New Arrow Dancing Mat

The TF208799 is a foldable dance mat with the electronics in a console at the head end rather than in the mat itself. The console carries a small display, a speaker and two rows of round buttons, and the mat surface is printed with eight illuminated arrow pads set around a central figure, with volume, start and pause, mode, memory and demo controls printed along the top edge. The mat is soft and rolls or folds for storage, and the console is moulded onto the mat so there is nothing to connect. The layout is what makes it a two-player or family product rather than a solo toy: eight pads around a centre means two children can stand on it at once.

The weight is unusually low for the size. A carton holds 12 mats at 0.112 CBM and only 10.5 kg gross, 0.88 kg per mat, so a 20GP takes 250 cartons, 3,000 pieces, and the 60-piece minimum is five cartons at 0.56 CBM. The retail box is 32 x 9.5 x 27 cm, which is a rolled or folded mat in a compact carton, so the product does not need the shelf depth that a rigid dance platform would. For a buyer comparing it with a hard dance mat, that packing is the advantage: same play pattern, a fifth of the freight cube.

At $13.62 it is the second most expensive educational item in the collection, behind the TF169001 pottery machine at $21.69. Its channel is different from everything else here: this is the item a toy retailer puts out for the winter and the rainy weekend, and it competes with video games rather than with craft kits. Retailers generally pair it with a screen-free or active-play section, which is where the eight-pad two-player layout is easy to demonstrate.