Talking Shop
A winter’s sale This month, our indies report that customers started their Christmas shopping early, to spread the cost. Equally cautious, retailers are keeping a very close eye on stock levels. As they move into the peak festive selling season, Suzie Sparkes and Sam Giltrow find out more. Nicky Tossell -
Youings, Barnstable
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ouings is lucky to have a great location at the bottom of Barnstable high street, and we also bend around the high street corner. Within our premises there is a sweet shop, tobacconist, a model shop and the toy department - so we attract a lot of footfall. We had a really good, busy summer with great sales in our toy department. The Lego and Pokémon ranges were particularly popular, as ever. Lego has always been our number one top seller and we continue to enjoy fantastic sales. We have dramatically increased our range of Lego; we now have a whole wall of it in the store and are now one of the biggest stockists in the area. We are incredibly proud of it - there is nowhere locally which can match our range which makes us a destination for avid fans of the brand. We carry stock of all Lego ranges including the big kits and the 18+ ranges. We have recently received stock of the new Ferrari, which retails at about £350, but I’m confident it will sell, as we are attracting customers from all over. We have a Facebook page, which we manage between us, but a lot of our customer base is prompted to visit us via word of mouth, which my staff are very good at, and which is definitely working. For Christmas this year, I have kept my stock quite tightly under control, as we can’t be certain what is going to happen. We have a wide choice of product and the ranges that we want to stock, but I am not holding as much in my stockroom as usual; making sure orders that come in are out on the shop floor and selling through as quickly as possible. I’m therefore placing smaller orders more frequently. Our suppliers have been incredibly helpful by offering us carriage paid and allowing us to do smaller orders, which really is beneficial.
Lego will be our best seller for Christmas, it’s popularity still seems to be on the rise, probably due to the wide demographic of fans. It is something you can do on your own, but we are also seeing that families like to build together, especially at Christmas time. It appeals to all ages from kids to the elderly.
Toy World 29
The Pokémon range will also sell well this Christmas. That’s another favourite with customers that we know we can rely on, pretty much whatever the product. I try to stock a wide range of all products but focus as much as possible on items that the supermarkets don’t carry so I don’t need to compete
