Retail Profile
Menkind
Menkind: original people
In late July, Menkind announced the appointment of Simon Calvert to the newly created role of managing director. Rachael Simpson-Jones spoke to chief executive Paul Kraftman about what this means for the business, and how the retailer is approaching the toys, games and gifts category in the latter half of the year. How has the first half of 2019 been for Menkind? It’s been very positive, and we’re really pleased with the way things are going. A tough couple of years resulted in us undertaking a considerable amount of work to refine and improve our proposition, and we’re now enjoying a return to growth. Since April, the beginning of our financial year, we have grown every month like-for-like. Considering the current market, I think that’s pretty good.
And how is the toy category faring for you so far this year? Collectible toys is a very big growth area for us, forming a major driver for our business and reflecting the strength of collectibles within the wider toy marketplace, where it’s one of the strongest toy categories. For us, the more edgy licensed products, such as Funko’s Pop! Vinyl collectible figures, prove particularly popular with our customers. Radio control toys is another key category for us; while, on the whole, it’s ticking along OK, it’s
somewhat starved of newness, which is creating a challenge. Within radio control we have drones and flying toys, and are very successful in the lowerpriced, toyetic end of the market. High-end drones which sit around the £100-150 mark are suffering the most, but the core toy price band, around £20-30, is doing brilliantly. We’ve got a couple of our own SKUs, and they are performing well. The trend for drones really took off over the last couple of years (if you’ll excuse the pun), but the bigger, more expensive ones require a higher level of commitment from the owner; they need to be flown outdoors, away from trees and other obstacles, which can involve a drive somewhere away from home and means that they aren’t a very spontaneous thing to play with. The more low-cost, basic ones - that can be flown around the house by kids straight out the box - are faring much better. There’s still a healthy demand, as our success with them shows.
What is your customer profile - is it mainly adults, kids or a mixture? It’s a mixture; kids are growing up faster than
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ever, so we see teens and up as our core market. Brands like Funko cut across the age groups, and we also work with a company called Exquisite Games, which provides a sought-after range of licensed merchandise. We started off as a men’s gifting store, but we don’t position ourselves that way anymore. Our strapline is ‘Original gifts for original people’, and this reflects what we’ve been offering for the past six or seven years. I was on the shop floor a year or so ago, just before Christmas, talking with a customer about a drone he wanted to buy for his son. The time came to pick the colour, black or white, and he said he wanted both – one for his son, and one for him. I think that’s a great example of the wide-ranging appeal of our products. We develop a lot of products in-house; our own brand Red5 is our leading toy brand by a long shot. All our remote control, flying toys or drones and cars are own-sourced. Other retailers buy into our brands too, such as John Lewis, Boots and Debenhams, through Menkind’s The Source Wholesale wing.