The Melbourne Toy Fair has been terrific again this year. Finishing today mid afternoon, the attendee mix has been varied: toy retailers, gift retailers, newsagent retailers and more. The supplier mix exhibiting has been equally diverse covering toy, hobby, collectible, art, gift, game and other products. This is a valuable trade show for retailers and for suppliers and especially valuable for newsagents looking for an educational event that can open them prospective new shoppers.
Many suppliers use the show to educate retailers about new shopper traffic opportunities. This is part of what makes the Toy Fair and important event, far better than any single channel specific event.
With the walls between specialty retail channels crumbling, it is more important than ever for newsagents and other specialty retailers to look beyond what is traditional for their channel. This also means looking at what appears to be traditional product through fresh eyes. For example, with one supplier you are confronted by model kits and may dismiss them as an out of date product whereas what you make appeals to a niche interest making them saleable not as model kits but as collector items in that niche. I hope this makes sense.
Sometimes it is only when you dig deep with a supplier and discover a back story opportunity that you can unlock a value from a range that otherwise may have been missing for you.
If you are dismissing the toy fair because of the word toy in the title you’d be missing an opportunity. This event was about far more than toys.
I was at the fair for my software company Tower Systems on the weekend and on Monday with a group of 100 newsXpress members who had group appointments with various suppliers – who blocked off their stands for the group. The group, moving as a group, through the fair caused plenty of discussion among exhibitors and attendees. It demonstrated the value of working as a group. It certainly focusses the minds of suppliers when they have 100 retailers on their stand all interested in the same mix of products.
This is the fourth toy fair newsXpress has done as a group with suppliers closing off stands to other retailers for set appointments. It is being repeated each year because of the commercial success for the retailers and the suppliers.
There is no doubt that toy and related product is a growth category.
I made arrangements to visit this fair and had an appointment to meet a supplier who had a great product range.
I had already been put off going when I found it difficult to determine who was exhibiting. I was advised by several persons that blocking off stands for major customers and supplier groups was the norm. I was also advised that distributors genuinely interested in reaching independent retailers would be at the gift fairs and may not find suppliers at the toy fair who were new and not blocked off.
In the end I decided not to attend. We are expanding our toy and games ranges, but through the reps of niche suppliers. I agree it is a great opportunity area.
There is a cosy arrangement in the toy industry and the various buying groups which freezes out independents. We are finding good suppliers but not through the toy fair.
Colin on the Saturday there were no group bookings and on the Sunday only a small group was going around. So access was easy. The website for the event listed all suppliers six weeks out.
Great Sunday and Saturday information after the event, pity it was not evident to potential attendees.
I recall there was a list, but did it link to the suppliers to reveal products.
We did not take the decision not to attend lightly as we were and still are actively seeking sources of new products. We were advised both by a supplier and a frequent visitor not to bother, that as an independent we would most likely be disappointed.
We were willing attendees put off by website, exhibitors and past attendees.
If the Toy Fair is trying to reach independents then they are doing a damn good job at disguising it.
Missed opportunity Colin. Had I known you were looking I could have told you of my years attending. Suppliers tend to not list launch products prior to the show for competitive reasons.
Yes, a supplier explained that to us. Shame that same supplier and another discouraged us from attending.
Not me who missed the opportunity. The Toy Fair misses out if they are only accessible to a closed shop of corporate and established buyers.
Perhaps next year the organisers could set aside a day when independents can freely view, and make it a weekday, as most of us work weekends to minimise penalty rates.
Silly me, that won’t wok. Corporates don’t do weekends.
I had planned to go and make a weekend of it with the Formula 1 and then the Toy Fair but something else came up and I had to cancel. Apparently exhibitor numbers were down this year with a few bigger names deciding not to go due to the cost. This is feedback from a friend in Toyworld.
It is a very lucrative area if you can find the right niche. I’m pushing $10K a month in games and hobbies (model kits) with a year on year growth of approaching 100% for the last few months. You do however have to be very careful about what you buy and have a good knowledge of what is going to be hot and what is going to be a dog which is something you won’t know unless your are active within that hobby area. That includes the model kits and games areas pobably more so than any other area I’ve come across in a newsagency.
Colin the Toy Fair is not a closed shop, not even close. Anyone can attend. Signing up is easy. Like any trade show, the best way to see, assess and engage with a trade show is to be there – as I have written about Toy Fair here many times. Independents had easy access on Monday and Tuesday this week. Sure there were groups, but access was free and easy.
Paul I didn’t see any decline. Indeed, with the lower entry point option for wholesalers my sense is there were more there.
Mark. I signed up, I made an appointment with a supplier and was trying to line up others. I am a tenacious buyer, who does not give up when it comes to looking for a point of difference. Last year I visited the Birmingham Gift Fair and would certainly go again.
With your experience and knowledge it is easy for you to say I should have gone. It is not my fault I didn’t go. I was a willing buyer prepared to make the investment of flying and staying in Melbourne.
A market place is where willing buyers meet willing sellers. Opaque web sites. blocked viewing and participants advising caution does not constitute a willing seller.
I have many demands on my time. Flying to Melbourne, staying in a hotel, incurring penalty rates costs, being away from my business and family over the weekend…… all in the uncertain hope I would get anything out of it. It wasn’t that hard to decide my energy and resources were best deployed on something else.
The Toy Fair needs to ask how I came to that decision so that others don’t arrive at the same outcome.
Colin I don’t know what to say. They websites I have checked for six or seven suppliers are excellent. Sure you have to log in – that is standard business practice.
Thinking about my time at the event as an exhibitor, a participant with a group and even as a single retailer – there was plenty at this event. It was as valuable as any good gift fair.
Reading back through your comments, it seems to me someone gave you bad advice. Maybe you can get there next year.
I was there attending every stores, except Lego who will not let me have an account with them.
LEGO is VERY picky about who they will sell product to so its not surprising they wouldn’t even talk to someone who clearly wouldn’t be able to devote anywhere near the space to product that even a smaller toy store would be doing.
But I guess when you are the #1 toy company in the world and are more profitable than #2 (Mattel) and #3 (Hasbro) put together, you can afford to be picky about how you sell your product…
The Lego model for Australia is to supply 80% of forecast orders from existing retailers. While that is their prerogative, it leaves them dependent on majors more than others and majors can be demanding and fickle.
The majors don’t get to be demanding with Lego is my understanding. They are supplied on Legos terms or they aren’t supplied. There are some negotiated licensed deals (such as the Star Wars one where Target had an exclusive sales period of two weeks before everyone else) but otherwise its a largely level playing field. From what I was told it isn’t unusual for ordinary stores selling Lego who operate at the various Lego Conventions to turn $50K of Lego in a day which is very significant for some of these smaller stores.