Gearing up for the holiday season, the retail giant said its top 25 toy list was chosen by kids. And the force is expected to stay with Star Wars for another year. The program can generate a sizable impact on sales, with analysts estimating it may account for as much as 15% of holiday revenues at the Bentonville, AR-based retail giant’s stores in lower income areas of the USA, according to Reuters. Last year’s “Star Wars” release boosted Walmart’s toy sales by as much as 6.7% to $19.4 billion, Reuters noted. However, the holiday season is crucial to the toy industry in general, which sees 70% of annual sales in the last two months of the year. That happened previous year with Fisher Price’s Beatbo, which Kehoe said Wal-Mart didn’t realize would be so popular.
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The retailer’s motivation here, of course, has to do with the potential for stronger sales. Sales growth in 2015 also declined from the previous year, when toy sales saw a 4.1% jump.
The end shopping season is coming and Walmart wants to repeat for the second year in a row its holiday layaway program. Since then, shoppers have been able to start putting money down on gifts earlier and earlier, and this year the program will begin on September 2.
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Customers can put items as cheap as $10 dollars on layaway with a $50 minimum basket, and will have until December 12 to pay off their account. The company expects video games and consoles to be hot items for the holiday this year.
