touchingbase
K-Play International Scott Kenworthy
Our most notable success of 2013 was our advertising campaign. We committed to both Toy Fair and Harrogate Nursery Fair, as well as a series of adverts in Toy World magazine and a number of direct mailings. Although we felt that both of the fairs were detrimentally hit by the bad weather we experienced (snow on both occasions), we still managed to turn some important contacts into customers. Our advertising in Toy World was very successful with scores of new customers coming into the fold. Our direct mailings showed that customers still like to receive something on paper rather than just electronic information, which probably gets somewhat diluted by the volume of electronic mail nowadays. Our most important launch will be our new goki-nature range. It has been requested by some customers, but goki has now committed to producing a range of natural wooden toys, manufactured in the EU, with raw material local to the manufacturing plant. We are therefore showing our commitment to the environment with this range, not only by guaranteeing the use of replenishable wood from EU forests (goki has already planted almost a quarter of a million young trees) but also taking on board the carbon
Club Crest - Process Colours
Sponsored by
emissions issue with shorter transport routes. Shades will be produced using an environmentally sound thermal treatment or by using different wood types, and some edges are protected by a water-based paint. Part of the profi ts of this range go towards its project of building schools in developing countries. At least 120m children are being exploited in child labour; education is the only chance for children to escape the child labour cycle and its subsequent life of poverty; the tenth school worldwide was completed in 2013. We can still only show a fraction of our complete
programme at Toy Fair as we have well over 2,500 individual items, but we have a new stand which we hope will allow customers to see more of our new product and more of our ranges. We consider the biggest challenge for the toy
trade is to build on the increase in consumer spending, that has been seen in the last half of 2013, without increasing overheads dramatically. We also believe that it’s no good complaining about the amount on offer online as this is something that is only going to increase. We have ideas about helping our customers enter the online marketplace and will try to develop these in 2014. For suppliers we think that the opportunities
afforded by the online market place also come at a cost. We have seen some suppliers take the stance of simply not supplying customers who trade on
certain platforms due to the devaluing of their product. Let’s be frank, the problem that all suppliers have is that there is no registration system for trade in
the UK, which by default means that a number of people who enter the market as traders are simply not business minded; they see something attractive and think that they could sell that. Sometimes they don’t recognise that the prices they are offering are losing them money and destroying the market for the very product that so attracted them to get involved. We have taken the view that it is up to us as suppliers (with the help of our vigilant customers) to commit staff to monitoring the online offers and to take action where deemed necessary. This is a cost we must be prepared to carry if we are to maintain the trust and goodwill of all of our customers.
Collect your favourite football heroes
Toy Fair Stand G60
0116 285 5868
www.figuractive.com
122 Toyworld
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