It’s been an interesting week, full of contrasts. I’ve spent a wonderful few days in Florence with Italian content studio Diaframma, watching first-hand how a modern media ad is created. It’s a fascinating process, infinitely more technical and complex than I suspect many people realise (if you thought green screen was cutting edge, think again), and I’ll be sharing everything I saw in a future issue of Toy World. The Diaframma team were marvellous hosts, and we thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the beautiful city that they call home.
There’s been plenty of good news back home too – the weather has finally perked up (maybe that will help retail sales this weekend?); WHSmith has announced the location of the new Toys R Us concessions due to open this summer; Amazon has officially confirmed that it will be launching a new Irish online store in 2025 (finally, the worst-kept secret in the world is out); Character has announced increased profits in its latest half-year results (no mean feat in the current climate) and it’s only 10 days to the Toymaster show (if you haven’t seen our fantastic Toymaster supplement to aid your prep, click here). So that’s all encouraging. Nevertheless, you don’t need me to tell you that retail could do with a little boost right now. Perhaps an interest rate cut in June or July might help? In the meantime, a few people seem to be letting the challenging retail climate affect the way they deal with others…
Those of you who like a good meme will perhaps be familiar with the old man buying a can of coke in a newsagent, who asks how much it is, then when told it is £1.49 says “I’ve got 50p”, slams the coin down on the counter, swears and walks out with the can. I’ve been hearing of a few buyers who have been adopting similar negotiating tactics in recent weeks, and even we have come up against a few people who seem to feel that offering us a frankly insulting amount of money for an ad is going to be a successful strategy (narrator: it isn’t).
One supplier told me that he had recently been offered the princely sum of £1.35 for a line that retails at £9.99 – a line that is licensed and being offered by a UK distributor on behalf of the licensee. Presumably the buyer in question isn’t fully aware of the way pricing is calculated – for example, the fact the licensee has to pay a royalty to the licensor on the full trade price, regardless of what price the buyer pays. In this instance, that would be more than the sum being offered by the retailer – and that’s before the licensee or the distributor make a penny. Now I’m all for a bit of negotiation – I genuinely enjoy the cut and thrust of a good haggle, there is a real art to it. But for that to work, both sides have to come from a realistic starting point and finish where they can both walk away feeling the deal is acceptable – offering someone way below cost on an item that isn’t a clearance line is not a sensible approach, and only likely to offend the seller.
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