Anne Carrihill, category leader of toys and games at Amazon, talks about its supply chain for online orders in the Toy Book’s annual State of the Industry Q&A.
The Toy Book: Amazon sold 1 million toys within the first couple of weeks of the start of its holiday shopping season in October. How did the company keep up with an unrivaled demand for online orders in 2021?
Anne Carrihill: We begin our planning for the season on Jan. 1 to help ensure we are ready to deliver an incredible holiday for customers. As part of this preparation last year, Amazon continued to invest across its supply chain. This included announcing an additional 150,000 seasonal fulfillment and delivery roles across the U.S. and investing in technology to help us better predict what products our customers will want, as well as where and when they’ll want to receive them. We also continued to invest in our transportation capabilities, creating a supply chain that is built for an environment in which safety, speed, and efficiency are of the essence. We are proud to make customers’ holiday celebrations easier by offering a wide selection of deals and low prices with convenient delivery and pickup options.
In 2021, we kicked off the holiday season earlier than ever with holiday deals. Throughout the season, we offered customers a variety of ways to discover and shop their gift list both online and in store.
We helped customers get a jump on joy with Amazon’s 2021 Holiday Kids Gift Book, Ready, Set, Play, a printed book packed with more than 90 colorful pages of gifts from brands like LEGO, Hot Wheels, Play-Doh, L.O.L. Surprise!, and PlayShifu, as well as toys only available at Amazon from brands such as Osmo, Little Tikes, Barbie, and Hasbro Gaming. The Kids Gift Book also included activities for family fun, such as a maze, a color-by-number section, a cardboard craft, a postcard, a short story, stickers, and more. Customers could also experience the book’s illustrations and characters in augmented reality and bring the woodland world to life by scanning the QR code in the book. And, families could watch Amazon Original Series Do, Re & Mi and LEGO Monkie Kid, and purchase toys and games inspired by the shows.
We also introduced a shoppable digital Ready, Set, Play Holiday Kids Gift Book, which customers could explore from their mobile device or desktop. This offered an easy and convenient way for customers to discover and shop for great toys and games for kids of all ages and interests.
For customers seeking an in-store experience, Amazon Pop Up locations across the U.S. offered a whimsical shopping experience for consumers to discover, play with, and purchase toys from Hasbro, LEGO, Osmo, Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars.
This article was originally published in the February 2022 edition of the Toy Book. Click here to read the full issue!
