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What a week…it’s the Friday Blog!

Published on: 27th January 2023

No post-Toy Fair lie-in for me – I was up nice and early this morning to hastily gather my thoughts on this week’s show for today’s Blog. Thankfully, I didn’t have to think too long about how to sum up proceedings- the London Toy Fair was, simply, a triumph. I spoke to a huge number of exhibitors and visitors across the show, and they all gave a unanimous seal of approval to the event. I sat reading a stream of LinkedIn posts when I arrived home last night, and they all echoed the same sentiment.

Of course, I am aware of the adage that there has never been a bad Toy Fair – although speaking as someone who has had his wrist slapped for some honest comments about other trade fairs in the past and is no stranger to listening to gripes from exhibitors, that certainly isn’t true of all events. However, on this occasion, nobody needed to put on a brave face or feign enthusiasm. The vibe was overwhelmingly positive; the UK toy community is starting 2023 in a good place.

It helped enormously that the show followed very strong trading in the run-up to Christmas and the weeks that followed. The February issue of Toy World has been landing on desks while we were at the show, and when you get round to reading it you’ll see a very interesting article that our editor Rachael pulled together after speaking to a host of major and specialist retail players about festive trading. The feedback was consistent: sales came late, but when they did come, they came strong. NPD’s presentation at the Toy Fair reinforced what we had been told: I can’t share specifics, but the headline numbers (the £3.5bn UK toy market is back to pre-pandemic levels, with a stellar week 51 helping to get us across the line) were a whole lot better than many had anticipated in late autumn. Unsurprisingly, online sales declined (not helped by the Royal Mail strike, although personally I think there is more to it than that), with in-store nudging ahead of online sales by 51% to 49%.

NPD also confirmed that the US market confounded expectations by ending up flat last year, which begs the question….why were so many people talking about a “tsunami of stock” heading our way from the US during London Toy Fair?? If their sales matched the previous year, how on earth is there so much excess product? Sounds like the US didn’t stick to the “no-one ever went bust selling everything in their warehouse” mantra. I just hope the world doesn’t become the dumping ground for US over-confidence / hubris. Or is the US stock mountain just a myth? The clearance boys don’t seem to think so (one told me he wouldn’t be touching most of it out of respect for his regular UK client base), while I heard tales of Walmart not buying any new lines this year. There seems to be such a contrast in the negativity emanating from the US – which ended flat – compared with the positivity here in the UK, which was 3% down. Maybe it’s a mindset thing – or just that we’re good at being realists and appreciating when things could have been so much worse.

Based on all of my conversations at Olympia, there was no sign of buying bans or reluctance on the part of UK buyers to invest in new launches – the majors were all present and correct, the specialists were out in very good numbers (so I was told by agents, and they’re best placed to comment), and they were all looking for new lines to select. There were very few gripes about the recipients of the Retailer of the Year and Toy of the Year awards (apart from a few of us who nearly got locked in at Olympia for the night after the presentation….!), while there was plenty of ‘newness’ on show (aargh, I still hate that word, even though its use is becoming increasingly widespread).

I can’t name all the great lines, as there isn’t room, and it wouldn’t be fair to single out one or two from a very long list of fantastic products. It was evident that suppliers have built on successful ranges or licences with well-thought out extensions, and have looked to add lines into hot categories; there was an awful lot of plush and girls collectibles on show, while I am beginning to think that Disney 100 doesn’t refer to its age, but the number of licensees fighting for that corner of shelf space. There are also some huge success stories from the past making a welcome return in upgraded formats (at least one of which I probably can’t talk about in the Blog, even though it was an open secret at the show).

Thanks to all the exhibitors who found time to show us round their range and ushered us into secret rooms: we do judge you if you don’t let us in by the way – we can be trusted. And it makes us look stupid if we’re talking with buyers about what we are all excited about if we haven’t been shown key lines. We’re not random consumer journalists, we’re part of the fabric of the industry…and dare I say it, influencers in the true sense of the word. It was lovely to sit at dinner with the team each evening and hear them enthusing about what they’d seen that day and what stood out for them.

There will be a lot of conversations going on like that in the coming weeks, as the toy community heads to its next stop in Nuremberg. On which note, you won’t see a Blog next Friday – I’ll still be working the show, so the Nuremblog will arrive on the following Monday. In the meantime, I’m off to a debrief with the team, followed by a rare birthday weekend spent at home rather than in West London or Bavaria. Like all of you, I am exhausted but very happy – it has been a good week. A very good week.