Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Other Stuff

I placed our first Mattel order today. Before you blast me for more toys, note that Mattel has been gobbling up hot hobby store hits over the last couple of years. Games like Blokus and Apples to Apples are now Mattel products, along with classics like Balderdash and Uno. About half of the order is toys, however, especially the cars from the movie Cars, which have already proven to sell well (plus there's another movie on the horizon). We also picked up Cars jigsaw puzzles, and a bunch of Hot Wheels stuff.

I've noticed that ordering in game stores tends to evolve over time. Most stores start out with one supplier, a main game distributor. Many will also open a Games Workshop account or perhaps a Wizards of the Coast account if they're event driven. I don't open either until a couple of years in, but most stores will try to get them early on. Many stores stop there, while a good percentage will open a secondary account with a distributor, just in case. Over the years, successful stores will source product from a variety of suppliers.

The key is to listen to customers and not accept a product is unavailable when a distributor says no. For example, after lots of searching, I found bingo sets from Schylling, mostly known for their toys for young children. ACD and Alliance have both given up on bingo and the classic game distributors are always out. I'm finding there's a certain base inventory that always seems to be game distributor centric. Sales in that base rise as we build the business, but where I see most of my growth is with "everything else," the other stuff. Most stuff classified as "other" rarely makes a top ten list, but it quietly accounts for a growing percentage of our sales.

What is other? It might be stuff you already see, but sourced from a better source at an improved margin. It might be just one game that's hot but independent. It includes novelty items like our pirate band aids, indie miniatures from small suppliers, jigsaw puzzles from Germany and Spain, classic games from specialty suppliers, one off orphan games that distributors have dropped, hobby supplies, toys, and educational products.

17 comments:

  1. So you recently dumped a huge portion of your toy section only to place an order for more... toys?

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  2. We now have a track record with toys as well as clientele preferences so we know which kinds of toys work and which don't. Most don't.

    Learning toys, puzzles, and crafts do very well for us, as well as certain nick knack toys. We do about $20,000 a year in sales of this kind of stuff. It needed a serious gutting followed by fine tuning. This is the fine tuning part where we cautiously bring in stuff that meets our criteria.

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  3. It makes perfect sense to me. Dump the non-performing lines, and keep up with what does move.

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  4. I do want to say the down-sizing of the toy department is permanent, meaning the ratio of toys to games will remain low and the floor space will remain fairly constant.

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  5. Ooooooh, Hot Wheels.

    I still buy them all the time, so does my stepdad. If we had the possibility of getting the choicest ones first, (which we've never had because the uber-serious collectors hover around the toy section at WalMart during stocking time; like at 0400 or something), we'd be pretty enthused.

    -Josh

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  6. That's funny. I just had dinner with a business partner who said something similar. It looks like we'll be bringing in the higher end Hot Wheels in subsequent orders. The crazy ones with super fast wheels or something.

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  7. Some of the higher end ones, like the "Classics" or whatever they call them, can be pretty expensive, for what they are. I've seen them marked up $4.50 apiece (gasp!).

    I saw an article a few months ago that claimed that Mattel (and by extension, Hot Wheels) is more profitable than GM. I thought it was pretty darn ironic.

    -Josh

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  8. Gary,

    You might be interested to know that Boom Studios have just launched a kids imprint that is going to have a Cars comic book along with the Muppets and many other Pixar titles.
    http://www.boom-kids.com/

    Cheers,

    David

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  9. Wacky new layout. Your doing Gary? Or Googles?

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  10. I was trying something new. Better or worse?

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  11. Not so keen on the larger font... not with the narrow content panel.

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  12. How about now? I took it down a notch.

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  13. Still not what I'm used to, but it's looking less cramped. It'll do nicely.

    Your redesign is a bit less drastic than mine...

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  14. I like yours. It would do me well with my long posts.

    I like the bigger fonts because my eyesight isn't the best.

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  15. My basic template is Minima Lefty Stretch. I spent some time today tweaking colours for a more comfortable contrast level for me, and changing fonts.

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  16. Liked the old format much better. Can't even log in properly to post now.

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