RETAIL INTERVIEW SMF TOYTOWN
SMF Toytown
turns 42
SMF Toytown founder and executive chairman Alan Simpson talks to Clare Turner about the pandemic, product trends and new store development plans for the independent toy chain
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his month SMF Toytown celebrates 42 years of trading. The Belfast-based family business was founded by Alan Simpson in 1979 and has grown to become one of the largest independent toy retailers in the UK. Reflecting on the past two years of toy trading, Alan says: “We’ve probably fared better than most retail through Covid because the deals that we do with landlords are totally turnover-rent based. "We started doing that 10 years ago and it’s a business model that works for us. In 2020 most retail would have had a very difficult time. Our profits actually increased - and it was a good increase, all things considered - and I’m predicting that for 2021 we will see increased profits again, even though we were closed for the first four months of the year.” The specialist chain operates 33 stores: 10 in Northern Ireland, 10 in Scotland and 13 in England, ranging in size from 2,500sq ft (Doncaster)
42
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Our expansion going forward will always focus on shopping centres
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to 8,000sq ft (Merry Hill). The latter opened in the West Midlands shopping centre in May and was followed a month later by a 3,000sq ft branch in The Gyle shopping centre in Edinburgh. “We’ve covered the main areas of retail where toy retailing is effective, and have fine-tuned and honed over the years,” Alan says, “so we’ve got high street units, outlet units, and concessions in some department stores, but the vast majority of our stores are in shopping centres. "Why? Because it’s the one area that guarantees footfall, and with footfall comes turnover. There are so few toy retailers in shopping centres, which is phenomenal, but it’s all to do with the operating margin. Our expansion going forward will always focus on shopping centres.” SMF Toytown also has an ecommerce website at www. toytownstores.com but, Alan stresses, “my focus is very much bricks-andmortar and always has been. I’ve recognised that there’s a need for
an online presence for selling, so it ticks the box, but it’s not my be-all and end-all. SMF Toytown is built on bricks-and-mortar retailing. "I want parents to bring children into stores and give them the ‘wow’ experience that they had when they were children. You don’t get that with the arrival of a cardboard box at your door.” He recalls that as soon as lockdown was over, SMF Toytown was working on its Merry Hill branch and, he reports, “it’s trading really well. It’s the biggest in space and the biggest in turnover for us. The only other store we’ve opened this year is Gyle. We normally do four or five a year, and we would have done another three this year (one in Scotland and two in England) if it hadn’t been for the uncertainty of stock availability. So, we’ve put them on ice and pushed them back to 2022. And if everything is back to an acceptable level of normality, we may look at a couple of others, depending on what offers come along.”
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