Over the last few weeks, Yann Fresnel, a top French executive in the Toy & Baby industry, has written about the French and Spanish toy markets. In this article, Yann shares his knowledge of the 2020 German Toy Market. Mr. Fresnel’s comments are based upon data from the market and his own observations and opinions.
Yann toy industry professional with 26 years of experience selling Toy & Baby products to retailers and e-retailers in Europe. He has worked for companies like Berchet (Smoby), Newell brands, BERG Toys, and Smartrike. He is currently available for a General Manager or Country Manager position in France/Europe for those who wish to develop the European market further. You can learn more about Yann on LinkedIn or by calling him at +33 6 48 94 02 05, or emailing him fresnel_yann@yahoo.fr.
The German Toy market saw a 1% increase in 2020, growing its toy revenue to around 9%. Germany has a population of 83 Million people and 765,000 babies.
As in other toy markets, the German toy industry is moving towards an increasing percentage of e-Commerce sales. This increase came largely due to partial lockdowns in the Spring and Fall.
Consequently, the German e-commerce market grew by 20% to hold a 50% share of all German toy sales. Strong online players include Amazon.de, Mytoys.de, Jako-O.de, and Limango.de.
Due to the aforementioned lockdowns, toy retailers (example: Vedes, Rofu, Spielmax, Smyth Toys) saw their market share decline from 28% to 20%, which was stable in 2018.
Supermarkets (example: Edeka, Kaufland, Lidl, Aldi), on the other hand, grew their toy revenues from 10% to around 14% market share Drugstores (Mueller, Rossman DM) grew from a toy market share of 3% to about 5%. This increase is in part due to the drug store channel increasing its toy selection.
Parents had to keep their children busy, and as a result, the industry saw sharp increases in the sale of construction toys (+10%), outdoor play (+18%), arts and crafts (+19%) and puzzles and games (+21%). Ravensburger was a leader in promoting to stay at home families with their #athomewithravensburger campaign.
The top six toy companies in Germany in 2020 were Lego, Playmobil, Ravenburger, Mattel, HABA, and Schleich.
Licence Toy sales declined in 2020 due to there being fewer movies. They now account for 20% of all toy sales.
The trends we see for 2021 are: Eco-responsibility, green toys, recyclable packaging and toys, reused toys, educational toys, and particularly science products. science/educative toys. In retail, we saw a sharp increase in bricks and mortar retailers embracing omnichannel selling.
