Want to Buy American-Made Toys? Good Luck

Aug. 14, 2007 — -- Looking to buy some American-made toys? Good luck.

As more safety problems surface with recalled Chinese-made toys, some parents today are seeking to buy only products made in the United States.

But there is a big gap between intentions and reality: Roughly 80 percent of the toys sold in America are manufactured in China, according to the Toy Industry Association, a trade group for toymakers and importers.

The remaining 20 percent is carved up between toymakers in Europe, the United States and elsewhere.

"Very little is manufactured in the U.S. except for specialty niche stuff, like handmade wooden toys," said M. Eric Johnson, a professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "You would be hard pressed to go to Wal-Mart to find anything in terms of toys that didn't come from southeast Asia."

Price is the main reason.

Those specialty toys often cost more than mass produced products. But specialty manufacturers say they offer consumers a better product made by a small company that focuses on quality.

"They're going to be more expensive than the Chinese product, but there's a lot more value to them," said Dean J. Helfer Jr., founder and president of Channel Craft, a specialty toymaker. "We're not dealing in commodities here. We're dealing with gift products and toy products."

For 25 years, Channel Craft has been manufacturing classic American games such as marbles, jacks, pick-up sticks, whistles and spinning tops. All the products are made here with domestic raw materials, Helfer said.

But are consumers willing to pay more for high-quality goods?

"If it's being wrapped and given with your name on it, you bet," he said.

That might be true for some specialty products. But for the most part, toy purchases come from large chain stores, which buy a majority of their toys from China. And this isn't just a few dolls and action figures for sale. The U.S. toy industry generated more than $8 billion in the first half of 2007, according to the research firm NPD Group.

Kathleen McHugh, executive director of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association, cautioned that while there are problems with some toys from China, not all toys from there have problems.