We checked the prices of popular toys at the UK's biggest toy retailers and found you could end up paying 26% more, on average, at the most expensive store compared with the cheapest.
Here, Which? reveals how much you could save by shopping around and shares advice on how to save on your Christmas shopping.
Amazon cheapest for Christmas toys
Our basket included big brands such as Barbie, Hot Wheels, Lego, Paw Patrol and VTech, and a variety of different toy types such as action figures, board games, construction toys, dolls and puzzles.
The retailer with the cheapest prices was Amazon, where the total average cost of all 49 toys was £1,042 across the month-long period we looked at.
The priciest toy store was The Entertainer at £1,316 – that's 26% (£274) more expensive than Amazon.
Find out more: .Cheapest toy stores by age group
We split our trolley of toys by age group, and analysed the retailers’ average prices to find out whether Amazon was still the cheapest option.
The age ranges we used were babies (typically up to 18 months), preschoolers (typically one to three years old) and school-age children (typically four years old and over).
Amazon was cheapest for the toys for preschoolers and school-age kids, while Smyths Toys was cheapest for baby toys (although this category included fewer items due to challenges finding baby toys that were available across all four retailers).
The Entertainer was priciest for all three age ranges.
baby toys preschool childrenschool-age childrenFind out more: .Supermarket toy sales
We wanted to include supermarkets in our analysis, but they didn't stock a big enough range of branded toys. Keep an eye out for sales in supermarkets, though, as there can be decent discounts on offer.
Find out more:How to get the best price when shopping for toys
The high cost of living is continuing to squeeze household budgets, so if you don’t want to pay over the odds for toys this Christmas, here are some steps you can take:
Shop around Bide your timeDon't trust 'was' prices Take advantage of extended returns periods Use discount codes and loyalty pointsEarn when you spend Buy second-handFind out more: .*The analysis is based on independent data and includes discounts but not multi-buy or any loyalty card-based prices. All prices, aside from those for individual items, have been rounded to the nearest pound.source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/cheapest-retailer-childrens-toys-in-time-for-christmas-aLoMj8d2Efnu