Comment by conductr
3 days ago
I have a 7 year old and for the past 3-4 years we make a weekly pilgrimage to a local boutique toy store specifically for birthday party gifts. It’s usually packed with others just like us doing exactly the same thing. They do provide the free wrapping service and they slap their story sticker on every box and it’s a good marketing strategy. But they also stock toys that are pretty unique and change the stock frequently, every kid we know practically has every toy you’d see at a place like Target. Their toy section seems to have been the same the entire time. Occasionally a new movie related toy comes and goes and a couple new big toy trends have entered but generally it’s all the same. Even the baby toys they sell are the same ones my kid had and has outgrown years ago. I’m not certain what their strategy is but it’s definitely not a good shopping experience for maximizing LTV of a childhood.
We also have the Lego store with the velvet ropes and always queued in our neighborhood mall.
Now the only observation I can say is this really only seems to work in affluent suburbs only. My neighborhood mall just so happens to be the top shopping mall in my huge city. It’s a destination for most of the suburbs and exurbs. The boutique toy story birthday present runs is usually around $50 per kid and we go to usually around 2 birthday parties a week during school year (on average). I don’t think most parents are allocating that type of budget for other people’s kids. I have 1 kid, many of my peers are doing the same for 2-3 kids and we all are varying levels of affluent by regional standards (expensive homes/cars, nannies, private schools, etc).
Part of the problem is that when Toys R Us bit the wax tadpole, Walmart jumped in and doubled or tripled the number of aisles dedicated to toys; so any "middle" suburb/city area with a Walmart already has an "easy source" of toys to grab, making it an uphill battle.
Target did the same and now has more Lego than TRU ever had, for example, though their prices are often over MSRP.
The key would be to market above both and aim for "different things" while making it a possible destination on its own.
I've never heard the phrase "bit the wax tadpole" before. From googling, it sounds like a reference to an urban legend about Coca Cola being poorly transliterated into Chinese? It's not clear to me if this is something commonly used as an alternative to "bit the dust" or if I'm missing another level of metaphor here.
That's probably the trap: competing with Walmart or Target on "I need a LEGO set for a birthday party in 20 minutes" is almost impossible.
> we go to usually around 2 birthday parties a week during school year
That's honestly impressive, some 70 birthday parties a year, plus presumably some extra in the summer.
It's a lot. Us parents joke how insane it all is but realistically it will taper off soon as kids start having smaller birthday celebrations. At this age it's kind of a "invite everyone in your class/grade" and has naturally reduced a bit already as boy/girl only parties started. I think next year or two it will become more common to have "invite 3-5 good friends to an event" type of birthdays and that will reduce it a lot further. Usually that's also the beginning of "drop-off birthday parties" where us parents don't have to attend with our guest. There was only one this year, my son was picked up and a group of ~10 went to a sport event.
Oddly enough, there are practically none in summer. If you have a summer birthday you either don't have a big party or you have a half birthday or something similar where the party occurs during the school year. Too many people travel throughout the summer and kids are doing different camps and things so it would not get well attended. Our group of parents kind of have unspoken rule to not do anything that feels required when school is out. That goes for fall/summer/spring breaks and holidays too.
The logistics part probably sounds crazy but probably only ~10% of these parties are at someone's house. We've never hosted a party at our house, well when he was 1-2 for family only, but not these huge parties with so many kids, parents, siblings, etc. Most people rent out a venue. Arcades, trampoline/slide parks, skating rinks are popular with the girls, sports themed places are popular with boys, chuck-e-cheese was popular for a bit, those kinds of things. It's too much work for a 2 hour party to have that many people in your home.
My birthday was in the summer. I was in the RV away from friends all summer. I never got a birthday with friends, and get this, I didn’t get invited to birthdays because I wasn’t participating in the shared economy of gift giving!
My town was mean.
This matches my impression that kids’ birthdays have become less of a "party at someone's house" thing and more of a small event-industry category
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I think it's more scary than impressive. What kind of adults are all of those children going to grow up to and become, where multiple parties are the weekly norm?
Maybe you can clarify because I don't understand your fear or what you think it means for these kid's future adulthood?
The kids just see it as a fun 2 hour playdate with lots of friends in an interesting setting with dessert. It's the same friends they see at school, sports, etc. so it's their time to have some less structured play time, which - not sure if you've heard - is in rare supply for many children these days.
When I was a kid, even at this age, I was roaming all over town on a bike with my friends, I basically had the Stranger Things childhood experience, and I feel very confident there was a lot more to fear in that timeline of childhood.
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You know, 15 years old later, it is really truly completely irrelevant how many parties you went to as 5 years old.