While for many it feels like Toy Fair Season has only just finished, and numerous suppliers are still waiting for retailers to finalise autumn winter selections, some key players from the global toy community will be heading to California in less than a month’s time for the first LA preview of the year. I won’t be there myself, so I will be interested to hear how it is all going from people who are making the trip. Based on what I picked up over Toy Fair Season, it is likely that more people will be there this April than attended a year ago – but that will still represent a fraction of the number who will be in LA in September.
Logically, that makes sense. Assuming you went to one or more of the shows in London, Nuremberg and New York, are there that many new ranges that can be seen which weren’t on view a couple of months ago? Seasonally, conversations are certainly starting with major US toy retailers about Spring Summer ’26, but that remains a lesser opportunity for many suppliers than Autumn Winter.
Are there still opportunities to ‘do deals’ for ’25? Perhaps, although some may feel they already have enough to be getting on with for the remainder of this year. With Distoy out of the picture, will some of those conversations switch to LA?
I am also hearing that certain retailers have been a little cautious with early AW orders this year, so will distributors prefer to wait and see where they end up with selections on their current range before committing to bringing in more product? Or do they feel they might need incremental opportunities in order to hit their projections? Literally every company will be in a different position and can only make decisions based on own experiences.
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