Anyone hoping for fireworks in this week’s budget statement is likely to be feeling pretty disappointed right now: not so much a rocket, more like a Catherine Wheel that you lit which never started spinning and just fizzled out. I am not sure if the Chancellor will get the chance to have another go at lighting a fire under the economy before the election (although a November election surely looks nailed on after yesterday), but this attempt is unlikely to draw too many ‘oohs and aahs’ from the public.

So, basically, we are on our own. The government hasn’t (yet) put more money into people’s pockets – even allowing for national insurance reductions, with the increases in council taxes and tax threshold freezes, consumers are effectively no better off (and in many cases, considerably worse off). If suppliers and retailers are going to encourage consumers to part with their cash, they’re going to have to do it of their own accord. However, after the last few years, I guess we’re all used to that.

And from what I know of toy companies and retailers, they’ll be up for the challenge. There was ‘newness’ aplenty on show during Toy Fair season. Some of those new ranges have started to arrive at retail, others will be landing imminently. We spoke to a small selection of specialist independent retailers after the London Toy Fair, to ask them which new launches caught their eye – and we received a wonderfully broad and varied response. If there was little consensus among such a modest-sized focus group, it’s fair to assume that the thousands of retailers who attended the show found a wide variety of lines they are excited to bring into stock. There may not be one standout craze right now, but that is arguably better for a broader group of suppliers than if one hot new line was dominant.

One topic that did enter the conversation frequently at Toy Fair was pricing. It was noticeable that many toy companies had responded to the economic challenges of last year with sharper pricing, which can only be a good thing. Of course, it is not always easy, especially when inflation and price increases are bearing down just as heavily on suppliers as on consumers. But gone are the days of knowingly pricing a range on the warm side and hoping to get away with it – for now at least.

More than anyone, retailers will be aware of needing to offer value and competitive deals – although what actually constitutes ‘competitive’ is a very subjective subject. I spoke to one prominent retail owner last year, who told me he had gone round a competitor’s store with a long-time industry friend and colleague, playing a game of ‘name that price.’ He admitted that they both consistently guessed far lower than the actual retail price (and the store they were in is well-known for offering good value). Now, this may simply be a case of two individuals who see ‘value’ differently to other people. Or maybe they had a point, and toy pricing has been driven a little too high by cost increases simply being added on to arrive at a new price, rather than starting with the product’s optimal retail price and working out how to hit that.

I am going back quite a few years here, but I remember when industry legend Tom Cassidy told me very early on in my career that he felt many toy companies worked the pricing equation from the wrong end: they worked out what a product would cost to make and ship, added on the profit they wanted to make plus the retailer’s margin to arrive at the item’s price. Tom preferred to work the other way round: he looked at a line, assessed what he thought the consumer would pay for it, then worked backwards to check that it could be manufactured to hit that price, while ensuring everyone could make enough money from it. If that couldn’t be achieved, he told me he never produced the line (even if he thought it was a great product). Some may say that times have changed, but what doesn’t change is that all businesses need to make a decent profit, or they won’t survive long term – and everyone in the chain has a part to play in making sure that equation balances out.

Retailers also seem to be turning the clock back in terms of how they grab shoppers’ attention in-store. I popped into Asda yesterday lunchtime, where the usual background music was interrupted by a minute-long announcement detailing a list of aggressive special offers that were available on food. That sort of tactic used to happen quite a lot in supermarkets, but I am not sure I have heard anything quite so blatantly ‘salesy’ since Dave Cave used to get on the microphone at a Makro store to tell everyone they should buy a Rockin’ Flower while stocks lasted!

Given the economic pressure on consumers, I suspect that retailers will also be disappointed that yesterday’s budget offered no respite from the ongoing (over) burden of business rates, curtailing their ability to offer keener prices. Retail owner John Timpson spoke eloquently about this at a recent House of Lords select committee hearing: the thrust of his argument was that when he started out in business, the rule of thumb was that rates were a third of the cost of rent. Now, in some instances, rates are considerably more than the rent, putting brick and mortar retailers at a massive competitive disadvantage against online retailers. If we really do want to regenerate our High Streets, that needs to be addressed urgently by whichever government is in power.

Before I go, there is just time to congratulate Simon Tomlinson on being appointed MD at Learning Resources, which he will take over when Dennis Blackmore steps into an advisory role in May, and also to welcome Thomas Randrup back to the toy fold, after he was appointed country manager for the UK and Ireland at Tactic Games.

I was also sad to hear that toy stalwart John Birchwood passed away a few weeks ago – another big toy personality has left us. I always think it’s important to remember people like John, Barry Harding, Mark Sharp and others who have left us recently, who all made an important contribution to the toy market over the years and left their mark. Toys is a tight-knit community, and they will always be remembered.