Retail Research Reveals Traditional Toys Are Top of Children's Christmas Lists

LONDON, December 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

The "tech take off" hasn't happened this year

Three years' worth of shopping data from Twenga, the UK's most comprehensive retail search engine, has revealed that traditional toys are more sought after than tech toys at Christmas.

Despite the large number of tech toys appearing on the Dream Toy List 2013, compiled by the Toy Retailers Association, Twenga's online data shows that toy categories receiving the most online traffic in 2013 are in fact "make-believe" toys rather than the hotly tipped electronic toys.

For their consumer study, Twenga analysed traffic to the top toy categories from November 2011, 2012 and 2013.  For 2011, one of the top trends was soft toys. For 2012, traditional games like Dominoes and Scrabble received the most amount of online traffic. And for 2013, toys that require "make-believe" role play such as Doll's Prams, Play kitchens and Kid's Dressing Tables took the top spots.

Interestingly, the kid's tablet (The VTech Inno Tab 3 S) and the Teksta Robotic Puppy didn't feature within their top 200 of most visited toys.

Twenga also analysed traffic to their video games category, which includes consoles and games. Although two of the most anticipated games consoles were released last month, the Xbox 360 was receiving the highest amount of visits in November 2013, but the kid's Play Kitchen still received 68% more traffic than this popular games console.

Twenga's Marketing Director, Herbert Knibiehly said, "It can be easy to think that technology is taking over traditional toys, but I was quite pleased to see that the figures show the contrary. The fact that a video game console is less popular than a play kitchen is quite surprising."

 So it seems that this Christmas, instead of opting for toys that require an electrical charge or batteries, children will be receiving gifts that require imagination for playtime.

This piece of research follows Twenga's extensive analysis of their data to understand consumer habits, particularly around the Christmas period.

SOURCE Twenga