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I’m just back in the office after the North American International Toy Fair (aka New York Toy Fair). The show occupies the vast Jacob Javits Convention Centre on the west side of Manhattan. There has been some controversy about this iconic show since Covid disrupted the show circuit and the timings of key shows, especially with the emergence of the LA Previews as the alternative to the Dallas previews event. The thing with this type of speculation and gossip is that every person and company has a different perspective, so we’ll all reach our own conclusions. In the end, the proof of purpose for a trade show like this is enough exhibitors selling enough product to want to come back next time…by which measure the show clearly has a purpose and a strong ‘raison d’etre’ since it has been going since 1903!
I was buzzing throughout the show and am still buzzing now 2 days after the show closed. I love gatherings of like-minded people where we can talk business, catch up, gossip and find out how other people and companies are doing and discuss the key trends of the moment (more on those later on). The sheer scale of the opportunity at this show, which is largely focused on a single massive market primarily, with the Canadian market opportunity added in as a bonus.
Aside from anything else, to get to visit New York City is an incredible opportunity. This time round was my quarter of a century anniversary of attending the show. The first time I attended, I was specifically warned by my boss to be wary of ‘street crazies’ on the streets of Manhattan and was told not to go on the Subway as it was “dangerous and unsafe”. Nowadays, between the gentrification and economic uplift the city has seen, and the apparent pacifying effect of the legalisation of cannabis, NYC seems like a much less aggressive place than it once was, and as an out of towner, I took as much pleasure in strolling the streets and avenues as I did from talking and doing Toy business.
The show this year was clearly not quite as big as it was pre-Covid, so let’s be real about that from the start. But there were still somewhere in the vicinity of 900-1000 exhibitors and literally hundreds and hundreds of Buyers, so the scale of the show is still very large and still represents a massive opportunity. One observation or comment which some exhibitors make always really annoys me: “Oh it seems quieter this year”…this constant moaning about subjective observations of footfall annoys me because a). Footfall doesn’t often decline at these shows, so people often have a rosy memory of incredible footfall of years gone by b). This is not retail – footfall is not a relevant measure of success. If you are an exhibitor the effectiveness of a trade show should be measured by number, quality and depth of buyer interactions, and that is not the same as having your booth over run by industry hangers on (like myself). Although we all like to have fun at these shows, it’s not about entertaining your staff, it’s about building and nurturing Buyer relationships. No doubt it is soul destroying for your staff or even for the owner of the company if you have lots of dead time on the booth, I have been there and done that, but that should not be the measure of success – the true measure is what will you sell coming out of the show and have you spent more quality time with your Buyers than you would have done without the show?
Costs to attend a show like this are not insignificant. If you are a small exhibitor you may have total costs inc. travel, couriers for samples and show exhibition costs of c. $10-15k. Bigger exhibitors can easily spend ten times that, but bearing in mind the scale of business you can do in the U.S. market, you would have to be quiet a weak operation to not be able to easily recoup the costs involved.
I don’t tend to meet with Retailers these days (in fact I largely avoid them), but from the list of registered buyers on the show website, and from conversations I had with people who were meeting with retailers, there were many, many buyers at this show. If you didn’t meet them, that’s probably about the effectiveness of your sales team, the attractiveness of your product line to buyers and/or it’s a reflection of your early stage of development if you are a newer company.
The next point I want to make relates to purpose and objectives of this show. There are some major Toy Cos who were, and who normally are, notably absent from this show. Frankly, I would argue that’s a good thing. If all you care about is your Walmart & Target listings, then the New York show is not likely to be a productive investment for you. That’s not because buyers from those retail juggernauts aren’t present – in fact I had confirmation from people I spoke to that these Buyers were definitely at the show. The issue is that their sales cycle is nearly entirely done by the time of the NYC show. So, if you plan to go to the Manhattan show to achieve this year sales to Walmart & Target, you would be wasting your time and money – that’s what the LA previews are for.
Instead, the New York Toy Fair is an opportunity to meet with mid-tier, specialty and other miscellaneous buyers. It’s also an opportunity to spend more time with those retailers and reps whose markets are East Coast based. I don’t believe that all retailers based on the East Coast want to fly all the way to LA to see new product lines in one geographical area 4 or 5 months before they are ready to look at the next year’s product lines.
Bearing in mind the Toy Association in conjunction with Circana estimate the total U.S. Toy market value to have been c. $42 billion in 2024, it seems ridiculous to debate whether the gigantic market the U.S. represents can justify two locations for retail sell in shows. The size of opportunity very clearly justifies both previewing in LA and in NYC as long as we are clear on the (different) purpose and focus for each show.
Moreover, according to a Linked In post by industry legend Jeremy Padawer, 95% of exhibitors at the New York show have revenues of under $25m. This mighty show gives them the opportunity to access retail markets and buyers they would otherwise struggle to meet. In many industries this would not seem like that big a point, but bear in mind that the Top 10 companies in the Toy business represent approximately 35-40% of the total market (that number is my guesstimate), and you begin to understand the true value in our industry of smaller companies. On my own travels round the show I met half a dozen people running companies of $5m or more with just one or two employees, I genuinely don’t think American people appreciate just how rare this is outside the USA! If you were running the same business in a smaller European country, you might have revenues of c. $100-200k in the same circumstance. The NY show gives these small up and coming companies access to this gigantic market, which in turn keeps the whole Toy market fresh, and often leads to acquisitions by the bigger Toy companies.
Subjectively, my feeling from the 2025 show is that the NYC show is back in nearly the right time slot for what it is, what it does and who it is for. The 2026 and beyond shows are back at the more traditional mid-February timeslot. From a Buyers perspective, I can’t imagine how you can see everything there is to see on a product level in 4 days, and I certainly did not run out of things to do and people to meet with in my time at the show.
2025 U.S. Toy Market Update
We’ll keep this section brief, as I already wrote about the global outlook for 2025 around the Nuremberg show, but here’s some quick points. The U.S. is not unaffected by the dropping birth rates round the world. Most major U.S. Toy companies have significant revenues from international sales. The U.S. situation is not quite as drastic as in some other countries, going from 4.1m babies born in 1990 to c. 3.7m in 2022.
The U.S. has been impacted by inflation/cost of living difficulties for consumers. The impending tariffs are likely to be price inflationary, which could well reduce sales volumes in the Toy business, but more on that in next week’s article dedicated to that topic.
Product newness – retail has been bemoaning the lack of ‘New news’ and new trends for a couple of years. And it’s true that we are definitely over due a massive hit new Toy trend. The paucity of the movie slate in 2024 seems to have fired up focus on developing cool new standalone Toy I.P.’s, and much of this was on show in New York.
The movie slate itself is much stronger for this year, as was very evident from the movie related product lines all across the Javits Center this time round.
My prediction for the U.S. Toy market in 2025 is single digit growth…could be mid-single digit if the movies hit and some of the fresh IP resonates with kids this year – fingers crossed on that!
TOY FAIR UNIVERSITY
Next, we’re going to look at the highlight of the show (or lowlight depending on your perspective) – that being my presentation at the Toy Fair University sessions. The topic was Managing Sourcing & Manufacturing In A Turbulent World. We had a fairly full house for this presentation, around 150 people watched, which I guess is not surprising bearing in mind all the recent tariff activity (more on tariffs in my next article publishing next week).
I can’t yet share the presentation I gave, but here is a similar presentation from my last talk at the NYC show on the same topic in case you are interested:
Thanks to the Toy Association, and key team members Anne McConnell and Kelsey Woodford for the opportunity to speak on a very well organised platform.
Aside from my own presentation, I watched a couple of other sessions and frankly, I’m not sure you will find a better resource for industry insiders discussing in depth the latest trends and methods of operating in the Toy business across key functions. I enjoyed a session on influencer marketing and another on Dynamic Illustrations by Carlos Mendoza. Next time round I recommend carving out some time to watch some of these sessions if you want to stay fresh and get new ideas.
GREAT PEOPLE ARE YOUR BIGGEST ADVANTAGE
The area of our work I have referenced and promoted the least is Recruitment Consultancy, this has become one our most in demand services and our primary mission is servicing the needs of Toy & Games companies. We have a social and own media platform which allows us to directly access c. 25k people in the world of Toys & Games from across the planet, aside from which after 25 years I know many people in this business.
So when a company asks for help in finding their next key hires, it’s normally easy and quick for us to get interested applicants, but then our clients also know that applicants are screened by someone who understands the business intimately, and who knows what a good operator should know.
So if you have key senior roles to fill or if you just can’t find someone qualified for a key role you need to fill, just drop me a DM and I’ll explain how we work/can help…
Job Seekers Friday – as part of this work in helping to place good people, I’m going to try (as far as time and workload allows) to promote a new jobseeker every Friday going forward. If you are a job seeker with at least 5 years’ experience in The Toy/Game business and you want me to promote you to my audience of c. 25,000 industry people, please send me a DM & I’ll explain how it works (no cost to jobseekers).
FACTORIES WE REPRESENT
We represent the following factories both in and outside of China. All of these factories have the necessary certifications, have capacity, have a history of successfully supplying other Toy & Game companies:
Games factory in India – supplying major Toy & Game companies with cardboard & plastic games.
Games factory in Vietnam – supplying cardboard, wood & plastic Games, all sourced from Vietnam and Thailand, not reliant on China for supply chain.
Plastic & Electronic Toy Factory in India – major supplier, having supplied 4 out of 5 of the world’s biggest Toy Cos.
Plush factory in India - leading Plush factory with strong R&D skills.
Plastic Toy Factory in China (managed from Hong Kong) – strong track record of decades of supplying Toy companies around the world.
Board Games supplier in China – I have worked with this vendor for 20 years, they have supplied dozens of major & minor customers of mine.
If you would like more information on any of these factories or if you need help with a strategic approach to Sourcing or want to find specific factory types, please feel free to drop me a message.
TOY & GAME BUSINESS CONSULTANCY
In the nearly 15 years we have been in business for, we have advised hundreds of companies, set up distribution into most major markets and helped to accelerate our client’s growth. For more information on how we can help, check out our services here: www.KidsBrandInsight.com/services
Sign up to our Free Toy Industry Journal e-newsletter for the latest articles, podcasts, trends and insights into what’s going on in the Global Toy & Games business, just click here to sign up: https://forms.aweber.com/form/54/1325077854.htm
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