A new study has found interest in this year’s “must-have” Christmas toys surged by almost eight times, following the publication of the Argos and John Lewis top Christmas toys lists.
The research by digital marketing agency, Everest Media, analysed the volume of Google searches that each toy on the list received, during the three months before and three weeks after each list was published.
Argos published it’s Christmas toys list back in June, almost 200 shopping days before Christmas. From the 13 items featured on the list, the three toys that experienced the biggest increases in online demand were, ‘My Lovely Unicorn Electric Ride On’, ‘Rainbocorns’ and the ‘Poopie Unicorn Surprise Slime’.
The John Lewis list was published in September, with the three most popular toys being a ‘Mini Waitrose supermarket’, ‘I-Top Electronic Spinning Top Game’ and the ‘FurReal Ricky the Trick-Lovin’ Dog’.
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According to the research, the publication of both lists resulted in a major boost in online demand for many of the products featured. Everest Media says this is because shoppers are increasingly searching for list-based content when researching potential Christmas present purchases.
The study found that the volume of searches for the term ‘top Xmas toys’ begins to increase from June and peak as the date gets closer to Christmas. Search terms like ‘best Christmas toys’ and ‘top toys Christmas’ were also found to be increasing significantly year-on-year, as online shopping behaviour “evolves to reflect the popularity of ‘must-have’ Christmas product lists”.
As a result, many retailers have now tuned into this trend, with retail brands such as Costa, Boots, Very and Mothercare following in the footsteps of Argos and John Lewis in producing their own lists.
Samuele Armondi, CEO at Everest Media, said: “The study illustrates just how important it is for retailers to closely monitor the latest trend data to enable them to align their content strategies to ensure they are in the running for the most popular searches.
“This is especially important in the run-up to the critical Christmas sales period, which is why big retailers are increasingly developing must-have Xmas lists to help supercharge their festive SEO strategies.”
