The Plain Dealer Business Section Tuesday, September 12, 1999 Beanie baby mania enters Phase 2: ‘retirement’ By Marcia Pledger Plain Dealer Reporter If the announcement that all Beanie Babies will retire at the end of this year was a stunt to stir interest, it worked. “There’s been a flurry of phone calls from people asking if we have the new Beanie Babies,” said Michael Ziegenhagen, owner of Playmatters Creative Toys in Solon, Pepper Pike and Shaker Heights. “We’ve also gotten a…

The New York Times Money & Business Sunday, September 5, 1999 Seeking Mr. Potato Head In All the Wrong Aisles For Toys ‘R’ Us, Advice On getting it Right By Dana Canedy It was one of the first and biggest of the “category killers,” and in the early 1990’s, it expanded as rapidly as a 10-year-old in a growth spurt. Toys “R” Us conquered the toy retailing world with warehouse-style stores, heavy promotion and lower prices than its mom-and-pop or department-store competitors….

The New York Times Business Day Wednesday, September 1, 1999 Advertising Requiem for Beanie Babies. Or Maybe Not. By Dana Canedy The maker of Beanie Babies, Ty Inc., created a frenzy yesterday when it posted this announcement on its World Wide Web site: “All beanies will be retired” as of Dec. 31. Customers, professional Beanie traders and even the company’s own employees were dumbfounded. Has Ty, led by founder Ty Warner, simply created a gimmick to pump up profits of the…

The Toy Book® Vol. 15, No. 8 September 1999 Change is the Name of the Game A Shift in Leisure Time Activities Impacts the Game Category By Nancy Lombardi The board game category may be one of the toughest in the industry. Sure, there are limited-edition versions of everyone’s favorites, retro games are a hit with all the generations, and Monopoly and Uno are still among the classics that reign supreme. But what about those with a new concept – how do they fit into an equation…

The Plain Dealer Tuesday, May 11, 1999 Maker of Etch-A-Sketch adjusting financial picture By Troy Flint With trading in the stock halted and its lenders refusing to extend loans, the company that makes the Etch-A-Sketch is twisting knobs to create a new financial plan. Ohio Art Co., the Bryan, Ohio, firm that created the classic drawing toy, said Friday it is trying to work out a new borrowing agreement with its lenders. For the year ended Jan.31, the company lost $1.8 million,…