The New York Toy Fair is a terrific trade show to visit to gauge what will be hot or not in the next year as we can see the plans suppliers have for existing and new products. It is also a terrific place to catch up with Australian wholesalers, to talk about what you are interested in, to inform their own buying decisions.
Toy Fair in New York this year has been that and more. With the (broad) toy category playing a growing role in our businesses, tapping into market intelligence before it hits Australia and before it is filtered by suppliers is valuable. That is my experience at least, having been to the New York fair for a few years.
It i alas valuable for discovering products and suggesting them to existing Australian wholesalers and providing retailer context as to the local opportunity.
I’d say the outlook for the category is strong. There are some cool trends for 2019 and extensions for popular brands and segments this year.
We will see some of this at the Toy Fair in Melbourne in a few weeks and at events later in the year.
One broader trend that is appealing is the speed to Australia of launches we see in the US. Whereas in the past there could be a delay of a year. Now, thanks to better planning and jumping on the back of US production runs, we see trend opportunities much faster.
I am speaking at the newsXpress national conference in Sydney later this week. That is where I will share specific product and brand insights from the New York Toy Fair.
Are there still toy companies out there who refuse to sell to someone like a Newsagent or other non-traditional channel and will only sell to toy stores and the like? (I know LEGO in particular has been like this in the past, limiting who they will sell to)
Lego, still, Jonathan. Some others, too, in niche segments of toy.
LEGO won’t even sell to all toy stores and have a very stringent standard that has to be met which is fair I think considering the money earning potential of the product.
I looked at buying a toy shop at one point very largely just to get access to LEGO.
I think it’s actually good that they have limited the retail spread of it so that it doesn’t devalue the product nor the shops that sell it.
Paul S, the very stringent standard obviously doesn’t apply to Woolworths who have a pathetic disgracefully messy tiny amount of LEGO thrown up with a miriad of other toys while the toy shop around the corner is denied an account
Absolutely. which goes to show that once an account is opened upon that criteira it closes the mind set. This leads intent of setting criteria for expansion of future sales.
This is shallow marketing using lazy acceptance which leads to modernism using algorisms.
Retailing is about connection not control.
While I don’t want to defend Lego, their people have told me they have several routes to market. Their specialty retailer route is where we would fit and that is controlled. Currently, around 80% of what specialty retailers can sell they get in stock. This sets, they think, constant demand. They then have their own mega stores, which get everything and always have stock – for brand building. Then, they have mass, which gets a small subset, they say to extend brand reach.
Okay so that is their justification.
What I say is that indie retailers do the best job at showcasing their product in countries like Australia that are geographically spread. Indie retailers can do more to shrive Lego brand engagement in Australia than any other retailer. Indie retailers will, for the most part, respect brand rules.
Lego’s loss, I think.