BY JAY FOREMAN
After five of six weeks, the spring LA sales preview marathon is finally over! This process began the week of March 25th for many of us, with key Walmart buyers traveling to LA to preview Spring ’25 with essential vendor partners and finally ended May 3rd!
That first week was reserved exclusively for Walmart US and WM Canada, so, as you can imagine, most vendors had between one and eight meetings throughout the week. While it’s always “go time” when you pitch to Walmart, and you need to have your act together, this was an “ease in” to the selling season allowing us time to develop our pitch and present in a calm and quiet environment. Given that we work with multiple buyers at the store, we were able to see most of them, although not all made it out to LA that week. Imagine if you only work with one or two buyers, and they don’t make it out to LA? It would be a very lonely and costly week in LA.
Week one went great for us given how well our new Littlest Pet Shop line is starting off this spring and Q1 POS in general for our products so far. We always receive valuable feedback about our lines, what’s new and developing at the store, what’s happening in the category, and overall trends. Space at retail still seems to be getting tighter and harder to secure, the push for value continues with $10 and $20 price points being key, there’s still a lot of talk about when moms will finally rebel against “blind” purchases. Walmart is still working through selection and set timing issues. Everyone is still hopeful but cautious about the prospects this year at retail and with toys.
The following week was an “off week” since it coincided with Easter. Many people like me had kids on Easter break or involved in travel sports tournaments. For me, it was both, so leaving LA on Thursday, I headed straight to Chicago for my daughter’s volleyball tournament over the weekend and then off to a vacation in Iceland for a week. If you ever wanted to experience the sound of 12,000 girls jumping up and down with 120 whistles blowing nonstop, go to a volleyball tournament! It’s an experience for sure.
Alternatively, if you want to experience the wonders of the great white north and Scandinavia in three to seven days, you can’t do better than Iceland. Its people and scenery—fjords, glaciers, harbors, waterfalls, and the northern lights—all within a one or two-hour drive from the capital, were amazing! Shoutout to Johannes, my industry friend who hosted me for a great day in the countryside and a wonderful dinner.
Directly from Iceland via NYC and a quick stop to have lunch with my 92-year-old dad, I flew directly back to LA for Target/Costco week. Luckily, my wife took the bag full of arctic travel gear home so I could just carry on a rollie. Oh yes, it’s cold in Iceland!
The week of April 8th was primarily for Target and Costco, with about double the meetings of the first week. The meeting schedule and workload slowly ramped up, with a week in between to keep fine-tuning the line and getting in last-minute samples. We had another great week with almost all the buyers making the trip, with a couple of exceptions. Again, the same challenge arises if your key buyer can’t make the trip. Once again, another productive week of meetings and feedback on our lines, each account, and general trends in the market. It’s not quite Mody Road in Hong Kong or the lobby of the Toy Building, but it does feel like a “community” in LA, especially around the El Segundo corridor.
We then rolled direction into International week with retailers and mostly distributors from all corners of the globe, as well as many of the LA-based licensors. All in all, about 60 appointments in four days, with one straggler on Friday during week three. The fact that international retailers and especially distributors were there means, it’s not essential to present at Distoy in June if you are a US vendor. Makes the week worthwhile for sure.
After international week, there was another one-week break and then the final week, which included the remaining brick-and-mortar US retailers, providing all the final thoughts, comments, and indications of business to come along with discussions about what’s happening now. This was another 60-plus meetings wrapping up a 40-day marathon.
I’m as exhausted writing about it as I was participating in it, and I only did two of the four weeks of showings. Some folks on my team did all four. That’s not to mention a trip during one of the down weeks to catch up with a buyer from one of the majors who wasn’t able to make the trip.
It took real dedication on behalf of everyone from the buyers making the trip to all the folks that have to stay in “pitch mode” for four out of five or six weeks—and a special shoutout to the road warriors from out of town who have to spend so much time on the road. You guys are the best. At least LA is a great place to work from, especially if you don’t have to pay the payroll taxes! So, to all of you who might be jealous of those of us who live in low tax states like Florida, Texas, or Nevada, at least you don’t have to spend four weeks on the road twice a year!
In all seriousness this is clearly not a perfect system for the vendors. If you live in LA, you have to spend eight weeks in “show mode” a year just for previews, let alone convention center trade shows, on site presentations, and at some point maybe returning to Hong Kong. It’s a lot.
Now if you are from outside of LA add as much as eight to ten weeks on the road! It’s a grind for sure. There used to be a better way for about 200 companies and that was Dallas where you knocked out four weeks in four days, but that’s life.
As the man said “this is the business we’ve chosen”! We are all making the best of it. Off to Licensing Expo, and watch this space for developments on ocean freight issues. It’s starting again!!!
