Royal baby bonanza for U.K.

Even before the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, gave birth to a boy on Monday,  businesses in Britain were banking on the royal family's impending expansion.

Long before she went in to labor, the London department store Harrods offered a line of royal baby commemorative bone china, illuminated with unisex symbols to celebrate the infant, whose gender was then a mystery.

On one commemorative plate -- sold for $ 25.24 – a white basinet and a teddy bear with royal purple cape surrounded gilded script that seemed to anticipate a second little royal:The First Baby of the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge. 

Much as journalists camped outside London’s St. Mary’s Hospital seemed to eagerly await the new prince or princess, so did British retail. The Nottingham-based Center for Retail Research published a report detailing the royal infant's prospective contribution to the kingdom’s gross domestic product from July 1 to August 31: an estimated $372.8 million.

At the time, “Born to Rule” baby onesies reportedly lined shops across the nation, selling for as much as $28.95 online.

An itemized list foresaw that festivities surrounding the baby’s birth would make $131.4 million, more than a third coming from food for a prospective 4.8 million people engaging in “mostly local and informal festivities and parties, including those in back gardens,” the Center said.

The remaining $246 million would come from sales of everything from royal baby toys to books and other memorabilia.

The Center anticipated monumental sales to the U.S. and more current parts of the Commonwealth -- those countries which retain a sybmolic union with the former British Empire.

“There is considerable interest in this event across the world, but particularly in North America, parts of Europe and Australia and New Zealand,” the Center said on its website, estimating prospective royal baby exports at roughly $55.9 million.

Al Jazeera