Even with a temporary reprieve, irreversible damage has already been done for 2025 Q4.
Check out the article for details from GameStop and Disney. 
And thus, Santa will only be able to deliver 4 of my planned 35 dolls.
Plus, they will be stroller-less
Sad 
My wife and our son have a few suppliers that are in a ‘bit’ of trouble. The sales rep of one of their really popular lines apparently only has 6 to 8 weeks of inventory and nothing on the way.
They are off at the Sweets and Snacks Expo in Indianapolis at the moment looking for new stuff for the store. They tend to bring in “unusual” snacks so the guys will at least have something to eat this Summer.
Anyone want a scorpion sucker? I was told that they taste a bit like dark chocolate by one girl. I didn’t get much taste – it was like chewing on a twig.
Wonder how they are going to sell everyone on the concept of subsidies/bailouts, to announce how they are using socialism to put a bandaid on the capitalism they broke?
In the late 1970s when I worked for a company which supplied inventory and warehouse management systems, Christmas merchandise out our clients which were large chains of retailers would begin arriving in mass on July 4, toy manufacturers would bill them at Net180.
Sounds like a throwback in business practices would be appropriate for this year, could come in during the 90 day window, if anyone could afford to do business that way.
Actually, that has not gone away. By this time our son has been to two MAJOR shows (my wife missed them when we were in HI), as well as a couple smaller ones and orders have been arriving already.
The past several years many of their suppliers have taken larger orders with no payment due until January of the year following. Depending on when they ship, all those items can/will be sold well before Christmas and restocked again with ‘normal’ billing.
That goes a long way to getting business from the store. Thankfully his wife is a lot better at budgeting than I would be. Oh, look, there is money in the account, let’s go spend it… 
I guess I have been unaware that inventory dating is still available. Been talking to too many online sellers who are using their credit cards to pay for inventory.
The dating does carry some pretty big orders to get it – probably 3 to 6 months of turnover to qualify (I only have any interest in the store due to my wife and the ‘Marital Property’ stuff).
As near as I can tell if you get to be a big fish in a shrinking industry you can get a lot of perks. So far, thanks to one major supplier, they have been to three NASCAR events with pit passes (I made it to one) and have the store name on the hood of the sponsored car.
Of course that came at a price – had to stock up on new products but they were going to anyway. I think they are going to Dover this year. If I play my cards right I might get invited again. 
When I ran my computer company, I was new to retail and did not understand that being considered a “heavy hitter” meant there were many perks.
A salesman for one of my suppliers had been a buyer for a regional electronics chain. He decided I needed to know. I was bringing him a lot of commissions so his self interest probably was involved as well his benevolence.
With his help, we restructured our buying practices, we ceased to shop every order with multiple suppliers, concentrated our buying with a few and started getting deals and promotions.
Won a Caribbean cruise for meeting a sales target with a distributor and were probably the smallest company in their party on the cruise.
Found that our orders were given priority in fulfillment on hot, scarce products with other suppliers. Spiffs, promos and other incentives came our way.
The PC business was in transition at the time, from $3k product with a 25% margin to an under $1k product with an 8% margin. Needless to say, we pulled the plug when the transition was complete, no way to ramp up the volume enough to be worth trying. Our competitors who tried faced bankruptcy.
One of the hardest lessons in life and business. My son is on the board of one (very) small national association and it is full of members stuck in time.
They refuse to adapt because ‘this is how we have always done it.’ They won’t do a clearance on dead inventory so they have money for new items either.
This needs some music–
