Toy World Magazine August 2022

While no-one is pretending it’s easy at the moment, the toy market is continuing to do its best to buck the general retail trend. We may not have the mid-summer launch of the Argos catalogue to galvanise toy sales these days, but there are plenty of new lines hitting shelves over the coming weeks to start injecting some excitement into proceedings.

Unsurprisingly, general economic indicators point towards a testing year for retail in general. According to the British Retail Consortium, sales in physical stores and online have now dropped for three months in a row, while prices in the UK are currently rising at their fastest rate for 40 years. Total retail sales decreased by 1% in the five weeks between the end of May and the start of July, compared with an increase of 10.4% in June last year.

The continuing weakness of the pound isn’t helping. Six years down the line from its collapse on the night of the infamous Brexit vote, sterling remains in a parlous position, with little prospect of improvement on the horizon. It may not be the root cause of all the current economic and business turbulence afflicting the UK, but it certainly makes the problems harder to fix.

And yet…. Mattel shares have actually been rising, following an upgrade from Goldman Sachs, which was predicated on the belief that toy companies are better placed to withstand economic uncertainty than many other categories.

I am also hearing anecdotally that the toy channel is holding up better than many other retail sectors: new Pokémon, Lego and Squishmallow releases and some ‘leftfield’ ranges such as Stranger Things capsules, coupled with lines from summer blockbusters such as Jurassic World Dominion and Minions, are generating nice buzz and footfall at specialist toy stores and major retailers alike. And with the burst of glorious weather in the UK last month, sales of outdoor and beach toys will have helped toy retailers enormously.

So, let’s not be too downcast: we are all in the same boat and at least lucky enough to work in an industry that is partially protected from the ongoing economic turbulence. And finding ‘little wins’ is more important than ever’; so, if you were one of the companies who read last month’s Friday Blog post about Amazon being prepared to accept price increases from vendors without needing approval from a vendor manager, logged straight on to Amazon Vendor Central and put through price increases which were approved instantly, good on you. Happy to be the bearer of good news, and if we can help our readers to trade more profitably and effectively by doing our job as journalists, we all win.

As this month’s news section shows, retailers are looking at ways to make their operations more profitable and effective – and the ways in which they are approaching that goal are many and various. For Smyths, it’s about extending its footprint in Europe through the acquisition of French toy chain PicWic Toys, creating Europe’s largest specialist toy operation. For B&M, it’s all about starting an online journey, with the trial launch of an online home delivery service featuring 1,000 products which includes toys. For BargainMax, it’s a brand-new state-of-the-art UK warehouse facility which will help the e-tailer support its continued growth.

For specialist retailers, the key is always to keep a finger on the pulse of the latest trends, keep product ranges fresh, be open to new opportunities and keep talking to friends and colleagues in the toy community so everyone can benefit from the wisdom of the crowd.

Toymaster exemplified this strategy when Paul Reader and Dave Middleton made the trip to the Learning Express show in Florida – you can read all about their stateside experience in an exclusive article which starts on page 40. I love the fact that with Toymaster in the UK and Learning Express in the US, we have two fantastic specialist independent organisations collaborating and exchanging ideas – in many respects the challenges faced by the specialist toy retailers are often the same across the globe, so cooperation can only be a good thing.

Never has it been more important to find a niche that other retailers may not be fully exploiting. Just as some retailers may have thought Stranger Things wasn’t quite right for them, other indies talk of selling over 1000 units over the course of a weekend. This will always be the advantage that specialist toy retailers have over the bigger corporate retail operations– be nimble, quick and responsive and you always have a good chance of keeping one step ahead of the competition.

And hopefully the wealth of new product featured in this month’s edition will give you plenty of inspiration to freshen up your product offering ahead of the festive season. Our next issue will arrive at the start of September, as things really start to heat up – and it will be our 11th birthday issue too. It’s going to be a fantastic edition and we can’t wait to bring it to you.