Mattel Selling American Girl? A Look Into American Girl's Future
- Admin
- Feb 17, 2019
- 2 min read
AGDN reader Dolly Friend sent me an article about all the changes happening to Mattel in the first nine months of their new CEO, Ynon Kreiz, taking office. Like normal, I scrolled to the American Girl section, and the article (click here if you're interested in their other brands) said this:
"American Girl continues to be a major headache and all indications are that the decline in its business will continue. One problem is price – American Girl 18” dolls retail at $115 whereas a very similar Our Generation doll from Battat, also 18”, retails at $29.99. The other is innovation – whilst there have been numerous variants of the doll, it has not moved into new directions of consumer appeal the way Barbie has of late. The third is that Mattel has never been particularly good at running a retail operation – in terms of skill set, it is clearly an outlier for them. American Girl represents 6% of Mattel’s business at this stage, down from 9.5% in 2014, which tells us that this business is worth saving. Mattel continues to talk about several years of turnaround efforts. However, it is unlikely that Mattel is still making money on American Girl and unless a reversal of its fortunes is evident within the next two or maximum three years, the company may be well advised to sell it."
I think there is still hope for American Girl as a Mattel brand, since they are making a movie and said movie might boost sales, like the Lego movies did for Lego. But if American Girl's turnaround plan doesn't work, it seems like Mattel will sell American Girl. Personally, I think that if they sell it, they should sell it to Hasbro, who did well increasing sales of Disney Princess dolls, or maybe back to Pleasant Rowland. MGA Entertainment might be a good option too because they know how to market their products, but then again, I don't think their products last very long. But I hope that if they sell it, I will miraculously win the lottery and be able to buy it!
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