RETAIL INTERVIEW HOBBYCRAFT
Inspiring creativity
TnP catches up with Hobbycraft senior buyer - kids & hobbies Joseph Pulfrey, to discover what’s hot for kids at the arts & crafts superstore chain What’s your career background? I was a buyer for 15-plus years working in the home entertainment, grocery and DIY sectors, before joining Hobbycraft in 2017.
Tell us a bit about Hobbycraft. Founded in 1995 at Christchurch in Dorset, Hobbycraft has grown to become a nationwide business with more than 100 stores across the UK, ready to support and inspire an ever-expanding variety of crafts.
How would you describe your product range? The Kids department is effectively split into three categories: Art, Craft, and Kits. Art features stationery, colour/ paint your own lines, paper, card, paints, paint accessories, and stickers. Craft houses our assortments and accessories (the bits and pieces for craft projects and ‘makes’ that includes an
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enormous selection of items such as eyes, feathers, pom poms, pipe cleaners and beads) plus glitter (all biodegradable now), foam, felt, moulding clay and picture beads. The Finally, Kits is where all our own-brand ‘make door is your own’ kits for knitting, always open stitching, wood craft, and to suppliers art sit alongside branded with craft kits from the likes of Galt, Play-Doh, Aquabeads something and Fuzzikins. unique and Alongside the Kids with a fit category, we have models with and jigsaws from brands such as Revell, Tamiya, Hobbycraft Gibsons, Falcon, and Ravensburger.
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How many brands do you carry? In excess of 40. This ranges from brands with a large presence across one or two branded bays, to new suppliers with perhaps just one or two SKUs that are in development or trial.
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How many suppliers do you deal with? We are always trying to streamline the number of suppliers we have onboard and look to have close relationships with strategic partners. Currently we work closely with Hasbro, James Galt, Play Monster, Vivid and Epoch, to name a few. But the door is always open to suppliers with something unique and with a fit with Hobbycraft.
How do you find products? Ideas for the range come from customers, colleagues, press and social media. From that, we either develop the idea and source it ourselves, or look to buy from suppliers. Approaches from reps are often most fruitful, and it can be down to the right product at the right time. So many products are launched off the back of a presentation of an item or an idea that I just happen to be looking for at that time. Two weeks earlier or later and it may have been a non-starter. Trade shows can be good, but
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