Anxieties over US toy safety may have affected consumers buying habits during the holiday shopping season, but it is hard to identify the evidence on the website of Wal-Mart, the largest US toy retailer.

In October, Wal-Mart identified 12 “hot” toys for the season; at the end of last week its website had sold out of nine of them, leaving only the latest TMX Elmo from Mattel’s Fisher Price, Spider-Man 3 action figures from Hasbro, and the pink – but not the blue – version of Fisher Price’s Kid Tough Digital Camera.