From the publisher

We have been putting the finishing touches to yet another bumper issue of Toy World while recovering from two frantic, but hugely productive, days at the Toymaster May Show in Harrogate. This year’s show was undoubtedly back to its best. Visitors – tick. Orders – tick. Passion, enthusiasm and (cautious) optimism for the second half – tick. By and large, Toymaster members - and the specialist toy retail channel as a whole - are in a really good place right now, and the suppliers who have worked out how to align with the indies are benefiting from that. A lot of companies worked hard to make the May Show a success – and they reaped the rewards.

As ever, it was great to spend time during the days and evening with so many of our friends, advertisers and readers, and we also met up with our American contributor Rick Derr for the first time in person. It was lovely to hear not only how much he enjoyed the trip and how welcome he felt, but that he had also found it incredibly useful from a business point of view, finding ideas and new products that – in his own words – “more than paid for the trip.” You can read his thoughts on the show on page 42: he makes some very interesting observations, comparing and contrasting the similarities and the key differences between the way the UK and US supplier community interact with the indie channel. A couple of the points he made certainly came as a surprise to me, and when you read them, I suspect UK indies might appreciate that on the whole, our suppliers treat the specialist channel far better than many of their US counterparts.

One of the reasons I love the indies is their reactiveness and flexibility, their ability to move swiftly to capitalize on emerging trends and their ‘finger on the pulse’ approach. They are at the sharp end, they talk directly to consumers every day, and they can change over ranges anytime they want – they aren’t governed by rigid buying seasons or limited to bi-annual ranging decisions. They may not all have scale or clout on their side, but they care passionately about what they do – it’s more than ‘a job’ to many of them – and they care about the toy market…because that’s the only market they operate in.

The good news is that toy suppliers are increasingly appreciating the invaluable contribution that the indies make to the toy community, and I sense that they appreciate the importance of supporting specialist retailers with point of sale, exclusive lines, marketing support, competitive pricing and other ways of attempting to level the playing field. Of course, there is still a long way to go – indie retailers are all individuals with their own buying preferences who can be like herding cats on occasion, and not all suppliers find that easy to work with – but I think we saw in Harrogate just how far the indie retail channel has come in recent years.

Well done to the Toymaster team for organizing such a well-run and valuable event, which sets the toy community up nicely for summer and the all-important second half of the year. Of course, challenges remain: we could all sit and moan about the economy, the weather and how much clearance stock is floating around the market this year, but there’s nothing much we can do about any of these things. What we can do is to look at the strengths within our own businesses and talk to our partners about how we can do more together. Simplistic, maybe, but business doesn’t always need to be over-complicated.

The toy market thankfully has many great carry-forward ranges that are continuing to perform strongly, and there is no shortage of great new lines coming through. And despite the tricky economic climate, ‘new’ is selling. So, we will carry on bringing you details of all the most exciting new lines hitting the market in the coming months as we head towards the all-important festive season.

This month the spotlight falls on the Art & Craft and Infant Toy categories (an area I am about to get reacquainted with on a personal level after the birth of our first grandchild last month). Then, if you flip this issue over, you will find a massive section devoted to the world of Kids’ Licensing. It encompasses 100 pages of lovinglycurated content which covers everything you need to know about what is happening in the licensing world – including a preview of the forthcoming Licensing Expo in Las Vegas, news from some of the licensing arena’s hottest properties, plus an exhaustive trawl through the latest character merchandise ranges being launched by licensees over the coming months.

We’ll be back next month as we enter the all-important second half of the year: Autumn Winter…bring it on, we’re ready and raring to go.