Mattel Inc, the world’s biggest toymaker, closed its only Barbie store in China yesterday, more than a year after lowering the outlet’s sales target by at least 30 percent.
Mattel didn’t cite a reason for shutting Barbie Shanghai, which opened in March 2009. The company will have a new “brand strategy” for Barbie and expand operations across China this year, it said in an e-mailed statement.
The toymaker, based in El Segundo, California, joins Best Buy Co in closing down stores in China, even after retail sales in the world’s fastest-growing major economy surged last year.
Mattel lowered the sales targets of the 3,500m2 store in central Shanghai at least three times since opening it.
“Mattel continues to be committed to developing the Barbie brand in China,” the company said in the statement. “In 2011, the company will take all of the great experiences previously only available at the Barbie concept store in Shanghai to many more consumers in broader areas across China.”
About US$3 billion worth of Barbie-branded products are sold every year. Barbie dolls are made in China and Indonesia, according to Mattel.
The company modeled the store’s concept on American Girl, Mattel’s online doll catalog that also has retail stores and restaurants in the US. Mattel intended the Shanghai store to generate revenue from its retail sales, spa, restaurant and what it calls the “retail experience,” which includes having children pretend to model clothes on a fashion runway and to design customized Barbie dolls.
Best Buy, the world’s largest consumer-electronics retailer, will close all nine of its own-branded stores in China to focus on expanding the more profitable, domestic Five Star chain it acquired five years ago, the company said on Feb. 22.
Retail sales in the world’s most populous nation grew a monthly average of 18 percent last year, according to official data.
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