Wal-Mart has announced that it is slashing prices on 100 popular toy items by 20% to 30%.  The price cuts represent the second wave of toy price rollbacks from the mega-retailer that earlier announced that it would be selling 100 popular toys including board games Monopoly, Battleship, and Connect 4 at a flat $10 price point (see “Wal-Mart Supersizes Sawbuck Sale”).  Target responded to Wal-Mart’s original sawbuck salvo by cutting its prices (see “Target Matches Wal-Mart Price Cuts”), and will likely follow suit with a second round of cuts to match Wal-Mart’s latest announcement. 

Toys involved in Wal-Mart’s latest round of cuts include the Buzz Lightyear Talking Action Figure, which has returned to prominence thanks to Disney’s re-release of the first two Toy Story movies in 3-D and the impending release of Toy Story 3 next summer, and Star Wars Light Sabers, which are perennial strong sellers.

Coupled with the online price war on bestselling books (see “Online Book Price War”), the latest round of toy price cuts indicates that mega-retailers are battling hard for cost conscious consumers by engaging in serious price slashing that involves “creaming” the bestselling items in a variety of categories.  Enough smaller retailers were ordering multiple copies of the heavily discounted online titles that Amazon.com and Wal-Mart.com have placed limits on the number of copies of upcoming bestsellers by Stephen King, James Patterson, and Sarah Palin (some of which are being sold for more than 70% off retail) that consumers can order.