Kent Miller

Four-year-old Simplay3 has made its name with big backyard toys geared to preschoolers and younger children. This year, it credited its "nimbleness" for a quick product launch.

Record-breaking sales vied with labor shortages and supply chain bottlenecks, making 2021 another year of high drama for the U.S. toy market.

"It's been a challenging nine months," said Aaron Muderick, founder of Crazy Aaron's Thinking Putty in Norristown, Pa. On a positive note, harried parents coping with quarantined kids fueled strong growth in puzzles, games, and arts and crafts. Meanwhile, the industry is still experiencing disruptions that began with the shutdown of Chinese factories in January.

Sales in the first six months of the year fell 9 percent from the same period in 2018, when thrifty parents stocked toy chests with bargain-priced goods from shuttering Toys R Us stores, market research firm The NPD Group reports. But third-quarter sales edged up 3 percent to $3.69 billion.

Last year, the toy industry woke up in a world without Toys R Us.

Nowadays, it's tough for customers to know if that prize toy sold online is genuine or a cheap knock-off.

Once at loggerheads, Golden State plastics groups and environmentalists have increasingly worked together to focus on practical results.

"The consumer has been shielded from the cost of recycling," said Bruce Magnani of Houston Magnani & Associates. Government incentives a key to filling the funding gap.

Taiwanese thermoplastic polyurethane extruder DingZing Advanced Materials Inc. has entered the US market by opening an 80,000-square-foot warehouse near its US offices in Secaucus, N.J.

Private equity firm KKR && Co. Inc. has taken LCY Chemical Corp. private in a stock exchange and purchase transaction that values the Taiwanese polypropylene producer at TW$47.8 billion (US$1.56 billion).

Pushed by global toy brands looking to diversify their supply chains, Chinese injection molder and toy maker Combine Will Industrial Co. Ltd. has opened a factory in Indonesia, its first outside its home market.

Rogue toymakers, test-happy executives, countries disagreeing about what a reasonable risk for kids is and, oh yes, yet another casualty of the U.S. government shutdown.

Amid positive news at the massive Hong Kong Toys && Games Fair — Hong Kong's exports of toys jumped 8.6 percent in the first eight months of 2018 to $4.1 billion — industry nabobs and show-floor exhibitors alike fretted over navigating the increasingly choppy oceans of the world economy.

Thus far most toys have not been included in the Trump administration's China tariffs. But with 85 percent of U.S. toys coming from Chinese factories, the industry's concerned over plans by President Trump to slap tariffs on more Chinese imports.

Thanks to the unstoppable rise of online shopping, shelf appeal is losing out to more practical concerns when it comes to designing and packaging goods.