Allegedly

Some disgraceful behaviour from a small section of the Great British public in recent weeks has not been a great advert for the country – and it’s particularly annoying for any toy retailers located in the towns and cities that have been affected. The British Retail Consortium advised retailers in risk areas to consider shutting their stores early, and it couldn’t have been much fun spending the evening wondering whether your shop was going to be trashed or looted by these mindless thugs. Although for any international readers, please don’t believe many of the things being written on social media about the so-called riots (especially by wannabe Bond villain in training Elon Musk) – the UK isn’t facing “civil war,” and there are no ‘legitimate concerns’ behind the atrocious behaviour of a tiny uneducated minority. A few lowlife racists were acting up, looting sausage rolls from Greggs and knock-off Crocs, and the good people of the UK rightly came together to tell them to pack it in. Nevertheless, it wasn’t great for retailers, as it certainly affected footfall and consumer mood in certain parts of the country, not to mention the genuine concerns for the safety of the people who work in retail stores. Retail is tough enough right now -we certainly don’t need any of that nonsense making life any harder for the High Street…

It was announced last month that Vivid Goliath will be taking over as the UK & Eire distributor for the PlayMonster portfolio from January next year. I have a sneaking suspicion that PlayMonster won’t be the only international toy company looking at how best to approach the UK market and deciding that having a dedicated operation based here doesn’t currently quite add up from a costing point of view. The UK may be the largest (or second largest) market in Europe by sales volume – but doing business with the UK has become logistically more complicated since Brexit. Throw in crazy container rates which nobody budgeted for at the start of the year, warehousing costs going through the roof in some areas, plus the competitive nature of retail pricing and terms negotiations in the UK market, and you have a perfect storm of factors which don’t make it easy for suppliers to turn a healthy profit right now (especially those with a sizeable headcount). That said, for the vast majority, the size of the prize still makes the UK a pivotal market that toy companies can’t afford to ignore – they just need to work out the best way to tackle it…

Over in the US, Mary Couzin’s People of Play (POP) operation has merged with the Toy Association. This brings all of POP’s assets and events, including the Chicago Toys & Games Fair and the Bloom Report, into the Toy Association’s portfolio, while Mary will become part of the Toy Association’s senior leadership team. This strikes me as a great tie-up which benefits both parties, and we wish them all well…

The summer can be a bit of a lull period for the toy market, the calm before the storm in many respects. On the plus side, that means we can all get little tasks done like booking our hotel rooms for next year’s London Toy Fair and sorting out our flights to Nuremberg. The good news is that the Ryan Air schedulers haven’t made the same basic errors as they did last year, so if you are quick, there are direct flights to Nuremberg going out over the weekend and on the Monday, and returning on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The price has gone up quite a bit from the halcyon pre-pandemic days, but it does save a lot of faffing around with trains if you fly directly to Nuremberg (if you are close enough to Stansted to make it work) …

I noticed a few posts on social media last month from prominent toy and licensing stalwarts bemoaning the fact that so many businesses go into ‘standby mode’ over the summer, with some suggesting that they were even thinking of closing up for the month of August, like many Italian and Southern European companies do. Personally, I think that would have been a mistake. Yes, it can get a little frustrating sometimes, sending multiple emails and leaving numerous voicemail messages, with not even a hint of a response, yet alone a firm decision. However, business is still ticking over, and surely there is no better time to steal a march on your competition than when they have the ‘out of office’ signs hung up. In truth, the summer has always been, at best, a steady – and sometimes downright quiet – period for the toy market. In the good old / bad old days (delete as to personal preference), some salespeople would simply disappear for 5-6 weeks during the summer – a nice long holiday interspersed with attending some of the half a dozen toy trade golf days, or hosting jollies at Henley, Wimbledon, the cricket etc. There is less corporate entertainment to fill the summer recess these days, but we are gradually seeing the return of launch events for new toy ranges ahead of autumn winter – and the summer can provide the ideal opportunity to start seeding new launches before the craziness of autumn winter takes hold…

The US Consumer Products Safety Commission has found that Amazon is to be held responsible as the distributor of products on its site, despite the eCommerce giant’s best efforts to pass the buck to third-party vendors. That means Amazon ultimately bears legal responsibility for defective or non-compliant products sold under the Fulfilled by Amazon programme. Hooray for common sense. Of course, this should have happened years ago, but better late than never. Now we watch to see what ramifications this has for the way Amazon does business across the globe - because it’s just been called out on its ‘nothing to do with me guv’nor’ stance, and it’s been found invalid…

A truly astonishing story about a court case involving the two sons of a former UK toy company owner, who are fighting over their inheritance, hit the tabloids last month. The details are like something from a soap opera: google “Late toy tycoon’s sons in High Court battle” (Kitfix Swallow is the company in question… yes really) and marvel that however complicated you thought your life is, there is always someone out there who can say “Ha, you think that’s wild, hold my beer.” I won’t pore over the more salacious elements of the saga here, but I was amazed to see the amount of money being contested (£14.5m) and the fact that one brother isn’t content with half that sum but is instead attempting to cut his sibling out of the will to take the whole amount (because £7.25m clearly isn’t enough…). I fully expect an Apple TV mini-series to pop up based on the case in years to come.