OBSERVATIONS 0F A TOY INDUSTRY SURVIVOR Jon Salisbury
MAN FINALLY came to understand the origin of species about 150 years ago as the concept of evolution began to unravel. And it soon became clear that one of the many keys to the development of a breed was natural selection – and that’s what has been happening to retail recently. As retail bankruptcies
gathered apace in the last decade in tandem with worldwide recession, it became a widely acknowledged fact that retailers without multi- channel delivery would very quickly become yesterday’s
I know it is a bit of a Doomsday scenario but just think about it: few toy retailers have the confidence of The Entertainer or Toy Town to expand their High Street footprint, and bookies and charity shops seem to be the only shops actually expanding their High Street presence at the moment. Even the biggest retailer of them all – Tesco – has admitted that drastic steps need to be taken to arrest a decline in its sales. The vast amounts of cash being spent to promote certain services perfectly illustrates where
The store is no longer a purely transactional environment.
papers – and no one wants to read old news. Natural selection was underway. With more of our lives taking place online, the effects on retail have been significant. Businesses – and governments – are now listening to futurologists to provide them with clues about what might lie ahead in all walks of life. Futurologists are not like
phony psychics or horologists, but a well- respected profession of people who try and look further down the line to give companies an edge as to the type of trends that may shape all our lives. One thing they seem pretty sure of is that High Street retail as we used to know it will soon be history. End of.
people think the future lies. The likes of Kevin Bacon, Robert Downey Jnr, Yoda and the cast of Toy Story being used in mobile and broadband advertising illustrates where these companies foresee the future. It was a timely reminder about how technology has progressed so rapidly that Voyager 1, the spacecraft launched in 1976 that recently left our Solar System, was fitted with less computer power than today’s most basic mobile phone. It was reported in The
Grocerthat the new Tesco’s Extra format currently being trialed provides what online cannot and is evidence that “winning in the new
Jon Salisburyhas written about the toy business since 1985, editing magazines and running toy media events in New York and London. He can be contacted
atjonsalisbury@icloud.comor @JonSalisbury
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Is it really a case of if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em when it comes to retail moving more online, asks our columnist this month
world of shopping is not simply about switching all your focus to digital.” Those are reassuring
words for bricks and mortar retailers. “The store is no longer a purely transactional environment. The shopper can relax, have a coffee and put the humdrum of everyday life to the side for a moment,” said Saatchi and Saatchi X UK MD, Rachelle Headland. But it’s not that simple and other retailers are strengthening their online partnerships. Take Argos. About 50
merchants are to participate in a service which will enable eBay customers to collect goods from 150 Argos stores. If you can’t beat them, join them, they seem to be admitting.
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