Is last year’s hottest toy ready to make a comeback with a new look? Zhu Zhu Pets were all the rage during the holidays last year causing retailers to run out of inventory and allowing eBay sellers the chance to profit from the high demand and scarcity. Now the hamsters have a new set of friends called the Kung Zhu Pets (battle hamsters). Among the variations of searches that included ‘zhu’ over the past 4 weeks ending September 4, 2010, the Kung Zhu Pets appeared in 4 out of the top 10 searches (5 including ‘ninja’).

The variations of ‘kung zhu’ have started to gradually increase since May, offering opportunities to prep search marketing efforts before the holidays.

The top variations of ‘kung zhu’ over the past 4 weeks include ‘kung zhu pets’ and ‘kung zhu games’ along with the websites. Currently, there is not significant paid activity on the ‘kung zhu’ variations, with only one among the top terms – ‘kung zhu pets’, receiving clicks from paid or sponsored links. Retailers hoping to capture this traffic for the holidays can experiment where terms may be less costly while also building up SEO efforts.