Barbie moved out of her Shanghai dream house today after Mattel Inc., the world’s biggest toymaker, closed the only store in China dedicated to its bestselling doll.
El Segundo- based Mattel didn’t cite a reason for shutting the six-story Barbie Shanghai, though it had lowered the outlet’s sales targets by at least 30 percent since the March 2009 opening. The company will have a new “brand strategy” for Barbie and expand operations across China this year, it said in an e-mailed statement.
Children at the store could pretend to model clothes on a fashion runway and design customized Barbie dolls. “They tried to do too many things with the brand,” said Ben Cavender, a Shanghai-based analyst at China Market Research Group. “Their products were perceived as being too sexy rather than being cute.”
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