名員工,在這樣的條件下成功更是讓人跌破眼鏡。
即使該商品在今年假期仍然一「鼠」難求,但這波熱銷為賽皮雅公司奠定了豐收的二O一O年。賀恩斯畢估計,到今年年底豬豬鼠應可為公司帶來一億美元的營收。他說,一個玩具會紅多久向來難以預測,但根據訂單看來,隨著生產量增加,明年年底前業績應會成長至三億五千萬到四億美元。
BMO分析師強森同意,二O一O年將是豬豬鼠熱賣的一年。
「我不知道農曆新年什麼會熱賣,但就玩具而言,明年將會是倉鼠年。」
(美聯社╱翻譯:袁星塵)
A: Wow, three Taiwanese restaurants just won the 2024 “Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants” awards. B: Awesome! Which three restaurants? A: Taipei’s Logy at No. 22 and MUME at No. 34, and Taichung’s JL Studio at No. 33. B: Actually, there are many more great establishments in Taipei. How about other Asian cities? A: Singapore claimed nine spots this year, making it Asia’s new “food capital.” A: 2024「亞洲50最佳餐廳」名單揭曉了,台灣有3家餐廳上榜。 B: 好厲害,哪3家? A: 台北的Logy和MUME分獲第22和34名,台中的JL Studio獲第33名! B: 其實台北還有很多好餐廳,那其他的亞洲城市呢? A: 新加坡今年入選9家,可說是亞洲美食之都。 (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
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