RETAIL INTERVIEW
JOHN LEWIS & PARTNERS
Exciting
plans
John Lewis & Partners Category Lead for Toys & Books Alan Wright is looking forward to a strong summer season and is impatient for Autumn/Winter to arrive! What’s your background? I've been at John Lewis for just over 17 years, working across multiple categories. I started out as the merchandiser for Christmas Shop & Gift Food (the year of the Black Tree, if you can remember that far back?). But the majority of my career has been spent as the senior merchandiser for Beauty, where we introduced our first concessions and doubled the size of the business in eight years. I was appointed category lead for toys & books in August 2021 and it's fair to say the first season was certainly lively! Tell us a bit about John Lewis & Partners. We sell toys in 30 John Lewis locations and 150 Waitrose locations, with exciting plans to make toys available in more 30
Alan Wright
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I love the dynamism of this category and how every supplier I meet is keen to give something a go
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shops across both brands in Autumn/Winter.
lines, to them being some of our largest suppliers.
How would you describe your range? We don't have the largest toy departments in the UK, so we have to carefully curate our ranges to ensure we have a mix of the most popular lines and things you wouldn't find anywhere else. I want our toy offer to appeal to the whole family; making it easy for those who have lists to fulfil and fun for the kids (who write the lists!).
How do you find products? As a team we attended the London Toy Fair this year - it was the most exhilarating and exhausting three days. We now know to leave ourselves time to breathe next time! In terms of finding products, it's been a mix so far of seeing new things at Toy Fair, Googling toy trends to see what's hot, and finding out what my friends’ kids are playing with.
How many brands do you carry? Amazingly, we sell more than 100 brands across our shops and johnlewis.com, with plans to add 17 more this Autumn/Winter. How many suppliers do you deal with? I'm pleased to say we have long-standing relationships with all the largest toy suppliers. I'm also very proud to see how some of those relationships have developed over time, moving from us taking just a few of their
What’s proving popular at the moment? It's been really pleasing to see so many of our key brands in growth: LEGO, VTech, Micro Scooters, Barbie, Melissa & Doug and Hot Wheels are all trading well. And I mustn't forget our own brand range - it's our second largest brand! What lines have you started stocking recently? We have recently expanded our 'wheels' offer based on customer feedback, which is delivering
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