It’s been an interesting week, full of contrasts. I’ve spent a wonderful few days in Florence with Italian content studio Diaframma, watching first-hand how a modern media ad is created. It’s a fascinating process, infinitely more technical and complex than I suspect many people realise (if you thought green screen was cutting edge, think again), and I’ll be sharing everything I saw in a future issue of Toy World. The Diaframma team were marvellous hosts, and we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the beautiful city that they call home.

There’s been plenty of good news back home too – the weather has finally perked up (maybe that will help retail sales this weekend?); WHSmith has announced the location of the new Toys R Us concessions due to open this summer; Amazon has officially confirmed that it will be launching a new Irish online store in 2025 (finally, the worst-kept secret in the world is out); Character has announced increased profits in its latest half-year results (no mean feat in the current climate) and it’s only 10 days to the Toymaster show (if you haven’t seen our fantastic Toymaster supplement to aid your prep, click here). So that’s all encouraging. Nevertheless, you don’t need me to tell you that retail could do with a little boost right now. Perhaps an interest rate cut in June or July might help? In the meantime, a few people seem to be letting the challenging retail climate affect the way they deal with others…

Those of you who like a good meme will perhaps be familiar with the old man buying a can of coke in a newsagent, who asks how much it is, then when told it is £1.49 says “I’ve got 50p”, slams the coin down on the counter, swears and walks out with the can. I’ve been hearing of a few buyers who have been adopting similar negotiating tactics in recent weeks, and even we have come up against a few people who seem to feel that offering us a frankly insulting amount of money for an ad is going to be a successful strategy (narrator: it isn’t).

One supplier told me that he had recently been offered the princely sum of £1.35 for a line that retails at £9.99 – a line that is licensed and being offered by a UK distributor on behalf of the licensee. Presumably the buyer in question isn’t fully aware of the way pricing is calculated – for example, the fact the licensee has to pay a royalty to the licensor on the full trade price, regardless of what price the buyer pays. In this instance, that would be more than the sum being offered by the retailer – and that’s before the licensee or the distributor make a penny. Now I’m all for a bit of negotiation – I genuinely enjoy the cut and thrust of a good haggle, there is a real art to it. But for that to work, both sides have to come from a realistic starting point and finish where they can both walk away feeling the deal is acceptable – offering someone way below cost on an item that isn’t a clearance line is not a sensible approach, and only likely to offend the seller.

Our sales director Mark had the phone unceremoniously thrown down on him this week. His crime? Not saying yes to an offer of a page ad if we gave the client three free pages in return. A similar thing happened with a different client two weeks ago. And suppliers think The Entertainer drives a hard bargain!

I was tempted to name the two companies in question, if only so retailers could ask them both if they’re prepared to offer them a ‘buy one, get three free’ deal – if they think we’d be happy to do it, presumably they’re happy to do the same for their customers? That’s a rhetorical question – of course they wouldn’t. And yet, for some bizarre reason, a handful of people seem to believe that normal commercial rules don’t apply to media owners.

Newsflash – running a magazine is no different to running a toy company. We have bills to pay and costs to cover, like any business. The last time a magazine said yes to crazy deals like that, we ended up buying it a few years down the line (and it didn’t cost us a lot). If I see ads from these companies pop up in other titles, I’ll know they’re on the same slippery slope. Saying yes to bad business is a one-way ticket to oblivion, whatever kind of company you run.

And for those retailers and companies throwing out ridiculous lowball offers, I just wonder how you think people on the receiving end feel about you. Because when this tricky spell ends – and it will – you don’t want to have burnt any bridges or have left people with a bad taste. And anyway, if anyone is actually daft enough to accept these crazy deals, shouldn’t you be worried they said yes? It’s clearly a mark of desperation, and desperation doesn’t tend to come from solid companies with good products that you should want to buy.

I know of one senior toy person who was so disillusioned that he considered quitting the industry last year after the way he was treated by a major retailer, which he described to me as “morally reprehensible and bordering on illegal.”

We reported this week that popular sales stalwart Neil Leah is moving on from KAP Toys, having outstayed his initial three-year agreement by three further years. Neil has always been the epitome of someone who treats his customers and the people he works for with total respect – an old-school pro who knows the way to get the best out of people is to treat them the way you yourself would want to be treated.

I get it – we’re all human, and we all occasionally have bad days, especially when times are tough. But respect goes both ways – we respect our customers, and the good ones respect us. If they don’t, I’m not sure we want them as customers anyway.

Have a great weekend and let’s hope the weather will bring shoppers out in force.