TRADE
OPINION
Calling all suppliers and distributors! We’d love to hear your views. Get in touch with Clare@lemapublishing.co.uk to have your say!
Trade talk
This month we check in with suppliers to chat retail. We find out about their predicted areas of growth and ask what steps they are taking to support their customer base ANTHONY MARKS Managing Director Fanattik Where are your products performing well at retail?
NICKY THOMAS-DAVIES Board Game Sales and Marketing Manager Thames & Kosmos
Where are your products performing well at retail?
Our Exit range has continued to be a best seller around the world. We were particularly thrilled that our Exit Advent Calendar became a must-have for gamers and sold out by the end of October! Needless to say, we have high hopes for the success of the follow up Advent – The Hunt for the Golden Book. We are also expanding our children and family range this year with eye-catching fun games such as Dodo, Karak and our new ‘Open and Play’ range of easy-to-learn games such as My Gold Mine and Monster 12. Do you expect there to be any areas of growth for retail this year?
The success of the film ‘Don’t Look Up’ certainly sparked the curiosity of stargazers and we expect that to continue. We have restocked our phenomenally successful My Discovery Telescope and these are already winging their way out to stores. We also have a larger size telescope arriving later this year for more “The ecoserious astronomers. friendly wave The eco-friendly wave continues, and continues, we have responded with changes to our and we have games such as changing our inserts from responded with plastic to cardboard and removing plastic changes to our wrap in some of our games. We had already taken this step for many of our games” science kits and are constantly looking at ways that we can protect our planet through changes in our production and distribution. How do you support retailers?
We offer hi-resolution photos and links to reviews and product videos for our retailers to use on their websites or advertising. We also send out a newsletter with details of upcoming games and general company information that may be helpful.
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Fanattik has found a home within the TCG (trading card games) area. We are a licensee for Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dungeons & Dragons, with more related licences on the way. The pandemic saw a massive rise in the popularity of this area, and we are not seeing any slowdown in demand as we enter 2022. It does take a little longer to develop product for this area compared with our film or video game licences; the fans are so invested in the titles that you really need to do a deep dive into the brand to create product they will appreciate.
“The growth of the kidultrelated product area is not just with the specialist retailers that we have traditionally supplied, or just in the UK market”
Do you expect there to be any areas of growth for retail this year?
Yes, with kidult-related product. The growth of this area is not just with the specialist retailers that we have traditionally supplied, or just in the UK market. We are a pan-European licensee for all the iconic brands in our portfolio, and every one of our customers is reporting the same thing. When retailers such as Toys R Us in Spain are telling us it’s a major growth area for them, then we know the category which we have worked on for so many years - is now finally getting the attention it deserves. How do you support retailers?
First, we create exclusive product for them. It is so competitive out there, so for a retailer to be able to offer something exclusively gives them a major advantage. Second, we offer major social media support, not just from us, but from our brand partners as well. A Willy Wonka piece we created for one retailer sold out in a few days when it was featured on a website where it received more than 100,000 Facebook likes. We co-ordinate social coverage between our brand and retail partners, as well as influencers.
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