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Focus is hoping its Angry Birds CDU will find a home on the counters of a number of toy shops
Counter Insurgent
What is harming the High Street more… tax dodging online retailers, or pop-up shops? Counter Insurgent breaks it down in this month’s column
NEWS
‘Video games? In my toy shop?’
Angry Birds Star Wars counter unit could be the perfect companion to toy lines
by Lewis Tyler
VIDEO GAME distributor Focus Multimedia has come up with a handy CDU which it thinks is a perfect fit for toy shops. Many consumers are well
aware of the Angry Birds apps, but the games are also available as a boxed product. With a suggested retail price of £10.20, Focus says these games make for a great impulse purchase, capitalising on the huge popularity of the games and
complementing the growing range of Angry Birds toy lines. “This gives retailers an instantly effective, out-of-the-box display to capitalise on the huge appeal and gifting opportunity surrounding Angry Birds Star Wars,” explained Alan Wild, brand manager at Focus.
www.toynews-online.biz
“The combination of impulse price
entertainment, attractive visuals and simple merchandising creates excellent opportunities to monetise the wider store traffic.”
In addition to its
convenient Angry Birds Star Warscounter-top unit, Focus has also produced a bigger Angry Birds display suitable for housing all of the franchise’s popular titles, from the original app, to Angry Birds Space, to the recent Bad Piggiesspin-off. Wild added: “We’ve had incredible success with the Angry Birds games, as well as the new Bad Piggieslaunch, all for PC. We’ve got all types of point of sale including FSDUs, CDUs and clip strips.” Focus Multimedia: 01889 570156
AS I WRITE this there are just six shopping weekends to go until Christmas. From what I can tell, consumers aren’t really spending yet, and if my intuition serves me correctly, I think they are looking and waiting for the price-cutting silly season to begin. The Christmas clubs have filled the warehouse but not the tills.
With some unnamed suppliers wanting to have all their deliveries out of the way by the end of November, I applaud those companies who are willing and proactive in delivering right up until the death. I’ve mentioned
before the fact that America doesn’t even start to think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving, and the challenge to all suppliers is to ship right up to Christmas Eve. Looks like our friends in the UK might have to do the same to clear the warehouses. It’s good to see a bit of
interest in the activities of those companies who find creative ways of avoiding paying tax. I applaud the MD of John Lewis for speaking out against online retailers who put the very existence of the High Street in danger by not playing on a level field. And I guess this brings me nicely on to something that I just hate: the ‘pop-up shop’. A growing number of retailers across all industries are opening up three-month shops for
Christmas. It made my blood boil when I heard a shopping centre owner say that they were actually inviting retailers in on a short let. Wouldn’t that make you
feel great if you were struggling to pay rents and rates on an annual basis? I think I would offer not to pay my rents and rates for those three months. If you feel companies are immoral for tax avoidance then you
the flops, but to be honest they weren’t difficult to predict. ‘App toys’ didn’t surprise me, or anyone prepared to listen to my rants. It was clear at Toy Fair that they were nonsense - a classic case of the toy industry missing the whole point of something.
And, of course, the other one was the Olympics.
After all the celebrations and jubilation
It made my blood boil when I heard a shopping centre owner say that
they were actively inviting retailers in on a short let.
should have equal feelings about those who stroll into a town – where retailers have fought throughout the quiet times of the year – to ‘pop-up’ and nick the cream. And, of course, when the pop-ups bugger off, where do any returns go? With the barefaced lies that come with the purchase? As for early indications on this year’s winners, Furby has started to get some interest. Games seem to be picking up a little, but those companies that don’t advertise in December could be missing out. As for 2012’s failures, I did quite well spotting
surrounding the event, those retailers who bought into the memorabilia were soon bought back to earth with a bump – ‘overpriced tat’ was the politest I heard. Is there a landfill big enough? Anyway, on a lighter note, I thought I’d finish off this month with a little Christmas Carol. Enjoy. So as you read this Christmas will be near; Hopefully we will be full of Christmas cheer; Getting ready for the
next Christmas as Toy Fair draws near; Where we can swap stories of Christmas’ past over a few beers.
December/January 39
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