After more than a decade of artificial currency manipulation, no doubt resulting from US pressure, China announced a slight appreciation (2.1%) to it’s currency and said that it will further allow the yuan to float against other currency markets. This fluctuation may be as much as 0.3% on a daily basis which could lead to as much as a 30% valuation increase over a five-month period.

How will this affect the price that we pay for Chinese manufactured toys?

Our dollar now buys less Chinese toys and any further yuan appreciation will only continue to decrease our ability to buy Chinese produced goods. Eighty-one percent of all toys imported into the US are of Chinese manufacture.

While the immediate correction of a 2% increase is a drop-in-the-bucket, economists believe that the yuan is as much as 40% undervalued and the US government has threatened to impose a 27.5% tarrif on Chinese imports if China doesn’t correct it’s undervalued currency.

We must wait and see just how more we will pay for toys as time progresses.

For those of you who believe that increased costs on Chinese imports will bring manufacturing jobs back to the US (which is the reasoning behind the lobbying for these US imposed tariffs), think again, there are many more countries where labor is less expensive and it will be years before similar tariffs or other measures catch up to those countries’ imports.

In an effort to revive declining sales of its Barbie toys, Mattel recently announced that a living version of its Barbie character would tour 80 cities starting next spring and run for two years.

Plan on having Barbie toys on hand as this will undoubtedly revive Barbie branded toy sales.

Do them a great favor by telling them about our Free Reminder Service.

You would not believe the number of late communications we receive from organizations wanting to have our toys delivered within a few days. Every season, we are forced to send them away because we don’t want to risk our toys showing up late for these functions, especially when they will be given out to children.

So please, if you know of an organization that is even considering doing something for the holidays, forward this e-mail to them (see easy link below) along with your note on suggesting that they use our Free Reminder Service.

That way, they'll be reminded to consider their purchase in time to receive the toys prior to the date of the event.

August is already upon us with many states offering sales tax “holidays” to parents shopping for back-to- school items. If you’re already attracting the back-to- school crowd, have toys on hand to either increase sales now or let them know where to return for their holiday toy shopping needs.

Many of you have already taken advantage of our $175 discount offer. Remember, this is the last month to save – see below for details.

That’s all for this issue. Thank you for your attention and all the best!