Talking Shop
Fab-yule-ous! Toy World’s Sam Giltrow spoke to a selection of indies as they gear up for the all-important festive trading season, although this year many are finding that the Christmas rush is already well underway.
Linda Robinson Grovers Toymaster, Northallerton
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e are getting very busy in the run up to Christmas and people do seem to be acting on the ‘buy early’ message. However, we have inevitably been experiencing some stock shortages.
Schleich is a very popular range for us, across everything from dinosaurs to wildlife and farm animals. We like to keep our display topped up, which has proved something of a challenge recently. As the range is one of our best sellers, we are placing big orders and just hoping that as much as possible comes through. In fact, keeping many of our traditionally bestselling ranges in stock across the store is an issue this year. I’m assuming that with all the shipping problems, stock is just stuck in containers, and will arrive eventually. All we can do is keep putting in orders and see what turns up. However, I have just received a large order from Ravensburger, and we’ve had stock from Zapf Creation and Orchard Toys this week, so thankfully there are suppliers who are able to keep pace with what we want. In terms of what is currently selling well, dolls seem very popular, particularly the bigger dolls such as Baby Annabell. Barbie is also still a massive draw, and we recently took stock of the Barbie Fashionista Doll with Wheelchair and Ramp, which has sold out already. In terms of licensed product, Peppa Pig continues to sell well along with Paw Patrol ranges, which we get from VTech and Spin Master. Our Lego and Playmobil lines just sell themselves. The Lego City range is the most popular, along with Technic and Friends. We tend to stick to the more reasonably priced sets but bring in some bigger ones nearer Christmas. We are in a rural area, so we sell a lot of farmingrelated toys such as tractors. The Britains range is particularly popular.
booklet for the town, and quite a few people take us up on it.
It’s difficult to predict what are going to be best sellers this Christmas – it might be a case of whatever we can get. We run a Christmas Club in store, but numbers for this have gone down over the years. I guess it’s because of the way people spend now, using credit cards and the like.
In terms of what is coming up in Q1, it’s the new Schleich launches that we look forward to. However, right now, it is difficult to look too far ahead, because everything we receive is just going straight onto the shelves - our stock room is empty. We need to get Christmas out of the way before we can start thinking about next spring and summer.
We offer a voucher promotion to try and encourage people back into the shop in the New Year; based on their spend before Christmas, they get a voucher towards purchases made in January. This is in a local
We are expecting that games will sell well again this year as families get together. We carry a wide range which doesn’t usually pick up until December when people are looking for things to do over Christmas, but
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customers are stocking up on them already. However, this is an area where stock levels are good, so we are not worried about supply. The classic games are the ones which seem to be selling best, such as Monopoly and Scrabble. Even though many people already have them, they get refreshed and many people are looking to replace old sets they have had for many years. I think people are worried that they won’t get what they want this Christmas, and the television and media reports are not helping. I’m sure nobody will go without and there will be something, even if it’s not exactly what they are looking for. We are happy to suggest alternatives to customers from the stock we have in.
