Indie viewpoint - Toy Barnhaus

Giggles and jiggles

We are writing this at the halfway point of the school summer holidays, and we certainly can’t complain about trade so far this summer. July was an excellent month, with the new Pokémon Black Bolt and White Flare release driving a lot of business to our stores and selling through very quickly. There is still no sign of the Pokémon juggernaut slowing down, the only problem is trying to get enough stock. However, our overall bestseller is still the Lego F1 Mini Collectibles range. Even three months after release, they remain extremely popular, and with the F1 season going on until the end of the year, they have shown more staying power than other Lego Minifigures. The Lego August releases have gone down well too, especially the new Speed Champions and Star Wars lines.

As we said in our last column, a few prolonged spells of nice weather mean we’ve had good sell-through on outdoor lines, especially water pistols and pool inflatables. Other lines selling well in the summer holidays include the Dress to Impress Mystery Models from Click and the new 5 Surprise My Mini Baby Series 2 from Zuru.

Pocket money collectibles, along with pocket money in general, has been our biggest growth category this year. This whole section is now the third highest by value in our stores. When we first started, pocket money items would be anything up to around £2. Nowadays, it is anything up to £5, or even £10 – there’s inflation for you!

Over the last few months, 3D printed animals have been extremely popular, especially dragons, from Kandy Toys and Whitehouse. Now, a wider range of animals, including snakes, hornets, dinosaurs and cats, is selling well. A new range we have brought in recently is Jigglets from 3D Studio Gifts, and these have been phenomenal. They are mini-3D printed animals and figures, in lots of different styles, all made in the UK. This company has been one of our best new suppliers this year. We’ve seen the Taba Squishy craze take off too, with Mushmeez Taba from Character, Taba World from Click and Cat Paw Squishys from Kandy Toys all starting to sell well. The whole category is evolving at such a fast pace, with most of the new hot new lines being driven by TikTok videos. You have to be constantly on the pulse to see what customers are going to ask for next - and then see if you can find it!

As we move into the final quarter of the year, we have started to expand the Games & Puzzles section. After a boom during lockdown, the category has had a tough couple of years. With a lack of new titles to really drive volume into the sector, we will stick mostly to our core, tried and tested games this year. We stock a classic range from HTI, including Snakes & Ladders, Chess and Draughts, which are all evergreens. We’ll try some new ones but wait to see what really moves before committing to additional stock. However, there have been a few highlights such as John Adam’s The 1% Club Board Game, which has already been selling well, and Uno Show ‘em no Mercy from Mattel. We stock a range of light-up LED games from RMS that are popular; they make ideal gifts at a competitive price.

As we give more prominence to Games & Puzzles ready for Q4, we will also move our stores around to place more emphasis on the lines that come into their own in the run up to Christmas.