Rats! Hot holiday toy already hard to nab
With seven weeks to go before Christmas, popular toys are already hard to find. In fact, the season's early hit -- the Zhu Zhu Pets hamster, an interactive mechanical rodent that sells for $9.99 -- is almost impossible to nab.
And it's not because the toys are hot. Retailers, struggling through the recession, are gun-shy after being burned last year when they ordered too much and had to slap big discounts on merchandise.
(AP)
"Stores just underordered across the board," said Jim Silver, an analyst at Timetoplaymag .com, who predicted shortages of the top 100 toys by early December.
Other toys that are already becoming hard to find:
Mattel's Mindflex, which measures brain activity through a helmet.
Nerf N Strike, a Nerf dart thrower.
Barbie Fashionista, who can twist her hips and strike other poses.
AP