Battery-Powered Hamsters: The “Tickle Me Elmo” of Christmas ’09?
Believe it or not, even with Halloween having just recently come and gone, people all around the world are already making their christmas shopping lists and checking them twice.
Of all the infinite possibilities of potential christmas gifts that make their way to these lists, hamsters seem to be among the most common. They’re cute, fuzzy, and more often than not become an object of desire for a child at some point in their life.
There is a flip-side, however, to the cute and cuddliness that draws children to these animals. As with any pet, there’s a fair bit of maintenance that comes with owning the animal. With this in mind, a small company based in St Louis, Missouri created a battery-powered hamster that is quickly becoming item #1 on the christmas lists of many.
The battery-powered hamsters, known as Go Go Pets, have become so popular so fast that the CEO of Toys “R” Us, Jerry Storch, didn’t even dare place them in this year’s christmas catalogue. “Word of mouth alone stimulated demand to the point that if we advertised it would only be bad for business,” he said.
The range of battery-powered pets was launched in the summer by Cepia, which was founded in 2004 by Russell Hornsby. The success of Go Go Pets even has him mystified, and he’s quick to point out that the phenomenon goes beyond just hamsters. “It’s not just hamsters, we are bringing out the clans: chipmunks, squirrels, hedgehogs, rabbits. We have all sorts of cute things coming,” said Hornsby. ”People ask us, how does this happen?” he continued. “The answer is that if knew that, we’d have a hit every week.”
A few years back it was the Tickle Me Elmo. Is the battery-powered hamster poised to follow in it’s footsteps as THE toy to have under your tree this christmas? Only time will tell.
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