Guest Columnist

Yogi Parmar, managing director of Toymaster, on how indies have weathered the storm of the pandemic and what’s in store for 2022.

Right: Yogi Parmar, managing director, Toymaster.

A POSITIVE OUTLOOK

Toymaster members have once again adapted and been very resilient over 2021 – it started off with another lockdown, which closed the majority of our stores until April or May, however most members found a way to keep trading with online, click and collect and delivering locally, to once again connect with consumers.

Once retail re-opened, we found that customers were keen to visit shops again and sales picked up to strong levels as our members had made the ‘shop local’ message their own. We are extremely proud of the hard work our members put in over the past two years to keep their businesses trading.

Toymaster was on hand to support our members during the lockdown and re-opening period – we remained operational and kept in close contact with members and suppliers. The big thing our members missed out on was seeing new products, due to the lack of trade shows. However, Toymaster helped with collating all this information and making it available on the ‘Product Hub’ on our internal website, so all the info needed was in one location to access and place orders.

We definitely saw evidence that customers took the advice to ‘shop early’ last year, due to the stock availability issues highlighted in the news. They are continuing to shop locally, having discovered over the past 18 months that there is a whole variety of great independent shops, including toy shops, in their town. Consumers have realised that the customer service they receive from Toymaster members and other independents in their town is a much better experience and they want to continue supporting local businesses.

As such, we see a positive outlook for independents. There is clearly support from consumers to back independent shops, however we need more help from local councils to help revive high streets to make them more attractive to retail and leisure services and increase footfall.

Toymaster has a great relationship with and support from our suppliers, and we continue to work closely with them to ensure our members are getting good supply and promotional activity to allow them to compete and continue to flourish.

Yes there will be challenges ahead, but we start the year feeling positive on the back of a strong 2021.

Below: The Harrogate Show will return from 17-19 May, 2022.

SHOW TIME

We are really excited to be bringing the May Show back to Harrogate in 2022, and looking forward to catching up with our members and suppliers. We expect a great and varied selection of suppliers will be showcasing their new products.

The show itself will follow a similar format, with three days for meetings and two evenings of great entertainment. However, we are also looking at a few changes we can make to improve the experience for all.

The Toymaster May Show is the biggest trade fair for independent toy retailers in the UK and Ireland. We will again be inviting non-member independents to experience the event, and we would welcome the opportunity to speak to them about the benefits of becoming a Toymaster member.

The dates are 17-19 May, so please put the date in your diary and we look forward to seeing you there.