From the publisher

Welcome to the January issue of Toy World – the single largest edition we have ever published. I say this every time we hit another milestone, but it bears repeating; we couldn’t have achieved this without the fantastic support of the toy and licensing community. A heartfelt thanks to each and every advertiser who chose to be part of this seminal issue.

Your support is always appreciated, but right now more than ever, because – let’s not beat around the bush here – 2022 was not the easiest of years. Twelve months ago, we were all hoping for a return to normality – or at least a semblance of it. What we got was a whole new set of challenges we had never encountered in business before; a war in Ukraine, leading to a global energy crisis, exacerbating a steep rise in inflation to levels not seen for almost 50 years, which contributed towards to a temporary collapse in sterling.

The fact that the toy market emerged relatively unscathed from such turbulent economic conditions reinforces the long-held adage that while we may not be entirely immune to external economic pressures, we can certainly lay claim to being incredibly resistant to them. The toy community is nothing if not resilient and, once again, it stepped up when the going got (very) tough.

When I wrote this column, there were still five full days of festive trading to come before the big day – and as anyone who has spent any length of time in the toy industry knows, those five days could have made a serious difference to the final numbers. We’ll find out where everything finished up when NPD unveils the final figures for 2022 at Toy Fair, but my educated guess would be that we possibly finished the year a few per cent down versus 2021.

If that does indeed prove to be the case, I think we can consider it a bullet well and truly dodged. It didn’t look that way during September and October, when the festive season got off to an extremely sluggish start. Thankfully, trading picked up at the start of November, and despite some major challenges in December as a result of the Royal Mail strike, the last two months saw a return to the kind of pre-Christmas run-in we used to enjoy pre-pandemic. High Streets and Retail Parks saw footfall increase, and despite dire warnings about consumer confidence and shoppers being forced to cut back on their spending, many retailers found themselves pleasantly surprised by both the number of customers visiting their stores and their basket spend.

This late surge may not have been enough to completely negate the deficit accrued across the year, but I suspect that if suppliers and retailers had been offered a modest drop a few months ago when things looked a little bleak, they would gladly have taken that.

Anyway, I am debating hypothetically: I don’t have a magic crystal ball or time machine. 2022 was what it was, whatever it was. It’s time to turn the page and write the story of 2023. New Year, new possibilities, new hope. Probably new challenges as well if the past few years are anything to go by. But we’ve faced some pretty tricky conditions over the past few years and, by and large, have overcome adversity with considerable aplomb.

Personally, I love this time of year. Over the next few weeks, we get to spend time with our entire customer and readership base, visiting the London and Nuremberg Toy Fairs. We will see a treasure trove of new products, talk at length about the past year and the year to come, and generally try to get our heads around what lies ahead for the toy market this year.

I hope that this mammoth issue can play its part in that process. In your hands, you hold the result of two months of incredibly hard graft by the entire Toy World team. Within its 394 pages, you will find an exhaustive round-up of the companies which will be exhibiting in both London and Nuremberg, and a look at the cream of the new lines they’ll be unveiling at the shows. You’ll get a strong sense of which companies are poised to have a great year, and of the products your customers will be eagerly seeking out in the coming months.

With a couple of weeks to go before the shows open, this issue will give you the perfect opportunity to do some valuable preparation for your trip. So, grab a pack of biscuits and an enormous Sports Direct-sized mug of your favourite brew and dive in.

In addition to the extensive London and Nuremberg previews sections, there is plenty of other content to get your teeth into this month. Our special Hot Properties licensing feature rounds-up a selection of the key licences that will be on the radar of suppliers and retailers this year, while there is also opinion and analysis from every corner of the industry – retailers, suppliers, licensors, advertising agencies, industry observers and, of course, the Toy World team itself. We love to report what industry experts have to say, but we like to express our own thoughts and opinions too. It’s what a good 21st century trade magazine does.

I hope you enjoy this issue – it’s taken blood, sweat and a few tears to pull it all together. Then we look forward to seeing you all along the trail – in London or Nuremberg in the next few weeks, or at one of the shows later in the year. 2023 – show us what you’ve got!