BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, said yesterday that it will offer more than 100 toys at $10 each during the key holiday shopping season.
Wal-Mart is staging the promotion to attract recession-weary shoppers during the crucial holiday period, when toy retailers typically record up to 40 percent of their annual sales.
Additionally, Wal-Mart’s stores will match any local competitor’s advertised offer on the same toy product if it falls below $10.
That offer will expire after Christmas.
During last year’s holiday season, the Arkansas-based retailer promoted just 10 toys at the $10 price.
The toy push comes as Wal-Mart works to hold on to the gains it has made during the recession. Bargain-conscious consumers have traded down to cheaper products and focused on the necessities - both of which are Wal-Mart’s specialties.
The company’s chairman, Robson Walton, said yesterday that “sales have been tough,’’ despite gains from its Asian operations.
“I think this recovery is going to be a slow one,’’ Walton told a global chief executives’ business conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Some of the toys that Wal-Mart is promoting this holiday season include Barbie Cut and Style Rapunzel, a Play-Doh Burger Builder Set, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Deluxe Action Figures, and My Little Pony So Soft Newborn.
Several board games are available for $10, as well, including Connect 4, Battleship, Monopoly, Trouble, and Jenga, among others.
Remembering last year’s dismal holiday revenues, toy retailers are ramping up the competition for consumers’ dollars as this year’s holiday season approaches.
Wal-Mart won’t be alone with such promotions.
Toys R Us, for example, is aggressively expanding shelf space and opening 350 so-called pop-up stores in malls and at its Babies R Us locations, while Sears will offer toys at 20 of its stores.
Most economists’ predictions call for US holiday sales to be flat, at best, when compared with those of a year earlier.
