Posted by jim on April 8, 2009 under Consumer Experience, Toy Trends | 
Q: What’s more fun than creatures from an alternate Earth dimension known as Vestroia? (aka Bakugan Battle Brawlers)
A: That’s easy. Those crazy tribes from that distant island of Gorm. The Gormiti.
The Gormiti are Coming!
My ten year old nephew told me months ago that Gormiti was the next “thing”. I don’t think he’s into it – nor is he into Bakugan anymore – but he let me know Gormiti was coming. So being the opportunist that I am, I looked into it. And, I think he has a point.
Convinced that we needed this product, I searched far and wide to find a distributor. It turns out that Playmates Toys is the US distributor of this Italian born product. I found myself an old school distrubutor out of Brooklyn NY – and finally, product is on the way. We should have it up on the web site in a week or so.
In the meantime, check out Gormiti.com and YouTube.com.
Posted by jim on October 29, 2008 under Consumer Experience, Toy Trends |
Bakugan Battle Brawlers have made pretty much every top toy list for Christmas 2008 including Time To Play’s Most Wanted List, the Toys “R” Us Fabulous Fifteen, and the Toy Retailers Association Dream Toys for 2008 – just to name a few. Fortunately, we started carrying them earlier this year and gave the toys some prime real estate on the front cover of our Christmas toy flyer.
The only problem, and this is no small obstacle, is that in typical Hot Christmas Toy fashion there now appears to be a shortage. Our inventory has dwindled down to practically nothing. I have been begging my supplier for almost 2 months, but still no stock replenishment. The excuses have even lost any flavor – now it’s just “who knows with this company” and “still nothing in”.
Bloggers have offered the new term “Bakugone“. Parents are already lamenting the scarcity. I did find this update from a CBS affiliate in Miami, CBS4. Apparantly, Spin Master – the manufacturer responsible for this phenomenon – has “increased production to 300,000 Bakugan a day” (apparantly the word Bakugan is like “deer”) and Spin Master “is air freighting everything to their North American distribution centers as quickly as possible.”
One can only hope.
Posted by jim on September 11, 2008 under Toy Trends |
It appears our Christmas catalog is just about set for this year. I have to admit, it was a bit of a struggle to put together, but I am really pleased how it is coming out. We went with an eight page format: cover with a few select items (Bakugan and Groovy Girls RSVP among them), page 2 Boys, Page 3 Girls, Page 4 and 5 are for LeapFrog, 6 is Infants and Toddlers, 7 is Games (and a few books and CDs) and the back cover is plush toys.
Gile Toys 2008 Christmas Catalog
One of my big challenges this year was placing our Hasbro order. As a specialty toy store owner, I have come to believe that it is important to carry some mainstream items and brands. While most specialty toy stores stay away from such items, I give in to the fact that some kids want Transformers this year. And how can you have a toy store that appeals to girls without anything from Hannah Montana?
We usually carry a lot of Hasbro board games, but had to choose not to this year. For some reason, many of the Hasbro games are being sold well below market value already this season. We can’t put them in the catalog, in fear of losing credibility. We are printing up 20,000 this year and do not want to be stuck with an item that appears non-competitive in our catalog. The consumer usually has no concept of what an item costs us – nor should they. So, we just can’t take the chance. Furthermore, I don’t want to be stuck with a couple of pallets of games I can’t sell above our own cost – we’ve been through that before with Monopoly Here and Now – the 2006 release.
The good news is Hasbro toy assortments like VIPs, Transformers, Might Muggs, Star Wars action figures, etc. do very well. Assortments work for us because it is not usually very easy to find the most popular items in local stores. For instance, a Transformers assortment may only include 1 Bumblebee (the most popular Movie Deluxe Transformer last year) in 8. These are the first to sell in the local retail store. We have a large warehouse space to store many assortments and can make that same Bumblebee more available to the Gile Toys customer.
So, if you are looking for that unique plush or action figure this Christmas and all you can find is a bunch of Chewbaccas that nobody wants, look to the on-line, independent toy store. It is most likely your best chance to find that Bakugan your nephew can’t live without.
