Feature
Q1 Ranges
A fresh start With all the problems that 2021 brought for suppliers and retailers such as lockdowns, increased container rates and shortages in both stock and drivers, there is huge anticipation that the new year will herald a fresh start and more stability. Sam Giltrow finds out more.
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he toy community spends much of its time, energy, focus and budgets to ensure that Christmas purchases are maximised. This is not surprising, given the percentage of annual sales that come in the final couple of months of the year. However, far from resting on its laurels after the festive season finishes, the toy market is a veritable hive of activity in the early weeks of the New Year. Toy Fair Season inevitably grabs the headlines, as suppliers exhibit their new lines in a variety of locations, aiming to encourage retail buyers to select their ranges for next year’s all-important autumn winter period. However, Q1 also sees a host of new ranges and line extensions launched into the retail market, starting on Boxing Day and carrying on all the way through February Half Term and on to Easter, which falls over the weekend of 15th-18th April next year. This makes Q1 an important retail period on a number of levels: it allows suppliers to seed new ranges, traditionally starting with lower priced items to familiarise consumers with concepts, before an extended range featuring higher priced items comes to market in the second half of the year. It also helps retailers to maintain post-Christmas momentum, while crucially giving consumers fresh items on which to spend Christmas money and vouchers. So, while it is important to get Q4 right, it is also crucial to get the year off to a good start with strong footfall and sales in Q1.
2022 will see the toy community attempting to start the New Year with a bang, while simultaneously getting to grips with the fallout from this year’s ongoing supply chain issues. The challenges with logistics have blighted every retail sector – not just toys. However, it is the very fact that the problems are being felt across the whole supply chain that makes it difficult to predict what lies ahead next year in this thorny area. This is a challenge for every consumer market which imports product into the UK. In the run-up to Christmas, toy suppliers were fighting with companies with far deeper pockets – such as Apple – for container space, places on ships and for raw materials such as computer chips. Thankfully, much of the new product launched in the early part of the year involves lower cost, lower tech items. It is a time of the year when pocket money lines, collectibles and other affordable items come into their own. Schleich UK believes that the whole toy industry could receive a welcome lift in Q1, as Paul Dearlove, trade marketing manager, explains. “After the many challenges of 2021, we’re hoping for a bit more stability in the market. With widespread product shortages across many categories this Christmas, there is likely to be a level of unfulfilled demand. Hopefully, we will see consumers looking to satisfy that, giving the whole toy industry a lift at the start of the year.” You only have to look at all the new Q1 ranges in this issue to see that, compared to the start of
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2021, many suppliers plan to begin the new year by launching fresh lines into the market. The collectibles category in particular looks set for a bumper start, as it continues its recent postlockdown resurgence. Paul tells us that, as always, January is an exciting month for Schleich, as it is the time of year when most of its new figurines are released. “Suppliers and retailers are always keen to get off to a strong start at the beginning of any new year, and much of that is driven by new product releases and items that weren’t available at Christmas,” he says. “Schleich collectors eagerly await the new releases at the turn of the year, and with almost 50 new figurines releasing in January alone, across all Schleich collections, we hope to get off to a great start with all our retail partners.” Sue Barratt, UK country manager at IMC Toys, agrees that although Q4 remains the most important period for toy sales, it is essential that fresh and innovative product hits shelves post-Christmas in order to drive interest and footfall. “Creating innovative products is crucial to the steady growth of the business and the continued success of our brands,” she says. “This is especially notable in the collectibles category, which is enjoying something of a comeback following lockdown. We are reinforcing this upward trend by introducing fresh product, line extensions and new characters.” For Q1 and across the rest of the year, IMC Toys is looking to its first boys’ collectibles range, Lucky
