Retail Interview - with Hobbycraft senior buyer - kids & hobbies Joseph Pulfrey

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 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.

Finally, Kits is where all our own-brand ‘make your own’ kits for knitting, stitching, wood craft, and art sit alongside branded craft kits from the likes of Galt, Play-Doh, Aquabeads and Fuzzikins.

Alongside the Kids category, we have models and jigsaws from brands such as Revell, Tamiya, Gibsons, Falcon, and Ravensburger.

The door is “

always open to suppliers with something unique and with a fi t with Hobbycraft

”

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. 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

only if there’s good access to newness and, more importantly, new suppliers and ideas.

What’s your selection criteria?

Simply: does it fit with our customer? We could easily sell more toys and probably sell plenty of them, but Hobbycraft is a destination for those who want something that will inspire their creativity and aid them in making or crafting. If it’s not doing that then it’s not really for us.

Our range should be there to inspire kids and grown-ups alike. Many customers may not know what they want, but they want to leave with something - or with the materials that they can ‘create’ with, whether that’s a complete kit, or a bag of felt, foam, I see customers in our “

Kids range as shopping for a very specific non-specific thing; they want something to inspire creativity - a project to take up time. It's our job to put that in front of them when they walk through the door or search

online ”

Best sellers

cardboard, pom poms, eyes and PVA.

I see customers in our Kids range as shopping for a very specific non-specific thing; they want something to inspire creativity - a project to take up time. It’s our job to put that in front of them when they walk through the door or search online.

What are your current best sellers?

Our box of Craft is a constant best seller, as are our Paint Your Own ranges in ceramics, cardboard playhouses, and suncatchers. Our own Hobbycraft pocket money kits, paints, easels, card; Crayola; make-your-own slime-related products; and wooden craft ■ Box of Craft ■ Paint Your Own ranges in ceramics ■ Cardboard playhouses ■ Suncatchers ■ Pocket money kits ■ Paints ■ Easels ■ Card ■ Crayola ■ Make-your-own slime-related products ■ Wooden craft accessories

accessories remain at the top of our best seller lists week in, week out.

What’s your favourite art or craft?

I have two young daughters, so crafting, painting and drawing with them takes up my time. This ranges from making bubbling volcanoes with the eldest, to a mountain of PVA blobbed on paper with googly eyes plonked on top with the youngest!

Hobbycraft raises funds for kids’ charity

Hobbycraft has launched a new product - a Colour In Cardboard Wigwam - to help raise funds for its charity partner Together for Short Lives, the UK charity for seriously ill children and their families.

The five-sided construction, which has a different design on each side, is available in-store and online now and all profits from sales will be donated to the charity.

Hobbycraft has worked with Together for Short Lives for nine years and has raised more than £1.8m for the charity to date. Together for Short Lives supports 54 children's hospice services caring for seriously ill children and their families across the UK.

Heather Robbins, trading director at Hobbycraft, comments: “Our customers love our Colour In Cardboard range and we’re incredibly excited to be able to launch a brand new line that will raise vital funds for our charity partner. Together for Short Lives does amazing and important work that resonates with our colleagues and customers, and this new product is set to raise thousands of pounds for them, which will help them continue making a difference for seriously ill children and their families.”