A World of Children Chase the Holiday's Top Toys

LONDON — British mother Sarah Birtles spent weeks searching for the item at the top of her 7-year-old son's Christmas list — the Transformers Movie Ultimate Bumblebee.

She even enlisted the help of friends in New York to see if they could find it at Toys 'R' Us in Times Square. It was sold out there, too.

In the end, another friend in London happened to spot one for sale on the Internet and immediately snatched it up for her.

"It seems the top toys have sold out," said Birtles, a mother of two. "Each year it seems to get much worse."

No matter how good children have been, it's getting harder for Santa to make every one of them merry on Christmas morning.

With children in Asia, Europe, and other parts of the world all clamoring for the same Nintendo Wii game consoles and Transformer robots as American kids, many toys are in short supply.

The growing globalization of toy preferences means that the same Tooth Tunes toothbrush that's a hit this year in Australia is also a hit in Florida.

"Without a doubt, international marketing has had a massive impact on the demand for certain goods and has caused children throughout the world to demand the same things," said Gregory Hodge, an analyst at Planet Retail, a consulting firm in London.

"Over the last decade, the globe has become much more unified in its demand for goods as the technological advancements in products and particularly the Internet have enabled customers to learn about and access products across the globe," he said.

Hodge pointed to Apple, which has managed to create hysteria around its new products throughout the world.

"At the recent launch of the iPhone in Britain, one customer queuing for the product said to me that he simply enjoyed the cult of being an Apple customer," he said. "It is no surprise that the iPod Shuffle and the iPod Nano are high up on the Christmas lists of people everywhere this year."

Holiday toy shortages are nothing new.

There are reports from the 1920s of parents wailing to pay twice the asking price as they lined up to get pogo sticks. A 1977 Newsweek article on Christmas toys highlighted the scramble by parents to find Star Wars R2-D2 dolls.

But the mania for must-have toys has grown more striking in recent years as the marketing power of films and the Internet has swelled.

For example, the original "High School Musical," released in January 2006, has been watched by children in 100 countries.

So this Christmas, many of those children are asking for Gabrielle and Troy dolls or the High School Musical game for the Wii.

"The buoyancy of the toy market depends heavily on crazes and the popularity of new product releases, often driven by media links like movies and TV characters," according to a report from Mintel, a global market research firm.

Of course, local favorites are still a force.

In Britain, for example, the TV show "Dr. Who" is a wild success. As a result, the Dalek Sec Hybrid Voice FX Mask, which features speech and voice-changing effects, is one of this year's hottest toys here.

Last week, the product wasn't even available on Amazon.com's American site.

And demand for dominos has reportedly more than doubled this year thanks to their use in a new Guinness beer commercial.

But even in Britain, most children want the same toys as their peers around the world.

One example is the Wii. Amazon's British site sold out, so some parents tried the one in Germany. But it was unavailable there and on many other of the online retailer's European sites.

The Japanese Nintendo group has had to raise its prediction of how many units it will produce this year, from 14 million to 17.5 million.

An additional hazard for parents this year is the recent spate of recalls of hazardous toys.

"Many manufacturers are suffering product shipment delays due to retesting in China," said Kathleen McHugh, executive director of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association in Chicago.

"We are also seeing minor shortages due to retailers taking a more cautious approach to buying for the holidays," she said. U.S. manufacturers have stepped up production, "but they won't necessarily be able to satisfy the increase."

Reyne Rice, a toy trends specialist at the Toy Industry Association in New York, said that it's getting tougher to avoid global shortages of certain toys.

"One problem is that manufacturers and retailers sometimes do not accurately calculate the appeal of a particular toy to kids," Rice said.

"Products which adults may find to be sleepers can catch on fire if kids love it. With the Internet, text messaging, and word-of-mouth, kids can quickly spread the word around the world on a hot and highly coveted item," she said.

Rice advised parents to watch for published lists of must-have holiday toys.

"These provide insights to parents on the hottest new product introductions and give early indicators as to which items could be sellouts," she said. "Smart shoppers take advantage of these early gift guides and plan ahead."