No Boishakhi fair, yet record Covid-time sales at a Chawkbazar toy shop; local toys cut a Tk 80 car to Tk 50-60

Chawkbazar in Old Dhaka is the country's biggest and busiest toy market. Lane 1 of the Monihari traders' association has about 60 shops, and the ground floor of Friendship Market opposite has about 40. Retailers from Dhaka and beyond buy toys there at wholesale rates. In a NewsBangla report, the owner of a toy shop in Friendship Market said making and selling toys revolves around festivals; customers come even from villages, and the Boishakhi fair alone brings half a year's sales. When Covid meant no fair, the traders were in despair. But with people stuck at home, parents began buying toys to keep children busy; in his words, sales since then had made up for the lost fair, and even in normal times they had not sold this much. The manager of another shop said that small toys used to come from abroad; a toy car he sold for Tk 80 after all costs can now be sold for Tk 50 to 60 because it is made locally, and customers buy more because it is cheaper. Toys in these shops range from Tk 5 to Tk 1,500. Sellers say puzzle toys are more in demand than dolls or cooking sets, and retailers mostly buy toy cars for boys. According to the president of the toy traders' association, a few years earlier about Tk 5,500 crore of toys were imported a year; now 80 percent are made in the country.