shoptalking A mixed bag
Helen Gourley
director, The Toy Hub, Dunblane Business is going well for us, overall we’re up and growing. I’m glad April is over; taking a look at the fi gures we held our own, but it just always seems to be a funny month. I don’t know what it is about it, probably from all the kids being on their Easter holidays and with it being so cold up here. Art and craft is a new range for us; we didn’t want to step on the toes of the craft shop up the road, but we’ve received a lot of requests for it so we’ve brought some into the store like Hama and John Adams’ playsets which all do very well. We also do well with Depesche’s Top Model, which is a great line, but my only criticism would be that it’s so readily available now that it’s diffi cult to have an edge with anything in the range – even our local hotel sells it in its newspaper shop. But overall we’re defi nitely looking into expanding our art and craft lines. Under electronic learning we have VTech’s Toot Toot which is particularly popular. We did try tablets but we found we couldn’t compete with online; a lot of people got caught out with that this year and we were among them. The Switch and Go Dinosaur has been superb for us; it has appeal to a broad age range with a good price point. Due to the size of our shop we’ve really
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Toy World’s Kayleigh Conway speaks to independent retailers about the hot topics of the month. With lots of categories to talk about this month, our experts give Kayleigh their thoughts on art and craft, electronic learning, wheeled toys, and science and nature. And breathe!
struggled to display wheeled toys effectively, and our customers don’t really see us as that kind of toy shop – plus it rains an awful lot in Scotland! We tried a few ranges and we still have some left, but now we’re running promotions to clear through the stock. I do think cycling is a key sport up here, and there are specialist shops for that - which is a good thing, as parents are more likely to go there for a specialist product. For science and nature, we had some John Adams plant craft kits around the £10 price point which were good. Miniland in the run-up to Christmas was superb; its design is great and parents are looking for a toy that actively does something – when kids can get involved with toys parents really like that. Also, when there’s a strong brand behind a product, like Hexbugs for example, it’s great for sales. Brainbox is consistently good for us, and the snap cards cover a variety of subjects and are educational. Paul Lamond’s Rush Hour has fl own out, I can’t keep it in stock; parents are looking for games that the kids can really get something out of. It’s very diffi cult to pick one product with mass appeal; in the industry as a whole there hasn’t been anything brand new, fresh and exciting for a while. Even with Furby last year, it’s an old product that’s been redesigned. The market seems to be based on long-term, stalwart products. For example, Lego and Ty
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Toyworld 29
Beanies sell well, but they’re not fl ying. One product that did take me by surprise was re:creation’s Air Storm. We bought it in January after Toy Fair, expecting it to start selling around now, April/May, but we had a mad rush early on and sold out. I think the appeal of archery is strong, particularly in young boys, as it’s something different from Nerf. Nerf has been around for a long time and it’s still strong, but parents were delighted to see an alternative. I didn’t know whether it would even take off or not, and it’s held its price; Amazon is still selling it at the recommended retail price and that doesn’t happen very often.
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