Forget Waldo. Where's TMX Elmo?
With 81 shopping days to go before Christmas, Fisher-Price's laughing, giggling Sesame Street character already has emerged as the hot toy for the holidays and has become about as hard to find as Big Foot.
Locally, retailers that carry TMX - which stands for Tickle Me Extreme - Elmo have placed signs alerting shoppers to the toy's scarcity and apologizing for any frustration caused. Meijer and Target are limiting customers to just one or two of the toys, respectively.
"We would never want a guest to be disappointed," said Joshua Thomas, a Target spokesman. "But when products become this popular there's nothing you can do."
Retail and toy experts said they've never seen a hot toy emerge so rapidly this early.
Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation, said, "If you generate buzz and excitement, it's probably a good thing. The bad thing is when the people looking to buy your item are people buying it to make a profit from it and they are not buying it for the kids."
Although the toy is unlikely to be found in Toledo with any regularity, it can easily be found at online reseller eBay. Yesterday, more than 5,000 TMX Elmos were available there, with most starting at $90, or more than twice the suggested retail price of $40.
Some eBay sellers were offering lots of 10, 20, and 30 units of the toy.
Locally, Wal-Mart stores received a shipment of the toys Sunday, and all were gone the same day.
The chain sold the doll for $35 each and said it expects many more shipments before Christmas.
"We are getting in shipments every day, sometimes every few hours," spokesman Kevin Thornton said. He couldn't say how many of the toys arrive with each store's shipment.
Retailers said they generally will disclose when the next shipment will be arriving to customers who ask. But with hot toys, that can be difficult because all of a retail chain's stores want more of the item.
Bright red TMX Elmo has been red hot since its debut Sept. 19. Mattel Corp., which owns Fisher-Price, has been promoting the toy all year to retailers and the public, but cleverly kept secret details of what the toy would do or say until the unveiling last month.
Mattel produced only 700,000 of the toys, generating speculation that it may have deliberately over-hyped the item and limited the quantity in an effort to create a hot toy. Mattel and Fisher-Price denied such accusations.
Jim Silver, editor and publisher of Toy Wishes magazine, said he accepted Mattel denials. No toy has been this hot this early, he said.
Sales have exceeded expectations by five times and although Mattel projected it could sell 700,000 Elmos, it is on track to sell 3 million, he said.
"In the first 24 hours they sold 250,000. Nobody plans on that. If you sell 400,000 units for a season, it is considered a hit, and 500,000 is a huge hit," Mr. Silver said.
The shortage could pose problems for retailers, some of which are handing out tickets for the toy to prevent potential customer fights, said Mr. Krugman, of the national retail group.
A Toys R Us spokesman suggested customers call ahead to determine if the Elmo toy is in stock.
Contact Jon Chavez at:
jchavez@theblade.com
or 419-724-6128.
First Published October 4, 2006, 10:00 a.m.
