3 On Your Side: Best Toy Prices
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The toy price wars have begun! It's the annual battle to attract toy-buying parents during the holiday season. But which stores are offering the best deals? 3 On Your Side Consumer Reporter Jim Donovan went comparison shopping to find out.
In a year when Mickey Mouse dances, Big Foot roams wild, and dinosaurs act like pets, retailers aren't waiting until black Friday to unleash their deals and customers have taken notice.
Shoppers tell us that they've been shopping for two months, that the sales seemed to have started earlier this year, and that those sales have been pretty good overall. But just because an item is on sales doesn't mean it's always the best deal.
Right now Toys"R"Us is offering We Really Did It Dora" for ten dollars off. The final price is $34.99. But wait, that's the same price Target charges everyday, and Wal-Mart even beats that price by two cents, at $34.97.
Temple Marketing Professor Richard Lancioni says stores are waging a price battle because they will know it will resonate with customers. He says, "The smallest difference in price will create in their minds, I'm going to save money."
This week 3 On Your Side priced toys at Toys"R"Us, Target, and Wal-Mart.
We found Video Girl Barbie priced lowest at Wal-Mart $39. Go Go My Walking Pup is $44.88 at Wal-Mart. Big Foot stomps out the competition at Target where it's priced at $84.99. Sorry is cheapest at Toys"R"Us, $5.99 with a mail in rebate. While Cuponk is $7 at Target after factoring in a mail-in rebate.
When we shopped for an identical list of 10 toys it would have cost us $268.90 at Toys"R"Us, $235.74 at Target, $231.68 at Wal-Mart. From high to low, that's a savings of $37.22!
But in a bad economy, it's not always easy to find what the kids want. According to Professor Lancioni, "When you carry inventory, you carry overhead. so stores are carrying less today because they don't want to carry that risk."
Dance Star Mickey was on display in Target but the price for the toy and product itself were no where to be found. Dance Star Mickey was a no show at Wal-Mart too. Only on our second visit to Toys"R"Us did we happen to find him. I paid $59.99 for him. Not bad when you consider that the only other place I could find him was online at Amazon.com. Their price? $90.42, thirty dollars more!
So what is the bottom line? Laniconi says, "If it's a hot toy, and you want to get it for Christmas, grab it now."
The prices for the toys we checked were the same online as in the stores. But not always the case. Target, Toys"R"Us, and Wal-Mart do not match the price of their online merchandise with the price offered in stores and you can even see price differences from store to store.
