US Toy Sales Statistics (2018–2020)
As the second-largest online shopping category among consumers, it’s no surprise that the US toy industry is raking in dozens of billions of dollars annually.
According to the latest toy sales statistics in the US, consumers spent $32.61 billion on toys in 2020. This marks a whopping 16.7 percent increase from the previous year and comes despite overall reduced consumer spending as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
In comparison, the US toy market saw sales totaling $27.95 billion in 2019, which was a 3.5 percent year-over-year fall.
Analysts attribute the growth of the US toy market in 2020 to evolving consumer behavior. Due to lockdowns and school closures, many children were forced to stay home. As a result, many families resorted to purchasing more toys to keep children occupied and entertained at home.
In fact, US toy sales statistics show that sales figures remained constant in the first quarter of 2020. But following country-wide school closures at the end of March, toy sales surged 17 percent over the next month or so.
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Get Started FreeUS Toy Sales Statistics: Best-Performing Categories
US toy sales statistics show that in 2020, outdoor and sports toys performed the best. US consumers spent $5.35 billion on this category—28.6 percent more than in 2019.
Outdoor and sports toys, however, aren’t the fastest-growing toy category from 2019 to 2020. With an annual growth rate of 32.2 percent, games and puzzles saw the biggest increase among all the categories in the US toy market. In fact, $2.93 billion was spent on games and puzzles in 2020, compared to $2.21 billion in 2019.
The third best-performing category of the US toy industry is building sets. Sales for these toys grew 25.5 percent from $1.82 billion in 2019 to $2.29 billion in 2020.
This is followed by toy vehicles, which grew by 15.7 percent to $1.55 billion. Explorative and other toys round up the five fastest-growing categories of the US toy market in 2020, increasing 12.1 percent to bring in $1.56 billion in sales.
Interestingly, the only toy category to experience a fall in sales in 2020 was the only one that grew in 2019: sales for action figures and accessories grew 9.2 percent from 2018 to 2019 but fell 3.2 percent the following year.