Talking Shop
Just popping to
the toyshop Toyshops in Scotland and Ireland have now joined those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland in reopening. Retailers delighted to see customers back interacting with toys, making choices and asking for advice spoke to Sam Giltrow about their latest experiences.
Ian Melville - Bright Star Toys, Linlithgow
I
t’s great to be back open again and it has been very busy, which is really encouraging. It’s also nice to see some familiar faces back in the shop again, and especially good to see children returning. There has been a lot of saving of pocket money, birthday and Christmas money and vouchers, and everybody seems very confident coming back in. The biggest issue, from my point of view, is having to limit the amount of people coming in at one time, as we are a small shop, and it does mean we have had queues outside. On weekdays it doesn’t make much difference, but it’s much busier on Saturdays, and on Friday afternoons as the schools here close at lunchtime on Fridays. The uptick in business has also been driven by current crazes. We are finding great demand for anything related to fidget toys - Pushpoppers and anything squishy are selling really well. We quickly realised just how popular the craze was and have been trying constantly to get the right kind of stock in, but this has been a bit of a challenge, as there’s not a lot of stock out there. I got a delivery of Pushpoppers from HGL over lockdown and they were ticking over nicely, but as soon as we opened, they all sold very quickly and have been out of stock since. However, I’ve been able to get similar ones after scouting round various suppliers. The fidget craze is being driven by social media, and TikTok in particular; I think it’s just a nice outlet for kids to forget about things and focus on something tactile and silly – a welcome distraction. The kids are watching videos and making their own videos and talking about it with their friends. We’ve always had crazes, but I’ve a funny feeling this fidget craze will last longer because it’s not being driven solely by the playground; it’s being driven by social media. Pokémon has always been a huge seller and the
brand has just exploded again. Luckily, I‘ve been able to build up my range and I’m happy to say I’ve got quite a healthy stock of Pokémon at the moment. We’re about to install a Pokémon window display, to make a real feature of it. I think the current popularity has been driven by kids watching packs of cards being opened on social media, as well as a lot of older collectors returning to the brand. We are still selling lots of jigsaw puzzles and Orchard Toys. Games in general has been a little bit quieter, but that is to be expected at this time of year, especially now people have other things to do and places to go. Because this year will all be about staycations, we have expanded our outdoor toy range quite significantly and have lots of water guns, blasters, kites and Swingball sets. We stock a selection of items from TKC, which supplies us with the Waboba range – the Moon Balls have always sold really well but recently we’ve also seen strong sales from the Waboba Heads range, especially the Flying Silicone Discs and Gliding Heads. In terms of Arts & Crafts, I recently placed a large top-up order for Hama Beads from DKL, as the range has seen quite a resurgence, as well as Galt kits around the £6 price point. Another range which has been selling really well is the Eugy range from Brainstorm – it has been fantastic. I have been trying to expand our offering in the Kidult category and managed to get some of the Masters of the Universe figures from Mattel, which have been very popular. I’ve also made a conscious decision to stock more retro lines, such as Star Wars and the Playmobil Back to the Future range. We love retro toys as they engage the parents. I think everybody is crying out for a bit of nostalgia and these sorts of retro lines mean the Kidult category will continue to grow even bigger.
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One good thing to come out of the pandemic has been our website, which we created in the first lockdown last year. Although we weren’t able to offer click and collect here until very late on, we were able to offer local deliveries, and the support we received was amazing. We are keeping the website going and are still getting orders, though people now seem to prefer to come in. However, it’s encouraging to see that many people are almost using the website as a catalogue, before coming in to buy.
Toy World is always keen to hear from independent retailers, large and small. If you are interested in taking part in a future Talking Shop feature, contact:
sam@toyworldmag.co.uk or call 01442 502 406. Toy World 31
