By Randy Tucker
The Cincinnati Enquirer

With the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season just around the corner, retail experts are already predicting the season's hottest toys and games.

They're also predicting that once those toys disappear from shelves, they won't be restocked before Christmas because of the lingering effects of the West Coast ports lockout.

BEST SELLERS

Projected best-selling toys for Christmas 2002: • Barbie as Rapunzel/Mattel. • Bratz Funk 'n' Glow/ MGA Entertainment. • Disney Toddler Princesses/ Playmates. • Dora the Explorer dolls/Fisher-Price & Mattel. • Harry Potter: Basilisk Playset/Mattel. • LeapPad Learning System/Leap Frog. • Rescue Heroes/Fisher-Price & Mattel. • Spider-Man: Dual Action Web Blaster/Toy Biz. • Star Wars Lightsabers/Hasbro. • Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Cards/Upper Deck. Source: Playdate Inc.

The bottom line: Buy early or do without.

"It is possible that really hot items will sell out early and not be available for Christmas,'' said J. Craig Shearman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation. "Operators have said the ports are operating at about 25 percent below capacity. That's going to stretch out the time for toys to get to the stores.''

Last month's 10-day shutdown of the West Coast's shipping ports has resulted in a backlog of cargo ships, primarily from Asia, where more than 90 percent of the toys sold in America are produced.

The backlog is coupled with what some say is a continued slowdown by workers, who have returned to the docks but are still locked in a labor dispute. That could lead to shortages of rescue hero action figures, Barbie, Power Rangers, Shrinky Dinks, ant farms and other old-school toys that are expected to appeal to price-conscious consumers this year.

It's a dilemma that's on the minds of toy sellers across the Tristate.

"There are certain manufacturers that are having trouble shipping certain items, and we are definitely concerned about reorders,'' Miles Altman, owner of King Arthur's Court in Oakley, said.

Toy sellers already are facing a challenging holiday season, with toy sales expected to increase just 2 or 3 percent from last year, according to the Toy Manufacturers of America Inc.

A shortage of key toys for Christmas could pummel the industry, which makes most of its money in the last three months of the year.

The ability, or inability, to restock toys that sell out fast will be the one of the most important factors determining the success of the holiday season for toy sellers, the retail federation's Mr. Shearman said.

Although there have been some delays, most of the major players, including KB Toys Inc. and Toys "R" Us, have already filled their initial orders for Christmas toys, he said.

But if a particular toy sells out and has to be reordered from the manufacturer overseas, the odds are slim that it will arrive before Christmas because of the interruption in the flow of toys into the U.S. caused by the port shutdown.

"Look at it as a huge conveyor built running across the Pacific Ocean,'' Mr. Shearman said. "When something gets out of place, you have backups all along the way, right back to the factories in Asia.'

It takes a little more than two weeks for cargo ships to cross the Pacific Ocean, he said, while unloading the ships and delivering goods to distribution centers across America can take another week - and that's under ideal conditions.

Importers could switch to contingency plans, including air freight, for faster delivery.

But the costs would be so high that retailers would be forced to mark up the price on goods to the point where they'd find it hard to break even, Mr. Shearman said.

Chris Byrne, a New York-based retail analyst and editor of the trade publication The Toy Report, offers this piece of advice: "If you know what you want, and you see it on the shelves, buy it now.''

Mr. Byrne, known as "The Toy Guy'' for his uncanny ability to spot a variety of trends and top toys early, says Chicken Dance Elmo, Harry Potter and Bob the Builder toys will be hot sellers this year.

But "those items will be out of stock probably by the third week of December,'' he said. "That's the position you want to be in as a retailer because no retailer wants to be left with stocked shelves on Dec. 26.''

But it's an untenable position for the nation's last-minute shoppers, whose children may look at them as the Grinch who stole Christmas because they didn't deliver the toy their kids wanted most.

E-mail rtucker@enquirer.com