January 26th-28th 2010 @ Olympia, London
Toy Fair is the only dedicated toy, game and hobby exhibition in the UK.
February 7th-11th 2010 @ NEC Birmingham
Spring Fair International attracts buyers from the world’s stores, independents and mail order retailers.
July 9th 2010 @ Powerleague Barnet
Do you have five men with two legs who can kick a ball and fancy their chances on the pitch?
This month, Rob Trup lets us in on a few of his top picks...
You can prove anything with statistics. And in these days of school league tables, massaged unemployment numbers and expenditure figures as long as you’ve got the right data it seems you can convince people of anything.
In his new regular column, Jon Salisbury looks back over 25 years in the toy industry...
The time had come to go into the dark depths of the warehouse to bring out those long lost treasures called sledges...
The start of a new decade for us all and the start of a new century for ToyNews, this being issue number 101.
The recent 'effort' of a film based on a toy had me thinking...
Particularly since Woolworths closed, there's now a huge number of opportunities for retailers to increase sales, and Dream Toys is one such opportunity. But the question is, are retailers ready to make the most of the opportunities for increased publicity and awareness Dream Toys generates, and turn them into sales?
Recently I was staggered to look in a newsagent and see a Spider-man comic, with a free giveaway of a toy plastic gun attached.
A growing number of manufacturers have operational B2C transactional websites. This raises a number of issues in the area of price and stock allocation.
It has often bemused me why no-one has taken on the online market in the toy sector and made it their own. In the same way that Amazon owns the book market.
.jpg?i=1259680611 "My number ones (August)")
This month, Turner's Andrew Mallendine let us in on a few of his favourite things...
.jpg?i=1259680611 "Talking shop: Which side are you on?")
Suppliers selling directly to consumers via their own websites was the issue on retailer's lips this month. We found out what effect this has on business, prices, margins, stock availability and more...
I guess I'm getting old and that it's too much to ask that people's manners be the same as those I grew up with, but the attitude of people is definitely getting worse.
I’d like to talk about shared risk this month. Retail margins are both low and being squeezed and I think this is a very important issue.
The past month has seen a debate about having the opportunity to get margins up. As this is dodgy ground I don’t bring it up, but salesmen do when trying to sell high margin, no volume ranges.
Like most retailers, I always look at other areas I could move into. Some manufacturers have tried the same , with Hasbro and Character being the most active and some have worked, others not...
