Suspending toy gun sales has more image than impact - Off the Shelf - Editorial

Discount Store News, Nov 7, 1994 by Laura Liebeck

The public relations bonanza garnered by the toy gun issue served as cheap advertiseing for retailers at the beginning of the holiday selling season.

Not bad timing.

Season sales forecasts have been generally upbeat, and the headlines and TV news features about retailers abandoning their cache of realistic-looking toy guns--and those that can be tampered with to look real-caught shoppers' attention.

Overall, retailers probably came out on top, looking like concerned corporate citizens.

Toys "R" Us was probably the biggest benefactor of the attention (since it held a news conference announcing the ban), but Kay-Bee, Kmart, Ames and others followed suit, reaping the benefits of the publicity.

While the action retailers took is commendable, and I might say, long overdue, it is a shame that retailers waited until children started dying from confusion over toy guns to drop the merchandise from the shelves.

But while life's tragedies are alarming, the crux of the issue is that removing realistic toy guns from retail shelves was an easy decision for retailers to make. Such items are a very small part of a toy retailer's business and their absence will hardly be noticed or missed.

According to the Toy Manufacturers of America, sales of toy guns--realistic and neon-colored combined--accounted for $246 million in shipment values and $328 million in retail sales in 1993, the latest year for which sales figures are available. As a category, toy guns represent about 1.9% of toy industry sales. The portion reserved for realistic-looking toy guns is minuscule.

"The issue is not toy guns. The issue is real guns in the hands of children. Policemen wouldn't be shooting at kids if there wasn't the possibility that they were carrying a real gun," said David Miller, president of the TMA.

Unfortunately, removing toy guns from stores won't solve the nation's crime issue, but hopefully it helps protect some innocent children.

As for toy gun manufacturers, many will be hurt by the ban initially. But eventually the market will shift to willing retailers. For Strombecker, which produces 60% of the cap guns sold at retail, and is well known for its silver-plated replicas of 1880s guns, the impact will be "meaningless," said Dan Shure, president and ceo. He said that while toy guns now comprise 30% of his overall business, sales will shift to other categories.

Shure also noted that Toys "R" Us has committed to replace lost volume with other areas of the company's toy line, minimizing the damage to his company.

Strombecker, whose toys bear the Tootsietoy label, is doing market research as part of a public relations campaign to promote the positive aspects of cowboy guns and to show retailers that not only do consumers want them, they expect the merchandise to be on the shelves.

Obviously, if retailers thought they had the final word on the toy guns issue, they were wrong.