Special Feature
Toymaster visits Learning Express
Miami nice
Our very own Crockett and Tubbs visit the Learning Express June 22 conference Paul Reader is marketing director at Toymaster, the largest buying group for independent toy retailers in the UK & Ireland. Following a visit to the group’s annual May show from Mike Derse, director of Business Development at the American toy store franchise Learning Express, Paul – accompanied by Midco Toys’ Dave Middleton - headed across the pond to attend Learning Express’ June 2022 conference. Here, Paul reports back on his time at the event and what he has learned from the experience. night talking shop, before turning in, to use the Americanism, by 10pm, ready for Sunday’s early start. With the conference itself starting on the Monday, Sunday morning was dedicated to Learning Express’ Store Owner Presentations. I thought keeping 90+ store owners engaged in PowerPoint presentations for so long would be very difficult – imagining what our members would say if asked to do this - but Americans love a success story. A tremendous amount of praise was given, especially for the outgoing Learning Express CEO and founder, Sharon Diminico, who was handing over the reigns to her daughter Lauren after 35 years. The afternoon was totally unexpected. We kicked off with a session called ‘Let’s Get Social’. Rather than a race to the nearest bar, this brainstorming session saw the head office team sit down with store owners to discuss how best to use social media: what they’ve done, what’s worked, what they could do differently and much
more. The session was really interesting - one of the biggest contributing factors to LE success is undeniably the use of social media and TikTok. American retailers are simply more enthusiastic and so much better at it than most of their UK counterparts, and this is an important lesson we should all heed. Any hopes that the next session, ‘35 Nuggets in 60 Minutes’, was an eating contest were quickly dispelled. Store owners, including David and I, were all given different pens and asked to join the table hosting a home office team member with the same pen. This was a simple way of splitting up each of the groups and getting to know other people. Each table was given a different topic to discuss and some questions to answer. Topics included: Buying – Reports & Principles, Loss Prevention, In-store Display and Merchandising, Cash Flow, Team/Staff Motivation, Customer Service, 2021 Highlights and Charitable Causes to Support. Each table leader then presented their findings to the rest of the group. This was a
Paul Reader with Linda Peebles, VP of Training and Regional Support Leader Dave Middleton attempts to persuade Mike and Lauren Derse to become honorary Derby County fans.
M
y trip was the result of many months of discussions between our very own David Middleton (who has always had more than one eye on what happens in the US) and the popular Toy World columnist Richard Derr, the proud owner of a very successful Learning Express franchise in Chicago. Mike Derse’s visit to our Toymaster May Show was so successful that the natural next step was for Toymaster to check out the LE conference in June – and the fact it was held in Miami only increased my enthusiasm for the trip. Dave and I arrived on the Saturday evening and soon found ourselves at a drinks reception, chaperoned by Mike and Rick. We were both immediately accepted as insiders, not outsiders – a testament to independent toy retail on both sides of the Atlantic. We spent a very enjoyable
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