Talking Shop

Spring into action

As spring gets underway, Sam Giltrow speaks to a selection of indie retailers to find out how they have found the year so far, what’s selling right now and what plans they have for Easter and the rest of the year.

Sam Walker - Wally’s Toy Shop, Thame

We’ve had a stronger start to the year than we were expecting, so are very pleased. We weren’t quite sure how it was going to go, but I think the easing of restrictions has helped. The cost of living has been rising and this has been noticeable for many, but it seems if customers want an item enough, they have been willing to spend on it. However, people are perhaps being a bit more considered in their purchases. Some customers’ overall basket spend has dropped, but there is enough on offer in our shop for all budgets.

I’m looking forward to the year ahead and, hopefully, a full year of trading. We visited the London Toy Fair in January, and it was great to see all the upcoming ranges and the year planned out. We’re looking forward to all the new releases in the coming months – people have been asking for them for a while now, especially lines related to the release of the latest superhero films such as the Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Batman. There has been a huge demand for Spider-Man related product, particularly the range from Hasbro, and also for Spin Master’s Batman lines.

We’re also expecting huge interest in the new Jurassic World movie. This should also translate into more sales across our whole dinosaur range, which is always popular with kids of all ages. Boys and girls alike just love dinosaurs, whether hatching them from eggs or playing with walking, talking dinosaurs. I’m sure the new movie will inspire a new generation of dinosaur lovers.

Also selling well at the moment is the range of Eugy 3D models from Brainstorm. Kids are coming in with their lists of the models they want to buy to add to their collections. We have just restocked the range and it looks great – it really stands out in store. Parents and grandparents also like them, so it’s a win-win. A lot of the kids that collect them are now regulars and have upwards of eight or nine of them already; they tell us how they have them all lined up on their windowsills at home and are keen to make more and grow their collections. Other collectibles which are currently popular include SuperThings from Magic Box and Goo Jit Zu from Character, particularly the dinosaur and superheroes ranges.

Our Pre-school section is always popular and one of the strongest characters at the moment is Bluey, especially the range from Moose Toys. Last year, we went from having the odd person asking about it every now and then to it selling incredibly well, and I’m sure this will carry on throughout this year, especially as there are new additions to the line. Also proving very popular is the Peppa Pig Weebles range from Character. The kids love them, and they also hold retro appeal, as many parents remember playing with Weebles when they were children.

Games have been a bit slow recently, there’s always a downturn after the Christmas period, but some ranges are still strong including Exploding Kittens which has some fun, different titles. I’m hoping that with travel restrictions being lifted, more people will be looking for smaller games to take away with them. Dobble from Asmodee is still hugely popular, it just ticks all the boxes as the whole family love it and it can easily be played on a plane or slipped into travel bags.

We are looking forward to the Easter holidays, as that’s always a busy time of year. It’s good to get the kids back in the shop and see what kinds of toys they are attracted to themselves, so we can make sure we are stocked up on the right lines for the rest of the year.

We’ve been getting ready for summer and have been ordering a bit earlier than we normally would, just in case the good weather comes early - we have some paddling pools in already. It’s amazing how many people are already asking about summer stock. In outdoor toys, Stomp Rockets are one of our biggest sellers. They are great fun, and we love recommending them.

We are really looking forward to the rest of 2022 - and being able to remain open all through the year. We are a traditional toy shop, and although we offer a mix of the latest toys that all the kids are looking for, our aim is always for parents to find things that they used to play with too. I know our customers have been keen to come back and browse and buy from a physical store rather than online and it’s so great to see them; we’re glad that they feel safe to come out again.

Alison Bowen - Toys ‘n’ Things, Cardiff

The first quarter of the year has been steady.

I think people are concerned about their household bills going up and that is having an impact on basket spend. Fortunately, we had a really good half-term week, and we’re hoping that with Easter just round the corner, business will start to pick up again. We are well prepared for it, with lots of lovely new stock and an enticing Easter window display. The weather seems to be improving too, which can only help.

I haven’t visited any trade shows this year – I never do – but I’m excited to see what is coming out and I’m going to the warehouse I buy from soon, to have a look at all the new lines. With the new movie coming out in the summer, I think Jurassic World will be bigger than ever this year, and I expect all kinds of dinosaur toys will sell well. Lego is still one of our most popular ranges, especially with Technic and Star Wars - it never seems to slow down. Schleich animals are also selling fantastically well. We had a few issues with deliveries last year, but I’m pleased to say it’s all back to normal now - our displays are fully stocked and looking good once again. It’s such a nice collectible range at good price points, and because of the quality the figures can be passed down through the family.

I’ve recently had a reorganisation on the shop floor and changed everything around. I had Infant Toys at the front, but this section has now moved to the middle, so that our Easter stock can take pride of place at the front of the store. Our entire Pre-school selection is still selling well, especially the Fisher Price lines, which customers know they can rely on. I like to keep moving product around, it keeps the displays looking fresh and also encourages customers to have a good look round. Puzzles are continuing to perform very

well in Pre-school, particularly across licensed ranges with popular characters such as Paw Patrol, Fireman Sam and Thomas and Friends. We do good business with Ravensburger, which is probably our most popular range of puzzles.

There’s nothing that is particularly standing out at the moment; no crazes or fads have taken off yet this year, although I’m pleased that trade is steady across the board and we are looking forward to Easter.

Harrison Dann - The Toy Stop, Eastbourne

I’m just nearing my first full year of trading and business is going really well. We recently went to London Toy Fair and also visited the Spring Fair at the NEC and both events were massive eye openers for me. As I started out just before Covid, I was only dealing with a handful of suppliers that I had found online. I turned up at Toy Fair thinking my toy shop was in a good place, but soon realised there were hundreds more suppliers out there that I could be dealing with. I have now placed orders with many more companies - and am trying to figure out how we are going to fit all the stock in the shop.

It’s always been a dream to have my own toy shop. I started off collecting Lego as a child and I had so much that we had a Lego room instead of a dining room; the only time the table was cleared was for Christmas dinner. When I was about 14, I started selling some of my old Lego sets, and some brand-new ones which I’d never built, on my Mum’s eBay account – I quickly ended up making around £4,000. I then started buying up discounted toys and selling them on and realised I could make money out of it. My bedroom was filled with so much stock that my parents got me a storage unit for Christmas, which I filled, and then a second one.

In 2019, I passed my driving test and set up a pop-up shop in a nearby community shopping centre. It went really well, even though I only opened three days a week as I was also working at Tesco. When that unit was let permanently to another tenant, I managed to find a much bigger unit in the same centre, which

opened in February 2020. By now I was developing stock of new toys as well as the second-hand section. But we all know what happened next - Covid hit, which meant I had to close. I managed to open for a while between the lockdowns but carried on working for Tesco too. During the lockdown at the start of 2021, I was granted a start-up loan and used the time to refurbish the shop. It was very dated, and I was determined that when I could reopen the shop, it would be how I wanted it to be. I started using wholesalers and the range of toys we have on offer really started to grow. The business has outgrown the ‘new’ shop premises already, so I’m currently in talks about moving to another unit in the centre, which is about eight times the size of my existing store. Exciting times are ahead. I’m very happy with our turnover at the moment, which has built nicely, and I now have two amazing members of staff. I would like to open another branch, and so I’m exploring how best to do that. My ultimate goal is to have a chain of three of four shops in the area. There is a local competitor with a few outlets dotted around East Sussex and Kent, but I feel there is room for everyone. The Toy Stop is growing all the time and I’m feeling really positive, especially with all the new suppliers I’m dealing with now and their ranges coming in.

Because I’m only 20 years old, everyone tells me that what I have done is amazing. But in the back of my mind, I’m not fully satisfied yet, because I haven’t yet achieved half the things I want to. It’s all been a bit surreal. The biggest challenge I’ve come across is people not taking me seriously because of my age and underestimating what I’m capable of.

I’m now hoping to build relationships with even more suppliers, but this is an ongoing process. I have orders ready to place with mainstream companies such as Ravensburger and Funko and I’d like to get more licensed ranges in such as Disney and Hot Wheels. I recently took delivery of my first Schleich products, which I’m really pleased with - the stock started to sell straight away.

Christmas exceeded my expectations and although the first few months of 2022 have been quieter, I am hoping we will have a good spring and summer. We stock toys for all ages from six months up and currently carry about 1,000 items, but by the end of the year we’d like to get this up to between 3,000 and 4,000 SKUs. I’ve built up an amazing range of pocket money toys, which is currently our best-selling category - mainly fidget toys, which are still extremely popular with kids buying for themselves and for little treats. We have a great range of retro toys from Kandy Toys, a popular selection of pocket money toys from One For Fun, and the HTI range of jokes and gags has been a big success. We are looking to expand this area with other suppliers. We’ve also done very well with board games, and I plan to grow that section if we can move to a larger shop and give it more space.

Now, we are looking forward to summer. When we opened last April, we had a strong selection of outdoor toys which all sold out with the good weather. We have the best of both worlds where we are located, because the seafront is a couple of miles away and we are also near a forest, so we have benefitted from plenty of tourist trade. I hope we will have the same again this year.

We are really excited for the next six months to see the business really take shape. With each new company that I start to deal with, it feels like we are becoming more and more a ‘proper’ toy shop.

indie viewpoint

Looking forward to a Happy Easter

Mark Buschhaus and Stephen Barnes

Since we last wrote this column, business has been steady. We had a good half term and were pleased with how February ended up. Pokémon continued to be a big draw, boosted even further by the latest release of trading cards. The new launches from Lego for this month have also proved very popular, especially the larger Lego Technic McLaren car and the new Vespa. Larger, more kidultaimed sets continue to be a growing area for us, even with the higher price points.

Despite this success on Lego lines, we are looking carefully at price points throughout our offering going forward. With the cost of everything going up, budgets are inevitably going to be constrained, so we feel it’s worth keeping an eye on the value of every line we stock, ensuring we can cater for all budgets.

Although it has been a tough couple of years, we have come out of it better than we expected we would. However, even with a good start to the year, it’s only realistic to be prepared for more challenges ahead. Although Covid restrictions are now behind us, the disease is not; we are still having to deal with staff absences and disruption due to the virus. We also feel upset and powerless about everything going on in Ukraine and are fundraising in our stores to help towards the crisis there. We’re aware that there could be more issues with shipping going forward due to lockdowns in China, which could lead to supply issues later this year.

On a more positive note, we are looking forward to finally trading over an Easter period, for the first time in three years. We have not brought in specific Easter products, as sales are unpredictable and depend heavily on the weather. It tends to be lower price points that sell well, as a lot of people buy small toys rather than (or to go with) an Easter egg. Only time will tell how many people will choose to go away now most travel restrictions have gone; if lots of them do, footfall may be a bit lower. However, it will still be better than the last two Easters when we were closed. Pre-school is one of our biggest categories and has traded well over the past year. With prices going up, we are looking at offering a larger value offering, whilst still maintaining the quality that people expect for very young children and babies. In terms of licensed Pre-school product, Bluey has been the new standout in the past few months and looks set to remain popular through the year ahead. Paw Patrol is going from strength to strength, with the new Rescue Knights range proving very popular.

The Pocket Money category has been a stand out performer over the last year. Ever since we reopened, it hasn’t slowed down since. It is an area that is far less affected by competition online or elsewhere than many other categories - and the beauty of it is it drives customers into stores for repeat purchases.

After the push popper craze, trends in fidget toys have moved onto anything squishy and soft, and anything to keep hands busy. We’re keeping an eye on whatever is getting everyone talking - over the last few years, crazes have appeared very quickly due to spreading on social media, especially TikTok. We have ordered fidget slugs, which are just about to arrive, a fidget robot and a suction snap band. We are also trying the Singing Cactus, which is another viral line. Anything to drive another craze would be great to drive footfall in the coming months.

Have a great Easter.