Every year in November, a disruption of tectonic proportions seizes up South Africa’s online marketplace bidorbuy. Merchandise that rules the roost during the rest of the year suddenly has to take back seat. Men’s watches and ladies’ jewellery, rare coins and antiques, kitchen appliances and fashion items, even smartphones and tablets: all of them have to shuffle in order to make space for children’s toys in the very top of the pile.

The demand for toys erupts at this time of the year. Some of the most popular are such novelties as figurines modelled after the characters from the animated movies Frozen and How to Train Your Dragon.

However, even the huge popularity of the toys that are currently “in” could not quite squeeze out the all-time favourites, dolls and bears. About one dozen of dolls and teddies of all shapes and sizes are purchased every day on the site, and this number is expected to rise as festive season nears.

Other popular gift choices for the youngest ones are bicycles and ride-ons, educational toys, Lego and other building toys, as well as radio controlled toys. Still, popularity-wise, the title of the absolute winner goes to model toys. Currently, more than thirty are sold every day on bidorbuy, and the majority are railway models. Of course, we can not know whether these are being purchased for children or for dads and granddads.

Currently, buyers on bidorbuy can choose from about 120,000 toys, sold by thousands of independent sellers. That means that, on bidorbuy, buyers get to choose not only what to buy, but also who to buy from. And since bidorbuy sellers sell directly to buyers, without a middle man, that also means that one can as a rule get more for less.

That’s just one more reason to visit the bidorbuy toy section when choosing a gift for little ones!