There are more than 2.2 billion children in the world, which only means there is a huge demand for toys. Every parent wants only the best for their kid, from educational toys to building toys.
So, the toys niche is definitely one of the best ones you can start looking into and start selling in your store this year.
Below we will go through the reasons why you should start dropshipping toys, the data that prove the toys industry is highly trending for a couple of years now and what are the steps you need to take to start dropshipping pet supplies, among others. Plus what we think are the best products in the toys niche you can start selling in your store.
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Why start dropshipping toys?
The revenue of the toys and hobby ecommerce market segment is estimated to reach $568 billion in 2022 and the revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate of 10.15% (between 2022 and 2025), which will mean the revenue can increase to $759 billion by 2025.
All these mean that people like to buy toys online and that this niche will keep on growing. What’s even more awesome is that the number of users expected to buy online toys is expected to reach 2,924.2 million people by 2025. If these aren’t reasons enough, then read on for more.
If we’re looking at the total revenue of the world toy market then this was $94.7 billion in 2020 which means that the market has grown by over 13 percent since 2010. Of course, experts think this figure will grow in the coming years.
Here are a few important benefits of dropshipping toys:
- The toys industry is probably one of the most profitable niches you can choose. Just to give you an idea, the 0-3 years segment is estimated to generate over $39 billion by 2025, and keep in mind this is just one segment.
- This niche provides a wide range of toys for children of all ages (and you can even add toys for adults). You can choose products like cute stuffed animals, products for babies, and huge building blocks or logic puzzles. Keep in mind that your target audience is made of adults, such as parents or other family members that often buy for their children.
- You can also target older kids, which is also a great idea as there are many products for them, such as video games and consoles. And these kids will always tell their friends about their favorite toys, so be sure to make a good impression and have your store rank high on Google, when other parents search for that toy.
- The toys industry evolves quite fast, which can also be beneficial for you. Why? Well, most parents want the newest toys that are on the market for their kids, so this can be very profitable for you if you can stay on top of the trend and always have new items in your store.
- Also, many toys are just timeless, like plush toys or cars and puzzles. This gives you many options and the opportunity to have a few toys for all ages. For example, you should have wooden toys or soft toys for 1-year-old children, and remote-controlled cars or legos for 10-year-old boys and girls.
- Dropshipping toys is probably the best way to start selling these products as you will need minimum capital to start. With a dropshipping store, you won’t need a warehouse to store toys, and this means no inventory costs too. Another benefit is the choice of suppliers. You can work with multiple suppliers and can always look for the best deals and choose to sell only from the suppliers you trust the most.
Let’s look a bit at how important terms perform on Google. As always, we will use Google Trends to check how terms like “toy store” and “buy toy” have been trending in the last 5 years.
As you can see, both terms maintained a high interest in the last 5 years. Even during the pandemic, their trend didn’t change a lot. These charts tell us that toys have a stable demand.
To sum up, as long as there are kids around us, we can be sure that the demand for toys will keep on growing. And you should also target other people than kids, as there are many adults out that love to buy toys such as puzzles.
Now, let’s go through some more important niche insights.
Important toys niche insights and analytics
Two of the biggest ecommerce markets out there are USA and UK, so we will take them one by one to see how the toy niche is performing in each of these regions.
The USA is the second biggest worldwide market in terms of revenue from toys. With revenue projected to reach $121 billion in 2022, the USA market is expected to reach a volume of $193 billion by 2025. Also, the data clearly shows that the number of users expected to buy online will amount to 160 million people by 2025.
In 2020, in a survey done by Statista in the USA, around 60% of respondents said they normally buy toys via online shops.
Now, the UK is the 3rd market worldwide in terms of revenue generated online through toys and has a revenue projected to reach $27 billion in 2022 with an annual growth rate of 9.63%, which can result in a projected market volume of $36 billion by 2025. The number of users is expected to reach 43.2 million users by 2025, with a user penetration that is expected to grow from 53.4% in 2022 to 62.3% by 2025.
More than these, it seems that in the UK parents spend nearly £2600 a year on entertainment for children, according to a study done in 2018.
Another report states that the following products are increasingly becoming popular among kids and parents: environment-friendly products, including wooden baby toys, plastic-free games for kids, recycled plastic bath games, and organic cotton stuffed animals.
There are twenty-one toy product categories according to the Toy Association covering varied age groups, from toys for babies and kids to items for teenagers and adults. You have action figures, dolls, educational toys, games & puzzles, and many more. The fact that you have so many types of products to choose from is among the many benefits that make the toys niche so accessible. If you do your research and find the right toy category to sell you have a huge chance to avoid fierce competition and make your store stand out.
Once you will do your own research, you will notice that there are peaks every year when popular toy terms are searched more. As you will also see below, most of the time, these peaks appear around the beginning of December, when seasonal sales like the holiday season, Christmas, Black Friday, etc., are taking place. Why? Well, because that’s when people buy gifts for Christmas or prepare for Christmas. But, don’t worry, toys can be sold all year long, as you will see below.
Now, it’s time to do our own research and check how a few important keywords are trending on Google, Keyword Planner and Semrush.
Here’s how ”toys online” and “toys” perform on Google Trends.
Let’s also look at the search volumes for terms like “toys”, “toy store”, “buy toys” and “toys online” are performing according to Semrush and Keyword Planner.
As you can see we have a huge number of monthly searches worldwide and in the USA, with the trend keeping on growing.
How profitable this niche can be? This is a highly profitable niche if you manage to find the right products for all ages and keep on adding new ones.
What are the best regions to dropship in? Looking at the data from Statista and Semrush, the USA, UK and Western Europe are the regions where these products are sold the most. Of course, if you decide to start a dropshipping business in the toys niche in these parts of the world, expect high competition too.
Let’s now see what are the steps to follow to start a toy dropshipping business.
How to build a toy dropshipping store?
There are a few steps you need to follow to start a pet dropshipping business:
- Do extensive market research around dropshipping and the toys niche in your region
- Build a business plan specifically for selling toys online
- Choose one or more toy categories – you can start by selling a few items for different age groups.
- Choose a name for your toys online store
- It’s time to incorporate your company in order to pay taxes and receive payments as a dropshipper.
- You’re now ready to start setting up your ecommerce store – check Shopify or WooCommerce.
- Once your online store is ready, you need to find a dropshipping platform with high-quality toys from suppliers that can ship fast to your region.
- Choose which toys you want to add to your store, check if you’re ok with their content and add a few pictures for each product.
- The final step is to gain traffic and start selling – to do that you need to setup a marketing strategy that gets your toys in front of the right people.
Here is our detailed guide for starting a dropshipping business.
How to setup your dropshipping online business?
Before even starting to setup your online store, you need to check what are all the legal issues and requirements for a dropshipping online business in your region. Legal requirements are different from one region to another, that’s why you should actually talk with a legal consultant and see what type of company you need to setup for dropshipping.
More on the legal issues behind dropshipping
Just keep in mind that most retail store owners that choose to dropship actually decide on a sole proprietorship (or a sole trader in the UK) or LLC ( or an LTD in the UK).
Read more on this article about how can you setup a dropshipping business in the USA.
If you want to dropship in the UK, then read more over this guide on how to start a dropshipping business in the UK.
What are the best toys to dropship in 2023?
As we said in the beginning as well, toys are evergreen products that will never go out of trend as parents will always want to buy the next new toy for their kids. And people will always have kids which translates into toys always being in demand.
But which toys sell better and which should you go for? Well, you need to do your own research based on the region you’re in and the audience you’re targeting. But keep in mind that most toys have age restrictions, so as you want to target children of different ages, you should add new items for all age categories.
Also, make sure you add products that have the highest quality, but from different price ranges, so you can target multiple categories of people. Look also for high-demand toys and also for unique products. As the market is full of great toys, you need to find the ones that work in your country and can attract more customers.
You should make the toys easy to be found, by creating product pages based on age group, and the type of toy, such as dolls, action figures or puzzles, and always have some educational toys available, like building blocks.
Now it’s time to go through the most popular toys you can dropship in 2023. After looking on Google Trends, Semrush and Keyword Planner, we’ve decided on some categories and products that are trending worldwide and in countries like the USA or UK.
Here’s how you know you’ve found a winning product
Building toys
This is one of the best toy categories you can go for. Building toys can be for kids of all ages, from the small kids to the older ones. So, make sure you add a few of these building toys from each age category.
Plush animal toys
Probably the most known toy out there is a plush one. These are cute, fluffy and timeless, you can never go wrong if you add some plugs toys to your store. Also, these soft toys or stuffed animals are loved by kids of all ages, even by teenagers.
Educational toys
It’s advised to always have a few of these educational toys too in your online store. Most parents look to buy also smart toys that educate besides the cute ones. So, make sure you add a few toys that help children study basic things, such as colors, animals, and numbers.
Toys for babies
Another great category, toys for babies include lots of products that are simple and relatively cheap but are in great demand.
Toy vehicles
This category is made of different types of toys, from simple cars to military vehicles or remote control trucks. Even though this category is not new, there are always new types of toys that appear on the market, from new models, new colors, remote control cars of different sizes, and many more.
Let’s now see what are a few examples of specific toys you can sell. To justify each choice, we’ve added the Google Trends and Semrush results for each of them.
– Plush toys: more commonly known as stuffed animals, these plush toys are always a must for your store. Be sure to add multiple versions for both genders and all age ranges.
– Puzzles: these are not great educational toys but also fun items enjoyed by kids and adults of all ages. So, make sure to add different puzzle designs, and look for some to add to a few age groups.
– Toy figures: there are toy figures and action figures. These last ones can be branded, for example Pokémon, Marvel, and other. So, if you can, find a supplier that offers both of these choices.
– Drones: hand-operated drones are these cool self-flying sensor drones that kids just love. Now, it’s been a while since drones have become very popular. Even though they can be expensive for a kid, you can add a few to test your audience and see if they bring you some sales.
– Remote control cars: these types of cars for kids have been around for a long time and yet they are still trending, so make sure you add a few that have different models, colors or sizes.
– Digital drawing board: there used to be regular wooden drawing boards and magnetic drawing boards. Now there are also digital boards. So, if you want to target older kids and adults, you can add a few digital drawing boards too to your store. These tablets for kids come in different screen sizes, and pens, and have different drawing features.
– Dolls: another classical toy, dolls are still trending high in the kids’ world. So, you can’t have a toy store without adding a few types of dolls. Now, dolls can mean any kind of toy portraying humans, animals or even monsters. So, this category can also include action figures as well which positioned themself as dolls for boys in the beginning.
Now, again, these are just examples we came up with after doing our own research based on countries like UK or USA. So, when you decided where you want to dropship in, make sure you do your own research based on the region you sell to.
Once you decided on the categories of toys you want to sell, then start by testing a few toys for all ages to check which ones perform better. This takes us to our next step – finding high-quality products and reliable suppliers.
How to find the best toy suppliers?
Even though the toy industry can be quite profitable, it’s also a highly competitive one. As a dropshipper, to even stand a chance against the biggest toy brands out there, think of Lego, you must find the best suppliers from which you can source high-quality products.
Now, before starting to look for suppliers, you need to know the type of toys you want to sell and also have ready an online store.
The best way to find the right dropshipping suppliers or platforms is to google for them, read the reviews and test a few of them out. One thing we always recommend is to work with more than one supplier if you want to have more products to offer to your customers. Also, this strategy of working with multiple suppliers will give you a backup option in case one of them runs out of stock or closes down.
Here are a few important facts you need to keep in mind when you choose your next toy supplier:
- They should only offer premium and high-quality toys
- Are reliable and trustworthy
- Are close to the location of your customers and can therefore ship ultra-fast their products
- They can handle your returns fast and smooth
You can find such suppliers on marketplaces like Amazon or eBay or dropshipping platforms like AppScenic. Now, the best thing about choosing to work with such dropshipping platforms, like ours, is that our app can also automate the entire ordering process for you and also have your products sync in real-time with the ones of your suppliers. So, the moment your supplier makes a change to their product, for example, they update their stock or price, this will be reflected in your store automatically.
More than that, on AppScenic you have over 20,000 high-quality toys, all coming from reliable top suppliers that can ship to USA, CAN, EU, AUS, UK and beyond.
How to start advertising for the toys niche?
Now, as soon as your dropshipping toy store is up and running, and you have added a few toys for different age groups, you can start working on gaining traffic, brand awareness, and customers.
But before you start advertising and gaining traffic, make sure you optimize your online store for Google. If you have the time or resources, start a blog too, as this can bring you lots of traffic and profit in the long term.
When you’ve finished SEO and have some articles on the blog ready, you can start promoting your toy store on different social media platforms. Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest can be great channels to gain customers.
In the beginning, you should focus on building 1 or 2 social media pages and starting advertising just on those to build your audience. On top of this, make sure you have some budget for Google Shopping Ads too.
Influencer marketing is a great tool to reach your target audience, so find the mommy influencers in your region and ask them to promote your kid’s toys.
How much budget should you have for advertising? We think that $500-$1,000 is enough to start with.
How much money do you need to start a toy dropshipping store?
A top niche requires a proper budget, and even though is hard to give you a correct number, we think if you start with $1500-2000 then you will probably have enough to build a user-friendly toy store, source, and test a few products, and still have some budget for advertising.
Here’s more about the actual cost behind dropshipping and what it does involve
Why dropship toys from AppScenic?
Now, on AppScenic you have access to over 20,000 toys which makes it a great dropshipping platform for any toy store owner. But our platform is so much more than that, it actually does everything for you, from giving you access to suppliers that sell unique, high-quality toys all over the world to automating everything, such as importing and syncing products, orders, and payments, tracking numbers and more.
All these automation features will help you stay on top of your product catalogue as you can lose a lot of time manually updating your products. Also, by having your products in sync with our suppliers, you eliminate the risk of getting orders for a particular toy that is currently out of stock. That’s why is essential to make sure your online toy store stays updated all the time.
So, choosing a platform like AppScenic means you will have more time for other important activities like keeping your online store optimized and adding new products every month.
Here’s everything you need to know about AppScenic
Ready to dropship toys?
After reading all of this, you can be sure that the toy industry is a potentially profitable niche. You can choose to sell all types of toys, from the most interesting or unique to the ones that are unusual or exciting for kids of every age and with different interests.
So, you can either choose to sell only a certain sub-category of the toy niche or try to sell as many of them at once. Both of these strategies can bring you lots of sales and orders, as long as you know your audience and what they’re looking for.
Toys will always be on-trend, evergreen and can be sold all year long, not only for the holidays, as many may think. This is a niche that is proven to always be in demand, always selling, and always giving you a profit.
Due to all we just said, we’re giving the toy niche a rating of 9/10. We didn’t give a 10 as this is a highly competitive industry with lots of well-established toy brands that you need to compete with and try to beat.
Want to read more of our Top Niches Series articles? Then go check them out now
