Toy News

The toy industry is huge and there are many issues which effect what toys are manufactured and which of those toys we buy. Because the list of issues is so broad it helps to scan current news to get a better handle on the state of the industry and what consumers might want to be thinking about before walking into a toy store.

To help you be as informed as possible, we have posted on this site a Toy News resource that provides news summaries on several current toy related topics and includes links to full text news articles. We encourage you to navigate through the different search topics and engross yourself in Toy News.

Just a head's up, sometimes the news search engine we use will post news summaries on the subject of adult pleasure toys, despite goHeidi's best efforts to choose search terms designed to avoid inappropriate content. We expect such occurrences will be extremely rare, but we apologize in advance if inappropriate content does appear on the Toy News list while you are visiting our site, and should this happen we suggest you just ignore those articles. Thank you for your understanding that some things in cyberspace are very difficult to avoid.

Please let us know if you have any suggestions on additional Toy News search terms.

Heidi and Jim

Our Helpful Links

There is a lot more to a toy than what meets the eye. At goHeidi.com we have placed Helpful Links here on our blog for you to have access to resources that can help your research and learn more about the toys you are buying, like any recalls, awards, and where you can buy them (of course if you are looking to buy a new toy, we suggest you start here at goHeidi.com - Thank you).

ASTRA - The website for the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association. Founded in 1992, ASTRA's premise: to bring members of the independent toy industry together to help each other succeed has grown to be the largest association for companies in the toy and children’s products. The ASTRA website includes information and links to independent toy retailers, specialty toy manufacturers, manufacturers’ representatives, industry affiliates, suppliers and service providers, and other children’s businesses including furniture, equipment, publishing and entertainment companies.

CPSC - This link brings you to the homepage of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission which is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products under the agency's jurisdiction.

CPSC Toy Recall Information - This link brings you directly to the CPSC's Toy Hazards Recall webpage. Here is the most current list of the CPSC's toy recalls.

Dr. Toy - (from the "About Dr. Toy" webpage) "Dr. Toy, Stevanne Auerbach, PhD, has been for many years one of the nation's and world’s leading experts on play, toys, and children's products. With 30 years of direct experience, Dr. Auerbach includes educationally oriented, developmental and skill building products from the best large and small companies in her four annual award programs. Many parents, teachers and toy buyers use Dr. Toy’s guidance in making selections." Dr. Toys website provides a significant gateway to explore many resources available the toy buyer.

goHeidi Online Toy Shop - Here is a link to our eCommerce site where you can find and buy many of the award winning toys referenced in many of the resource links provided on this page.

Oppenheim Toy Portfolio - (from their "about us page" on their website) "The Oppenheim Toy Portfolio was founded in 1989 as the only independent consumer review of children's media. [The Oppenheim Toy Portfolio] newsletter is published quarterly and is an ad-free subscription-based periodical for parents, grandparents, libraries and childcare providers. How We Select the Best. [The Oppenheim Toy Portfolio] test and review products for children the year-round-only we get to do what most parents wish they could do before they buy. We open the toys, run the videos, read the books, play the music, and boot up the software. We send the best of these products on to our families of testers for further evaluation."

Toy Industry Association - (from their "about us page" on their website) The "Toy Industry Association™, Inc. (TIA) is the not-for-profit trade association for producers and importers of toys and youth entertainment products sold in North America, representing over 500 companies who account for approximately 85% of domestic toy sales. Associate members include licensors, designers, inventors, safety consultants, testing laboratories, communications professionals and the media." Their website provides access to many toy industry resources.

USPIRG Toy Safety - (from the "about us page" on their website) "U.S. PIRG, the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs), takes on powerful interests on behalf of the American public, working to win concrete results for our health and our well-being. With a strong network of researchers, advocates, organizers and students in state capitols across the country, we stand up to powerful special interests on issues where powerful special interests stand in the way of reform, like product safety, identity theft, political corruption, prescription drugs, and voting rights." The USPIRG Toy Safety webpage contains relavent news and links on the subject of toy safety.

New York International Toy Fair is around the corner.

Toy Fair is coming!!!

The New York International Toy Fair is the once a year week-long menagerie of plastics, metal, cardboard, bling, and crowds of people with one thing on their minds, toys, toys, and more toys!

Walking into the Jacob Javits Center on the west side of Manhattan (as in New York City) you are overcome by the smell of toys. The smell is reminiscent of what I knew as a child as the smell of Christmas morning, new vinyl – you know that toxic nose tingling smell of new toys, yep, that’s it. This huge convention center is jam packed with three different levels of people presenting and selling new, classic, innovative, and envelope pushing toys. Without knowing, you may stroll right past the “hottest toy of the year”, that one toy that out sells all the others, which everyone wants, and makes a few people really rich – if they are lucky.

This year goHeidi has a mission at Toy Fair to find “Made in USA” toys to sell in our store and on our website. This may not be as easy as it sounds. In 2007, 60% of the US$71-billion global toy industry was produced in China. With 86% of the toys imported into the United States during 2007 being made in China, (http://www.asiapacificbusiness.ca/apbn/pdfs/bulletin292.pdf), the reality is most of the new toys being sold in the USA are made in China. It has not been easy finding a good variety of “Made in USA” toys, but our mission is to do so and bring them to our customers at goHeidi.com starting in the second quarter of the year.

goHeidi is confident our mission to bring our customers a good variety of Made in USA toys will be successful. Our confidence is being stoked by our visit last weekend to the New York International Gift Fair, also held at the Jacob Javits Center just three weeks before Toy Fair, where we found toy companies that are still making their toys in the USA. We will be revisiting these companies during Toy Fair to place orders for their Made in USA toys.

We can’t wait for Toy Fair.

Toys are cool.

Welcome to our blog about toys and our toy store in Pelham, NY. Come back soon as our blog grows. Thanks.