Storage containers are scarce, so toymakers are focused on small, squishy toys for the holidays

The end-of-year holiday shopping rush was quickly approaching, but Foreman was struggling to book shipping containers to ferry the company’s toys, which include Tonka trucks, Care Bears and Cutetitos. And when he did find some, the costs were exorbitant.In a normal year, Basic Fun, based in Boca Raton, Florida, can export everything its customers order from its factories in China. “It’s automatic,” Foreman said. The company can “set it and forget it.” But not this year. Not in a year in which 20-foot and 40-foot shipping containers became scarce and more expensive to deliver goods from factories overseas to US ports and back. The spot rate of booking a 40-foot container from Shanghai to Los Angeles hit $10,229 the first week of August, up 238% from the same time a year prior, according to Drewry, a maritime research consultancy. So Foreman had to make a decision about which toys Basic Fun would focus on sending stores for the holidays. And he had to make it by September, so the goods would arrive in time.He found an easy answer to a complicated problem: small, squishy toys.”Cargo and containers are at a premium, so we’re going to prioritize high-velocity, small items,” said Andrew Yanofsky, head of marketing and operations at the Hong Kong-based company. He estimates that $245,000 worth of the dumplings go in a 40-foot container and $535,000 worth of Got2Glow jars can be shipped.The company pulled back on shipping Pop2Play, a pop-up playset slide. Only $61,000 worth of slides can fit in a container, Yanofsky said.”It’s a great toy and it’s selling well, but the problem is only a couple thousand fit,” he said. “When the margins are low and the footprint is large, items like that are going to get pushed aside.”The decisions by manufacturers to prioritize smaller toys are trickling down to holiday inventory that’s available for some toy stores.Rick Derr, owner of Learning Express Toys in Lake Zurich, Illinois, said he began noticing in the spring that smaller, lighter items were in more abundant supply. He has been tapping alternate suppliers to try to fill in gaps on bigger items such as dollhouses, play sets and mazes. “We’re going to pivot to smaller items” this holiday, he said. “If you sell enough of them you can make up the [sales] that we lose not having the bigger items.” Specifically, Derr expects to be able to sell more small fidget toys, silicone Pop It! toys, small arts and crafts kits, puzzles and card games.”These are going to be in much better shape this year,” he said. What will be scarcer at his store this holiday: “The bigger items.”