viewpoint David
to £500m which, by comparison to the same week in 2011, was a much-needed 8% increase. With all eyes on London, a number of high-
Ripley Former Tesco and Woolworth executive
A summer like no other
“Wow, what a Summer for Great Britain.” Sir Martin Sorrell very succinctly summarised the positive global coverage of the Olympic opening ceremony and the halo effect from the Jubilee as ‘Brand Britain’. I sincerely hope that the Summer will turn out to be a profitable one for many of the country’s toy retailers; especially those who supported the Games and Jubilee celebrations in one form or another. In the first week of the Olympics alone, it was estimated by VISA that tourists spent close
profile retailers took the opportunity to refresh their offer and no sooner had the paint dried on the Hamleys store refit, than Harrods had announced the completion of their own Toy Kingdom refurb. Anyone familiar with the Knightsbridge store’s old ‘dungeon-esque’ Harrods Toy Kingdom will appreciate the new, lighter and more spacious feel to the toy department; which has to be considered as the ‘best in class’ by UK department store standards. The main season Argos catalogue launched with a furious flurry of retail price matching, and some key toy stockists declared their top 10, 12 or 20 toy lists for Christmas. With the exception of a couple of smaller retailers, the lists were a copy, paste and re-sort exercise; invariably as similar, predictable and political as they are every year. The lists do provide a good indication of just how retailers are once again planning to minimise their commercial risks for the key season.
The suppliers with the most appearance on the variety of lists appear to be Hasbro, closely followed by Mattel, showing further insight
to the ‘safe’ core-brand nature of the current economic environment. Several large retailers are yet to declare their top lists; I wonder how many will be influenced by those already in the common domain? As the structural shift to multi-channel shopping habits becomes more sophisticated, so has the data and reporting available to retailers to monitor customers’ online habits. A recent report from Experian shows that online customers will only undergo up to four minutes of identity checks before abandoning their basket. Last year alone this equated to £1bn of online purchases, with over 20% (£214m) of those transactions, not being taken elsewhere online. Interestingly, in the same article, it was stated that total fraud losses on UK cards fell to £340m last year, representing an overall 7% decrease year on year. Where Experian do not elaborate is on how much of the £214m of ‘lost’ purchases could have been failed fraudulent attempts in the first place. David Ripley is currently a category manager at the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games, and will be seeking new toy-related challenges in December.
Richard
Gottlieb Global Toy Experts
It’s the GAME business; not the game business
business for what it is, a GAME business that is made up of social network games (think FarmVille), video games (think Nintendo), mobile games (think Call of Duty Black Ops) and table-top/board games (anything from Monopoly to Settlers of Cataan). Well, for one thing we all might get a better sense of our business and where we fit. In short, board games used to be the game business; now it’s just one part. And in the GAME business the reality is that, at least in the US, sales with the exception of mobile platforms are down. Take a look:
I was watching a seven- and five-year-old have fun the other day. They would play with their parent’s iPad, move onto a board game and then run outside to play with a ball. As I watched them move seamlessly between game platforms it struck me that they never paused to think: “I am going to move from playing a virtual game, to a board game, to a backyard game.”
All of it is ‘play’ to them. If you agree with that notion, don’t you think we need to ask ourselves this question: “If our end users don’t differentiate between play platforms, why do we?”
What would happen if we saw the game 50 Toyworld
Video Games According to NPD USA, June retail sales for game hardware, software and accessories were down by 29%. That is the seventh consecutive month of decline. Xbox sales were off by approximately a third, while sales of Wii were down 50%.
Social Network Games Facebook was the platform for the controversial and phenomenally successful Scrabulous. It borrowed a bit too much from Scrabble so Hasbro finally had them shut down. That success was replaced by even more successful Zynga with its CityVille and FarmVille. Well, that was then and this is now. Zynga’s
business model is to offer the basic games for free and then charge enthusiasts when they purchase extras. That worked well… for a while. Now, according to Zynga, in its Q2 report the company lost money and revenues were down. The speculation is that there are either fewer enthusiasts, or those that are unwilling to spend as much. Whether that applies to any game played on Facebook or just Zynga is currently an open question.
Board Games Hasbro, with its Parker and Milton-Bradley, is the 800lb gorilla of the board game business. Despite that, the company’s game business has been in a pretty steady decline. Just last quarter, Hasbro reported that its game sales were off by 8%. To correct things, the company has allied itself with Zynga to create three-dimensional versions of Words with Friends, CityVille and FarmVille; not a bad idea. I like that notion and applaud the alliance with Zynga, but take a look at the other new games that are being introduced; Twister Dance, Monopoly Millionaires, Lazer Tag and Where’s My Water?. With the exception of the last, all of these are updated versions of existing products; the
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