Company Profile - Commotion Distribution

Commotion has a notion

Commotion, wholesale distributor of educational resources, hopes to expand further into retail across Europe following a positive start to the year for the company.

Based in Tonbridge, Kent, Commotion works with businesses all over the world, including toy shops, online stores and suppliers of educational resources, to support parents and teachers of young kids. Formerly focusing on its business as an educational supplier, the company is now seeing increased demand for its lines at retail.

Commotion’s innovative products are designed to inspire learning. The company believes its products really make a difference, helping turn today’s children into tomorrow’s innovators.

The company’s marketing manager, Honor Davidson, said: “We’re seeing a growth in parents looking for toys that are fun and also stylish and attractive. Parents love anything that’s exciting and engaging, but that also has educational purpose. Toys that are made to last also have added appeal - then they can be handed down.”

TickiT educational toys are designed and developed by a dedicated in-house team which works with specialist advisors within early years, primary years and special educational needs. Its focus is on producing a wide range of high quality, engaging and open-ended learning resources for inspiring children’s natural curiosity, broadening their knowledge and aiding their development as they learn through play.

The range offers sensory products to soothe and aid relaxation, creative play resources that are unlimited in their learning potential, a selection of toys suitable from birth, products for understanding the world, communication and language resources, as well as hands-on tools for developing numeracy or motor skills.

Commotion had a positive start to the year, kicking off with London Toy Fair and Nuremburg. Since then, the company has had more presence than previous years in UK trade shows and educational fairs. “We hadn’t traditionally attended a lot of those,” explained Honor. “But we’ve started spreading our wings. It has been really useful to find out where we sit in the marketplace, where we can go and how we can push more into retail. It’s been both useful and exciting.”

To support customers, Commotion has a dedicated sales team to provide them with resources. Honor added: “We have expert photography, and we provide videos and lots of very detailed descriptions of our products that retailers can use when they’re promoting our products to their customers.”

The team is always on the hunt for new distributors and retailers to work with, and this year has had a particular focus on growing Commotion’s European customer base and seeing where it can improve to be attractive to even more retailers. There are currently strong and positive relationships with all its customers, and the team values their feedback. Honor explained that customers approach the sales team regularly suggesting more products for specific areas, then the sales team works with product development to fill in those gaps.

She said: “We design and create a lot of our products in house and that’s often based on the feedback we get. I think we’re very good at maintaining a personal level of communication with those we work with; we treat our customers as extended family. We’re a small company working with lots of people around the world and our sales team is doing a sterling job to maintain great relationships with them all. I’m proud that we have a very personal approach to how we look after them.”

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the sales team set up Zoom meetings with customers to provide presentations straight from the live show room, with the whole range behind the presenters. They have continued to do this, which means that customers can find out about products before they go live on the Commotion website.

Honor said: “This method has worked well and enables us to showcase all our new and upcoming products. We can explain which products go well together and show retailers how they work together. This is all part of how we look after our customers, and keeping these lines of communication open helps in between the fairs and visits. It’s an immersive experience, and reactive because we can give immediate answers. We find it useful for connecting with new customers who might not know our range very well or perhaps even trying to get prospective customers onboard.”

The company mission now is ensuring it has the right products to fit into the retail market. Having already developed and brought out several TickiT products in Q1 including Sensory Reflective Colour Mystery Balls, last month there was a further release including the Woodland Set, Wooden Building Gem Blocks, Gem Cube Mirror Tray and Wooden Treasures sorting set.

Retailers interested in finding out more about working with Commotion should contact info@commotion.co.uk or visit www.commotion.co.uk