Hasbro (HAS)

 

Sales of our family entertainment products at retail are extremely seasonal, with a majority of retail sales occurring during the period from September through December in anticipation of the holiday season, including Christmas. This seasonality has increased over time, as retailers become more efficient in their control of inventory levels through quick response inventory management techniques. Customers are timing their orders so that they are being filled by suppliers, such as us, closer to the time of purchase by consumers. For toys, games and other family entertainment products which we produce, a majority of retail sales for the entire year occur in the fourth quarter, close to the holiday season. As a consequence, the majority of our sales to our customers occur in the period from September through December, as our customers do not want to maintain large on-hand inventories throughout the year ahead of consumer demand. While these techniques reduce a retailer’s investment in inventory, they increase pressure on suppliers like us to fill orders promptly and thereby shift a significant portion of inventory risk and carrying costs to the supplier.

 

The limited inventory carried by retailers may also reduce or delay retail sales, resulting in lower revenues for us. If we or our customers determine that one of our products is more popular at retail than was originally anticipated, we may not have sufficient time to produce and ship enough additional product to fully capture consumer interest in the product. Additionally, the logistics of supplying more and more product within shorter time periods increases the risk that we will fail to achieve tight and compressed shipping schedules, which also may reduce our sales and harm our financial performance. This seasonal pattern requires significant use of working capital, mainly to manufacture or acquire inventory during the portion of the year prior to the holiday season, and requires accurate forecasting of demand for products during the holiday season in order to avoid losing potential sales of popular products or producing excess inventory of products that are less popular with consumers. Our failure to accurately predict and respond to consumer demand, resulting in our underproducing popular items and/or overproducing less popular items, would reduce our total sales and harm our results of operations. In addition, as a result of the seasonal nature of our business, we would be significantly and adversely affected, in a manner disproportionate to the impact on a company with sales spread more evenly throughout the year, by unforeseen events, such as a terrorist attack or economic shock, that harm the retail environment or consumer buying patterns during our key selling season, or by events, such as strikes or port delays, that interfere with the shipment of goods, particularly from the Far East, during the critical months leading up to the holiday purchasing season.