Best Selling Christmas Gifts Of The Last 10 Years
Every year, come Christmas, the race to be the bestseller starts. Be it toys, electronic gadgets, furs, candy or dinners under mistletoe, the festive season brings with it numerous competitive forces into the market. People are buying - what could be a better time to sell? However, influenced strongly by the current trends of the time, or simply: the good ol budget, few things make it to the Santa Claus wish list. Over the past ten years, goods have made it to the top, been replaced by other goods and substituted by others in the next year. The most sold items at Christmas are toys. The British Association of Toy Retailers (BATR) determined the best selling toys for the last 10 years. In 1998, The Furby, made by Tiger Electronics, was the best selling toy. Although deemed annoying for their continuous gibber, these fluffy toys still vanished off the racks in proverbial milliseconds. The next year (1999), Tiger Electronics launched a baby version of The Furby, and guess who took the BATR bestseller award for the year! As the new millennium started, toy robot Teksta took the trophy. The toy was a robotic canine that came with its own bone and could run around, bark and even play ball. Then in 2001, the traditional Lego was revolutionized into the Lego Bionicle that could be built into fighting robots and vehicles. This took the market by a storm and was followed by the market influx of its computer game and movie. The most legendary best-selling product, however, were the Beyblades that kept the crown for two consecutive years: 2002 and 2003. These were followed by the Robosapiens (infrared remote controlled robots) in 2004. 2005 saw the interactive virtual pets, the Tamagotchi Connexion, selling like hot cakes, followed by the Dr Who Cyberman Mask in 2006. Next to toys, gadgets have always been the most-wanted items for Christmas. Some of the most wanted gadgets of the past couple of years have been iPods, MP3 players, digital cameras, and video game machines. Ironically though, in 2004, portable MP3 music players were not even in the annual top 10 list of desired gifts compiled by the Consumer Electronics Association, and video game machines were in ninth place. This years bestseller is thought to be the iPhone Books also make great traditional Christmas gifts. Some of the books that have made it to the top in the past 10 years include, Snaps by Elliot Erwitt, Plant Partners by Anna Pavord, Sixty Years of The Beano and The Dandy: Annual 2002, Midsummer Snowballs by Andy Goldsworthy, and The English Room by Chippy Irvine. Other great works of fiction to have flown off the bookshelves are the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, and Valley of Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. The Guinness Book of World Records, interestingly, holds the record for the best selling book of all time. Find Cinema Gift Vouchers at ODEON
