INDEPENDENT SURVEY
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
Do you pay attention to retailers’ top toy lists?
With the bulk of major retailers’ Christmas toy lists now announced, there’s certainly a plethora of information out there to help parents in the run up to the festive season. But are the lists of any real use to independents? Or does the sheer amount of them just confuse things? Toy Shop UK finds out
WE’RE YET to see the ‘Holidays are coming’ TV ad, but there’s no doubt that the Christmas selling season has arrived. Key retailers such as The Entertainer, Hamleys, Harrods and John Lewis have all revealed their top Christmas toy picks, but do these have any impact on the independent trade and how they make their stock choices? Well, not really, it seems,
according to the indies surveyed by Toy Shop UK this month. Just seven per cent said they paid a lot of attention to the lists.
22 November
Martyn Sutton from
I look at them out of interest, but there are too many top toys for Christmas for them to have any real validity. Vicky Brown, Just Williams Toys
Debra Scanlon from
Lootybag comments: “The lists are a very important indicator of what the most sought after toys are and probably end up as the best sellers.” Just For You Toys’ James
Marshman agrees: “They are always a good start when buying for Christmas
stock as these are the items that will be promotedwell in the larger stores and on TV.” However, 43 per cent of
respondents said they didn’t pay any attention to the lists, with the majority saying it was because they just didn’t usually stock the kind of products which were always chosen.
Totsongs Etcetera says: “We specialise in solid traditional toys that are well made, built to last and can be passed down to siblings or future generations. Sometimes one of these will feature on a top toy list somewhere, but in most cases when this happens we are already stocking it.” Tracie Peacock-Quinney
from Ella’s Toy Shop says the lists are irrelevant for her store as they don’t stock any licensed toys. Instead she says: “We look at our sales through the
year and listen to the customers. We are finding more of our customers love the idea of wooden castles, rocket ships and rocking horses as they take them back to the times of their childhood.” Perhaps most
interesting, though, is the comment from Vicky Brown at Just Williams Toys: “I look at them out of interest, but now I think there are too many top toys for Christmas for them to have any real validity. If every store has their own how is that supposed to guide the customer?”
www.toynews-online.biz
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