Smyths has certainly laid a marker down with its new ‘If I were a toy’ TV advertising campaign, which has already received over three million views and is well on the way to the four million mark. The ad has also received plenty of praise in the wider social media arena for its challenging of gender stereotypes, an area where the toy industry doesn’t always come off that well, so it’s nice to see the balance being redressed for once…
Allegedly
Ongoing attempts to make adjustments to the internal logistics operations at Argos are said to be having a significant short-term impact on suppliers, with several pointing out that whilst the reasoning behind the change is sound, the timing, planning and execution seem to have fallen short. It’s obviously a challenge for a multi-channel retailer to find a suitably quiet time of the year to make big changes to its operation, but choosing to do so on the cusp of Q4 does seem to be a particularly brave choice from a timing perspective… Branches of both Asda and Toys R Us are said to have broken the street date on Star Wars Rogue One toys by well over a week. It seems that action figures in particular popped up in stores across the country days before the official release date, which is all the more bizarre when the official twitter account of one of the aforementioned retailers counted down to the launch date (“Only two days to go…”). Indeed, the retailer in question opened at midnight on the release day to meet demand. It seems strange to go to all that trouble and then put product on shelves a week beforehand, whether deliberately or in error… Barry Groves will be stepping down from his role at Posh Paws at the end of the year due to ongoing health issues. Barry has done a fantastic job establishing the company as a key player in a number of categories and he’ll be a hard act to follow. But what a great opportunity for someone… Mothercare & ELC has become the latest retailer to introduce a charge for its Click & Collect service: orders under £30 will now be subject to a £1.50 surcharge. As usual, a few naïve people had a good old moan on social media, with my particular favourite being “Why would you even bother with click and collect if you have to pay for it? You’d be better off getting it delivered to your home and save the effort of going to a store.” Which, of course, costs the customer more and almost certainly loses the retailer less money than the Click & Collect service, so I would say that’s precisely the point of introducing the charge… I found comments made recently by new Toys R Us CEO Dave Brandon quite illuminating. Asked about the technologically-advanced items that often dominate the festive top toy lists, he offered the view that while these items have a market, he felt that manufacturers went too far last year, which he suggests “hurt the industry”. He went on to point out that he believes the average price for toys has declined this year, which he thinks will be better for the industry. He summed it up thus: “If Johnny has a Christmas list, and the first item costs $250, then Johnny is going to get one item. Toy manufacturers are seeing that there are ways to build sales and share through more reasonable price points that are more affordable and appeal to more families…” As October half-term approached, things inevitably started to get a bit lively at retail. Tesco metaphorically poked Argos in the chest by announcing it would be specifically price-matching its toy range against them in the run-up to Christmas, while Sainsbury’s now legendary / notorious toy sale also kicked into gear. As ever, it was billed as a halfprice toy sale, but from a cursory look, a lot of the latest toys appeared to be discounted by significantly less (20% in
many cases). I would hazard a guess that many of the more heavily discounted items were older stock or were bought on clearance. Indeed, someone from the clearance fraternity told me at BLE that mainstream retailers have bought more lines on clearance than ever before this year - often from overseas rather than the UK – and he wondered about the impact this would have on UK toy suppliers’ figures… Last month also saw the Toymaster regional meetings take place. I was delighted to be invited to join the members at the Swindon event, and I have to say it was a very worthwhile trip. I love talking to independent retailers: free from the politics – or worse, media training - than can sometimes preclude major buyers from speaking their mind, you get wonderfully frank and honest feedback from the indies. The good news is that all the ones I spoke to seemed happy and confident about the festive season. Most felt that Christmas has kicked into gear earlier than it has in previous years – by all accounts, September was a good month, and October has carried on in a similar vein. I wonder whether consumers have been buying early as they anticipate price rises as the pound tumbles? I asked some Toymaster members whether consumers were worried about price rises in 2017, and most felt that their customers were fully expecting this to happen and were bracing themselves to deal with whatever rises transpire. There is a sense, however, that certain price points are about to undergo a seismic shift, with the £9.99 price point in particular under threat – if orange really is the new black, £11.99 may well be the new £9.99… Jacqueline Taylor-Foo will be leaving Spin Master at the end of the year to become European MD for Melissa and Doug, while Julian Page has re-joined VTech as national account manager. Mattel and Hasbro both recently announced strong third quarter results, although my favourite results-related quote from the latest round of quarterly reports came from the Hamleys CEO, who said that the retailer’s international stores will leave its London flagship “in the dust” next year. Yes, apparently he really did say that – how comforting for British suppliers…
I’m glad to see that the ground-breaking Smyths ‘If I were a boy’ TV ad is already encouraging men everywhere to throw off their inhibitions and express their true selves. The recent BLE event provided ample evidence of the ads’ impact: first there was Turner’s Graham Saltmarsh, resplendent with his Power Puff Girls nail art, then the appearance of Disney’s latest Princess on social media… in case you missed it, meet Princess Evans!
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24/10/2016 12:30