Toys Don’t Sell Like They Used To… Here’s What Toy Fair 2026 Revealed

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Hey, this is Professor Ken with Omni Channel Grocer, and I'm here in New York at the New York Toy Fair. Now, this is one of the largest shows in the country, and what's great about this, is that you see vendors and products from all over the world that are coming into the U.S. market. Now, today in 2026, marketing a toy is really all online, and you could market a toy quite easily today, but selling a toy is a little bit difficult. So I think what you have to do, if you're selling a toy here in the U.S., you really have to think about content first. And that's, of course, everything that we do online. So think about making your content more engaging. Don't just show the toy. Show the experience of the toy and what the toy is going to do. So if you're selling on Amazon, what you probably want to do is put content on there that shows the fight scene or the battle scene or the action of the toy. You're looking at the benefits. Because remember, you have two audiences here. You have the children and you have the parents. So the children want the cool things. They want the hot things. They want the trendy things. But the parents are looking for quality. They're looking for dependability. They're looking for affordability. And they're looking for education and safe toys for their children. So that's really important that you try to combine these two things. I think if you launch your brand today, if you launch a toy brand and you launch it more like a media company than a toy company, you probably will be a little more successful in that launch. And think about this. Have user-created content ready to go at all different levels and make sure that you have that type of information on a regular basis. And if you have the toys, put the toy out there, but put some incredible content. So let's hear you. I'm here at the toy fair and I want to check out some new AI and online toys and interactive toys and bring it to you. So let's see what they have. Look at this Thai booth. Look how incredible this booth is and the investment they have. And Thai's been around. They're celebrating 40 years. So remember Thai Beanie Babies. This is the company. And amazing how they grew this business and still are very successful in the business. And of course, we can't do anything without getting Darth Vader in this. [00:03:02] Speaker ?: So we can't do anything without getting Darth Vader in this, but we can't do anything without getting Darth Vader in this. We can't do anything without getting Darth Vader in this. We can't do anything without getting Darth Vader in this, but we can't do anything without getting Darth Vader in this. We can't do anything without getting Darth Vader in this, but we can't do anything without getting Darth Vader in this. We can't do anything without getting Darth Vader. We can't do anything without getting Darth Vader in this, but we can't do anything with Darth Vader in this. We can't do anything with Darth Vader in this. We can't do anything with Darth Vader in this, but we can't do anything with Darth Vader in this, but we can't do anything with Darth Vader in this. [00:03:30] Speaker 1: Look at this. This is pretty cool. Remember when we used to give our kids toys and they played with boxes, the box of the toy instead of the toy? Well, here's actually a line of product that's called box and ears, and it plays, you can play with the box and turn it into something. So that's pretty unique. So you don't have to worry about kids getting hurt when doing this? It's very kid-friendly, and all you need to do is just poke a hole in the box. And then add the accessory to it, and you actually have a little screw that you can screw right into the box, and then you have a fastener tool. It's a friendly screwdriver. How cute is that? It's pretty amazing. Are you doing a demo for the box and ears? I can. Yes! Yeah! Yeah, so this is pretty cool because you can actually, all you do is you get kids-safe toys, and you can take any box and just build out. Hi! They give you little accessories, they give you screws, and they give you these little tools here. So being from Miami, Messi's just about everywhere, and I have to tell you, in the toy fair, I see him everywhere as well. So here's actually Messi figurines, collectible figures. This goes back to the World Cup of 2022, so pretty cool. So everything at this show is focused on all the trending TikTok sensations. So you have a whole product line that's coming out based on the trends of TikTok. And I think that's pretty amazing where we are right now. All right, here's the Marvel boot, Spider-Man. You got all the versions of Spider-Man here. And this is with Jazwares, who does a lot of different licensed products. It's actually got the web shooters on it as well. And check this out, this is obviously the Stranger Things. Look at this thing. This is incredible. This is from Pure Arts. And the detail on this is just phenomenal. Of course, that's definitely a gladiator scene. Looks like a Spartan. Okay, here's something that's interesting. This is an interactive watch booth. And what's great about it, they have all the licensed characters. They're not open yet, but you have Minecraft and you have a bunch of different types of watches. And it's interactive because you can connect with it online and it's wireless. So, it's basically a connected watch for your kids. It's a nice one. Nice.