As the madness of Christmas and January starts to fade, our Talking Shop indies reflect on festive trading and tell us how this year is going so far.
This month, Suzie Sparkes caught up with Helen Bellenie of Toys N Trends, Whitstable; Warren Du Preez of Daniel Department Store, Windsor and Jennie Danso of Happy Returns, Hampstead, London. As their regular column returns, Mark Buschhaus and Stephen Barnes of Toy Barnhaus also share their thoughts.
Helen Bellenie says Toys N Trends enjoyed a busy December with a bumper finish right up to Christmas Eve, which was an all-time best for her shop. “Once December started, the postal strikes had a huge impact; more people decided to shop local, they were able to physically find what they were looking for and buy it straight away,” she tells us. “The situation was good for brick & mortar trade, as well as reminding people of all the different shops that are available to them in their town – and what a nice day out you can have when you actually go shopping.”
Meanwhile, in Windsor, Warren Du Preez of Daniel Department Store had another very good year on the toy department. “We have never had such a strong peak December fortnight,” he says. “When Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, the trading week is just perfect, and we were busy non-stop until we closed the store on Christmas Eve.” Now, he is looking forward to the year ahead. “We thoroughly enjoy toy fair season, even though it’s a bit manic, with buying trips to London, Nuremberg and the NEC. We are looking forward to another successful year.”
At Happy Returns in Hampstead, London, Jennie Danso found that, in December, many customers were saying that items they had ordered online hadn’t arrived, which worked to her advantage, ans she welcomed customers who simply prefer to visit a physical shop. “Children love to come in and have a good look around; they like to touch and feel the products, ask questions, and then save up their pocket money to come back and buy; we do encourage them to have a browse and welcome the interaction.”
At Toy Barnhaus, Mark and Stephen also enjoyed one of their best-ever Christmas trading periods, with figures well ahead of 2021, and also higher than 2019, the last pre-pandemic Christmas. “In the end, the biggest factor that worked in our favour is that everyone wanted to really enjoy Christmas this year, after the last two were disrupted due to Covid. They were prepared to spend out for it, and we benefited from that,” they explained.
To read the full Talking Shop feature, with a round up of the best selling lines and to hear about plans for 2023, read the full article, which appeared in the February edition of Toy World, here.
