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Meijer, Target Enter Toy Holiday Price Battle

Meijer is the latest mass-market retailer to deeply discount toy prices this holiday season, the retailer announced last week.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Meijer is the latest mass-market retailer to deeply discount toy prices this holiday season, the retailer announced last week.

The Toy Price drop program includes more than 400 items in all toy categories, with discounts up to 30% off Meijer’s previous low prices on brands such as Barbie, Fisher Price, Transformers and Disney Princess toys. Other reduced-price items include toys from Lego, Bratz, Polly Pocket, Monopoly, Playskool, Littlest Pet Shop, Cars, Leap Frog, plus Hot Wheels, which is being sold for 88 cents. A number of toys are priced under $5.

Not to be out beat, Target released its Holiday Toy Catalog in newspaper inserts yesterday, featuring new reductions beyond the everyday-low Target prices on toys from Little People, Fisher Price, Hot Wheels, Tonka and Leapfrog that are 50% off, through November 25.

Industry observers say a holiday toy price war has broken out. Al Jones, senior vice president, procurement and marketing, Imperial Distributors, Auburn, Mass., which distributes toys such as Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys to supermarkets, said the toy price cutting is a mass merchandiser phenomena and won’t affect pricing or supermarket merchandising in the toy aisles this season. He said the toy category is mostly comprised of 12 to 16 feet of space and is marketed as a convenience category in supermarkets.

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