Neil Waite
captain, Captain Neil’s Toy Chest We opened October 8th 2011. I’ve always had a passion for toys and being born and raised in Wellingborough I felt my town needed somewhere where kids of all ages can enjoy themselves. In these tough times for all
I’m quite happy how things are going; we’re building a very nice and loyal customer base. I’m learning more and more each day about the toy trade and I’m quietly confi dent about our future. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have done extremely well since their launch last December and I can see why because the new show is fantastic. Our traditional range is always popular: old favourites like Jack in the boxes, humming tops, wooden toys etc. Parents and grandparents can see their childhood memories in them and know their lasting qualities. Christmas was fantastic. Not just sales-wise but also the amount of people in and out of our Toy Chest. There was no particular line that outshone the others; it seemed all our lines put in a good effort over the festive period. Unfortunately I didn’t make it to Toy Fair this year, but from what I’ve read and seen it looked great. Turtles will continue to grow and possibly become as big as it once was. Movies will be the big infl uence and with such huge titles being released this year (Superman, Monsters University and the one I can’t personally wait for, Despicable Me 2), it’s exciting times.
I think the biggest threats to the independent toy retail sector this year will be online, supermarkets, discount stores, the economy – the same threats we have every year. We’ve all just got to ‘Keep on, keeping on’.
Gillian Cooper and Joe Gibbins
The independent voice...
viewpoint Indie
The fun of the fair, and the trouble with weather G
reetings to you all, and, sorry to say, we are back again after a month’s break. We don’t know where the fi rst few weeks of this year have gone; it actually feels like hardly any time has passed by since we wrote our last column. January has passed us by and after a good start to the month, with the
kids off school for a bit longer, the snow arrived and put its cold spanner in the works. With the fi ve-week month, it was a big wait to the pay weekend, but trade seems to have picked up now. Hopefully, by the time you read this, half-term will have been a busy one. But even as we write this it’s snowing out there again, so it’s back to the old rain dance for us.
The highlight of the month was, of course, Toy Fair, with us spending two days up at
manageress and assistant, Toys n Things Toys n Things has been in business for roughly 20 years. Generally business is quiet, as to be expected in the month of January/February - although to be fair, I’d say we’re holding our own in comparison to this time last year. So far this year we’ve seen steady sales of TV-advertised and promotional products including the new Lego Chima, Turtles and Power Rangers ranges. Also Moshi Monsters are still going strong for us. We attended the Toy Fair and found it useful to get insight into how certain toys are selling in different areas and how the general industry is doing as a whole. It was also a great opportunity to look at upcoming ranges and new stock. I think in the year coming we will continue to do well with the lower-priced collectable ranges that seem to have grabbed kids’ imaginations. There will always be threats to the independent retailer from the big chains of supermarkets which have the power to offer deals that are very hard to keep up with, but we’ve noticed a new threat in the shape of bargain stores such as Home Bargains and B&M Bargains. Although they may be slightly behind in terms of their stock, it seems people are overlooking that to get the drop-down prices they offer.
the show. This was the fi rst time we brought our managers up to the show with us; and they all thought it was a jolly, with tea and biscuits all day, and putting our feet up. So with that in mind, we made sure we had appointments booked every half-hour from 9am to 6pm. As ever, it was a very good show with lots of exciting new products for the year. This year’s VTech range, especially the lower-priced lines, look fantastic, and the additions to the Toot Toot range look very strong. We were very impressed with John Adams’ range for this year, with the cow milking game looking a lot of fun along the same lines of Doggie Doo. Lego has a great range for the year; the only thing missing was the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream stand from last year’s show. Also, there was no way you could miss the Playmobil stand with their enormous banner overlooking the main hall. (Well done, Mr Brennan, on your Golden Teddy Award). Finally, the Toy Barnhaus award for the ‘best tea of the show’ goes to Bandai, and ‘lunch of the day’ goes to Vivid where we had four ladies bring out platters of sandwiches for us. On the back of that, we have already booked our appointment at Vivid’s stand for next year’s show in a 1pm timeslot. For us, a very important part of Toy Fair was the Toy Industry Awards, which was held for the fi rst time at Olympia. With lots of drinks, and plenty of bowl food to go around, it was a good night, but Mark always seemed to be fi rst to the trays of food. After the refreshments, the award ceremony commenced and, to our amazement, we received a Judges Special Recognition Award. Given the other award winners, we were overwhelmed and very honoured to win. Thank you to everyone for the nomination and for the congratulations. One thing we wanted to take away from Toy Fair was any clues as to this year’s big collectable craze. Last year was undoubtedly Moshi, which we’re sure will continue to be strong with Series 6 launching soon. Building on the success from late last year, Skylander fi gures and cards are sure to be popular. We saw a lot of new collectables at Olympia, but nothing really jumped out, so it will be a case of keeping our ears close to the playgrounds to hear what the latest craze will be. Because it is snowing as we write this column, our minds are naturally turning to outdoor toys, which is a major category for us. The roller skates from Wilton Bradley are a real winner, and ride-ons/scooters from MV look strong this year. Our fi ngers are crossed we actually get a Summer, but we have concentrated more on the racket ranges, as these sell in all weathers. However, we will still have a range of Summer infl atables (please let the sun shine!). Here’s to a good Easter for everyone. That’s us signing off for this month’s column.
Mark Buschhaus and Stephen Barnes, Toy Barnhaus Toyworld 29
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76