I hope you all had a wonderful Easter – whether you were relaxing at home after a whirlwind first quarter or working hard in-store. Thankfully, it looks like High Street footfall was significantly up over the Easter weekend. I went into our local town centre on Saturday, and it was absolutely heaving – comfortably the busiest trading day since the week before Christmas. Posts from retailers on LinkedIn suggest a similar pattern across the UK. Of course, it was payday for most people just before Easter, which undoubtedly helped; I think we may see that ‘payday bounce’ (and perhaps a subsequent tailing off as the month progresses) become a more regular occurrence this year. Financial pressures are arguably easing (albeit slowly and slightly), but I suspect the average family still has to juggle expenditure from one payday to the next.
Suppliers will also be heartened by the gradual improvement in freight rates. There were genuine concerns at the turn of the year that the Red Sea shenanigans would have a long-lasting impact, but rates continue to fall, especially if shipments aren’t urgent. Those prepared to accept slower sailing times can take advantage of better prices, which may help some companies in the next few months. We will just have to hope that everything is resolved before the more time-sensitive fourth quarter, when the delayed arrival of products can be infinitely more problematic for both suppliers and retailers.
Meanwhile, as this year slowly shifts into gear, spring summer previews for 2025 are already underway out in LA, and the next few weeks will see an increasing number of suppliers and retailers heading to California to start planning for next year. I gather that only a handful of UK retailers will be making the trip this month, although a far larger contingent is expected in September. However, a degree of confusion still reigns – last week alone, I was contacted by three separate UK retailers asking questions about the September LA trip.
For some reason, they seem to think I’m the man ‘in the know’. If only. For what it’s worth, my sources suggest that the main ‘UK retail’ week looks likely to be 16th-20th September. That said, one very large toy company with its offices in El Segundo appears to be asking UK retailers to come the following week, 23rd-27th. Not only does this potentially prolong the trip for the buyers – who presumably want their visit to be as time and cost-efficient as possible, and two weeks in LA constitutes neither – but that second week also clashes with BLE in London. So, if what I have been told is true, and the company in question doesn’t reconsider its timelines, some buyers will have a big choice to make.
The whole situation does highlight the difference between a properly organised, fixed-timeline three or four-day trade show, and a loose arrangement between a bunch of companies all doing their own thing. There’s not even a central resource to tell retailers which companies are going to be there and when they are around (the entire LA trip lasts from the middle of August to the beginning of October). We did try to engage with some of the building owners to see if it would be feasible to pull something together, but they seem happy to put the onus on the retailers to do their own research, rather than helping to make their life a bit easier. Their philosophy seems to be “If we build it, they will come.” Which, on one level, is perfectly fair and reasonable. But listening to buyers, many feel they have made ‘schoolboy errors’ in the past which cost them time and money, and they would love a bit more clarity and information to help them maximise their trip. Our Toy and Licensing Show preview issues have always been invaluable resources in helping visitors make the most of those shows – maybe in the fullness of time we’ll work out a way to support those people making the trip to LA too. I would just caveat that by saying The Toy Association is doing its best to make the LA trip a bit more efficient for US toy companies and retailers, and hopefully that will be a good step in the right direction.
It will also be interesting to assess what impact the rise of LA is having on other events. There is no doubt that there were fewer visitors to Hong Kong in January, especially from the US market, while the October Hong Kong trip has now all but disappeared from the calendar, except for a few vendor / factory trips by suppliers. Next month’s Distoy event is another that has perhaps been caught in the crossfire: it is impossible to tell in advance of any event who will show up (several people made a point of publicly proclaiming they wouldn’t be going to Distoy last year, then showed up unannounced), but there is a general feeling that the show may be slightly more focused this year.
That, in itself, is fine – I will continue to beat the ‘quality not quantity’ drum when it comes to shows. But I have heard of a few people who appear to have decided not to take a showroom at the hotels, but just to turn up and hold meetings in the lobby or the bar. Now, naturally, there is nothing to physically stop them from doing that. But if everyone did the same thing, the show wouldn’t happen…and then it’s just a bunch of people sitting around in a hotel lobby, which would be a bit weird. Just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should.
The Toy World team will be at Distoy (not LA though), so if you are planning to be in London and want to catch up to explore opportunities in Toy World for the second half of the year, feel free to drop us a line. In the meantime, the April issue of Toy World landed on desks this week, and you can read the digital issue online now. Coincidentally, our competitors’ magazines also came out this week (one and a half competitors, as we like to refer to them): when we all publish an issue in the same week, it provides a very straightforward comparison for readers and advertisers. And if you have made that comparison, I doubt it will be too difficult to decide who you should be working with over the coming months. No confusion there at all.
