Playthings has reported that Toys R Us is ending its data sharing with the NPD Group, which produces toy best-seller and industry analysis reports.  NPD's Toy Retail Sales Tracking Services is the primary source of industry information on product performance, as well as the source of annual toy industry information on market size, trends, and other key statistics. 

 

After TRU's departure, NPD will have reporting companies that make up about 30% of the toy business, an NPD Funworld spokesperson told Playthings.  August is the last month when NPD data will include TRU sales.  Wal-Mart withdrew from the program in 2001. 

 

This is not an isolated trend in the toy industry; in the video industry, Wal-Mart, one of the country's largest video retailers, does not report to A.C. Neilsen's VideoScan service. 

 

As sales in various product categories consolidate in a handful of retail chains, those chains can come to feel that because their own numbers are big enough to substantially influence the totals that are reported by tracking services, their strengths and weaknesses can be revealed by the published totals.