From the publisher

Welcome to the March issue of Toy World. Toy Fair Season is now officially over – or at least, the Q1 part of it is. What was once four shows in seven weeks has been condensed into an intense fortnight, where two shows run back-to-back. However, it does mean that prepping and following up are far easier than before, when we used to have double the number of shows spanning almost the whole of January and February.

Personally, I felt that Toy Fair Season 2023 was a huge success. Exhibitors and retailers turned out in force, most people saw who they wanted to see, and the majority came away with renewed enthusiasm and plenty to follow up on. I am not sure you can ask much more of the season than that.

From a UK perspective, the London Toy Fair was, quite simply, a triumph. The Toy World team spoke to a huge number of exhibitors and visitors across the show, and they all gave a unanimous seal of approval to the event. The vibe was overwhelmingly positive: the UK toy community is starting 2023 in a good place. It helped enormously that the show followed strong trading in the run-up to Christmas and also the weeks that followed –by all accounts, the early part of January 2023 has got off to a surprisingly respectable start. The majors were all present and correct, the specialists were out in very good numbers (so I was told by agents, and they’re best placed to comment), and retailers were looking for new lines to select, as stock levels had been significantly reduced across December and the first few weeks of the New Year. The perfect recipe for a successful show. Our editor Rachael has written a handy overview of what happened the show, which starts on page 38.

After the whirlwind of London Toy Fair, the following week saw the global toy community congregate en masse in Nuremberg for Spielwarenmesse. It was the first Nuremberg Toy Fair in three years, but it quickly felt like we had never been away. The buzz we’d felt at London Toy Fair in 2022 when the show returned after a Covid hiatus was very much replicated in Nuremberg. There were some subtle changes – for starters, around 700 fewer exhibitors made the trip this time round. However, all of the names you would have expected to be showing were present and correct. Despite an 8% drop in visitor numbers (presumably the absentees were largely from China and Russia), visitors still came from every corner of the globe. Perhaps the most noticeable increase in visitors came from North America, Canada and South America. Just as last year’s London Toy Fair saw more European visitors attend after Nuremberg was called off, so Nuremberg’s attendance appears to have been boosted by the decision to move the New York Toy Fair to September.

Despite a rollercoaster 2022, the mood of the toy community across Toy Fair Season as a whole was once again positive and upbeat, and the shows had a palpable energy that no amount of zoom meetings can ever replicate. Those people who suggested that the pandemic had changed the world forever and that we wouldn’t need trade shows any more must be feeling a bit sheepish right now.

Just as we were all settling down to wade through all the proposals and quotes from Toy Fair Season, and hoping for a more normal year ahead, Amazon decided to throw a curveball into the mix by announcing that it will be cutting out distributors and dealing directly with brand owners in the European market, effective almost immediately in some cases. The announcement came just as we went to press for this issue, so there was no time (and, more importantly, no space) to pull together a detailed report on what this might mean for the toy community.

Let’s not forget, Amazon has been operating on a similar basis in the USA since 2019, but the US market is markedly different to the European market when it comes to distribution set-ups. If I am not mistaken, the current European distribution model which so many toy companies operate could now potentially be thrown into chaos. In some cases, companies will have to re-shape their entire distribution model – in under two months. One toy retailer summed it up rather succinctly: “That’s a ******* game changer.” Quite.

It's a complex subject with many grey areas and subtle nuances, but I did manage to write a Blog which explored some of the potential implications of the move, which you can read on our website. More details will no doubt emerge over the coming weeks, so keep an eye on the website and the April edition of Toy World for further debate on this contentious subject.

In the meantime, enjoy this issue, which includes extensive product features covering Outdoor Toys, Action Vehicles (Diecast and Radio Control) and the Science & Nature category. There’s also an exclusive interview with BargainMax’s Alex Woolfstein, as he takes the reins as CEO, aiming for an ambitious growth target of 40% this year. There’s also an interview with the toy buying team at AIS ahead of this month’s INDX Toy & Gift Show, plus all the latest news, views and details of a host of new products hitting shelves in the coming weeks.

We’ll be back at the start of April with another bumper issue, including features on three core categories - PreSchool, Collectibles and Games & Puzzles.