Harry Potter toys deliver a hit for the times

If you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of the toy industry issuing a collective sigh: 'Finally, a hit!' It's been a while (three years, in fact), but folks can finally say the words loud and proud about the Harry Potter line. Though NPDFunworld won't release its final TRSTS data for Q4 till sometime this month, retailer consensus is that the last two months were extremely good, due largely to the success of the Potter merch, which managed to prop up what was an otherwise so-so year in toy retailing. The most recent NPDFunworld data showed overall toy sales rose 10.8% during the busy shopping month of November, compared to the same period last year.