An American in Harrogate

After 20 years working at A.C. Nielsen/D&B Research Company, Rick opened the first Learning Express Toys franchise in the Chicago area in 1996, and then became a sub-franchiser, opening nine more stores. Although leaving the corporate environment behind, he has combined his expertise in data and numbers with a passion for the toy retail space. This month Rick updates Toy World readers on his trip to the Toymaster May Show in Harrogate.

In the middle of May, I travelled over to the UK for the annual Toymaster show for the first time, where I met with my friend and fellow retailer Dave Middleton and spent three days immersing myself in the indie trade show experience.

I knew the show would be fun and located in a beautiful part of the country, but I’m taking away far more information than I expected, which will be a huge benefit to me and my business. Everyone has been so willing to speak to me and learn about the US marketplace. As I’ve discussed before, there are some differences between the American and UK & Ireland markets, but far more in the way of similarities.

US indie trade shows would tend to be a little larger than the Toymaster show –the ASTRA show has about 400 vendors, for example – but a lot of those companies will be very small start-ups and new companies whereas here, you’ve got all the major players. Indies seem to have much more direct access to all the bigger toy companies in the UK: Hasbro, Mattel, Lego, Bandai, Asmodee etc. In the US we’re not generally able to deal directly with these guys – we have to go through distributors. I’m also struck by the importance of the big brands over here, where the market skews heavily towards the largest players. We obviously do have the big brands In America, but shelf-space is much more equally proportioned across suppliers.

The standout product of the show for me was Bitzee from Spin Master, which I ordered on the spot with my US rep (and I made a TikTok on it there and then too). I’ve previously hesitated to get on board with the comeback of virtual pets and I tend to steer clear of digital toys, but Bitzee is the perfect blend of physical and digital and invites kids to play in a sensory fashion, which really caught my eye. The travel-friendly case snaps shut in a fun, tactile way. I think kids will love it and the amount of enjoyment you get for £32.99 RRP is brilliant. Just hours and hours of fun discovering all the different pets and rarities. Bitzee has made me change my stance a little on those types of toys.

my goal is for Learning Express and the ASTRA US community to raise the level of service we offer to new heights, supporting the changing needs of kids and parents in the face of new and emerging challenges with the MESH (Mental, Emotional, Social Health) framework. Working with Toymaster on this will be critical to our success.

In the next 10 years, I truly believe that becoming a Certified Play Expert toy store will be the firewall between us and the likes of Amazon and big-box stores such as Walmart and Target. No one can show their passion, knowledge and experience like an indie can, and the show has reinforced my belief in and enthusiasm for this.

I’ll talk more about my plans for Certified Play Expert stores in a future column, but for now I’d like to say a big thank you to Paul, Yogi, Brian and John (and everyone else at Toymaster) for having me - and to Dave for showing me all the sights and sounds of Derby.