Allegedly

Price-cutting has been a hot topic in recent weeks, with a variety of retailers adopting a fairly aggressive stance on pricing – and this was a long way before Black Friday. But even allowing for the traditional ‘cut and thrust’ of discounting, Sainsburys’ stood out with this year’s half-price sale deals, which saw hot lines reduced not once, but in some cases three or four times over the course of a week. Big brand names, exclusives, product from movies that haven’t even hit cinemas yet…nothing was off limits. First there was a sale, then a clearance, then a price drop on the clearance. The upshot was that some very high-profile items that started around £70RRP finished up on sale at £20 – a long way below the cost price, whichever way you look at it. Other retailers were less than impressed, and I doubt suppliers were exactly thrilled. Gone are the days when certain UK retailers would phone up suppliers to give them the hairdryer treatment (basically, an almighty rollicking, complete with ‘choice’ language) when something like this happened, but I bet there were a few uncomfortable calls the following week. Of course, there is nothing anyone can do to stop things like this from happening, especially with a time-limited promotion for which stock has been specifically purchased – but I suspect I know one retailer which won’t be in the running for Toy Retailer of the Year this time round…

Time to cancel the Dave Middleton Funbus and tear up the contract for Toy World airlines; the North American Toy Fair won’t be moving to New Orleans in 2025 after all. Just like Toy World airlines, it was never going to fly. To be fair, the cancellation of the proposed move was widely expected after the initial reaction to the news, but just perhaps not that rapidly. To say the toy community wasn’t convinced would be an understatement – although credit to the Toy Association for not prevaricating and moving swiftly to respond to public opinion. The New Orleans announcement had actually succeeded in doing what no other option had done to that point – it unified the entire US and international toy communities. Unfortunately, it unified them in opposition to the move, rather than in support of it. So, we are essentially back to square one, with a plan for the North American Toy Fair to move back to its original home in New York during (or close to) its original February timeslot. But are there still some final twists to come? While that is the stated intention, we were told previously that this wasn’t an option – indeed, I gather that the slot which was vacated by Toy Fair was immediately snapped up by another exhibition organiser. Some interesting negotiations presumably lie ahead – could it come down to who is prepared to pay the most? We await further news on the 2025 date, hoping that it will be far enough away from the Nuremberg Toy Fair to avoid any undue inconvenience…

In its email confirming the New Orleans cancellation, the Toy Association also said that it would be “actively exploring ways to support its members in LA”, starting next August / September. It will be fascinating to see how that support manifests itself; the LA trip has never been officially organized by anyone. In fact, the LA community almost prides itself on the fact that it is self-sufficient, and the gathering is in effect organized ‘by the toy community, for the toy community…’

As the big retail guns start blazing with festive TV ads and promotions, don’t forget the impact that the indies can have on spreading the word about new launches on social media. Golden Bear’s Barry Hughes sent me a recent TikTok post from Fagan Toys in Ireland, which showed their staff playing Smart Ball Soccer Bot on the shop floor. Within a matter of days, the post had already accrued a whopping 3.2m views, which just goes to show what can be achieved by any retailer these days, regardless of their size and marketing budget. Sure, we all love the high profile, high budget Christmas ads, but there is more than one way to skin the proverbial cat…

The annual DreamToys media event remains vitally important – in many respects, it fires the starting pistol on the race to the finishing line. Some have wondered whether the event should take place earlier, but in a year like this – when sales across September and October have been on the soft side – it seems perfectly timed, allowing the toy community to get the message out when it can have maximum impact on consumer behaviour. There will always be minor gripes about DreamToys (which toys make the list, the focus on the larger toy companies, the venue etc), but in the end, only two things really matter: does the event drive media coverage and is there a spike in toy sales as a result? This year’s coverage was certainly decent: over 250 print and online articles, including most of the key nationals, plus almost 100 radio mentions. TV coverage is a bit thinner on the ground than it used to be, but times have changed. Crucially, when you compare coverage levels to media interest in the individual retailer’s top toy lists which have been announced over the past couple of months, Dream Toys wins hands down – it delivers consumer eyeballs in a way that the individual lists don’t. Sure, there may have been a couple of key omissions from the list, but when you have to whittle hundreds of fantastic toys down to a final list of 20, there will always be some great lines which miss the cut by a whisker. However, while toy companies love to make the DreamToys list (and others are understandably disappointed when they don’t), the most important message is about getting consumers off the couch and into stores to buy toys – not just those on the list, but every other toy on shelf. If Dream Toys is a success, everyone wins.