I suspect many toy companies will be pleased that Black Friday is finally in the rear-view mirror. The original concept has mutated into a month-long campaign here in the UK – and we don’t even have Thanksgiving Day as a focal point for the event. Instead, we have over a month of deals, stretching from the start of November into December. “Is this Black Friday…I thought that was last week?” seems to be a common misconception amongst shoppers.
The problem now, of course, is that the genie is out of the bottle – and it is very unlikely that we can put it back in. It would take several years of pain to re-educate consumers – and in the current climate, I just don’t see any retailers being brave enough to accept lower sales for a few years in order to wean shoppers off their discounting obsession. However, I do hope that some retailers will consider taking a step back and assessing whether Black Friday could be done smarter, rather than just unleashing a never-ending barrage of deals across the whole month.
I noticed a post from one retailer this week who talked about enjoying excellent Black Friday sales last weekend, with minimal discounting, save for a table of cast-offs outside one store. Maybe there is a way of creating the illusion of offering great deals, without having to get too aggressive with new and current ranges?
Another growing topic of debate in toy circles is the active courting of the toy industry by Temu and Shein. Make no mistake, they want the toy community onboard. And some companies have already acquiesced – I saw a sales email from one of the sites to a toy retailer this week, which specifically cited several established toy companies as collaborating with them.
Clearly, this is a choice for every individual toy company to make – suppliers and retailers will have to balance the need to find new avenues to reach consumers with the very real risk of being caught up in the debate about safety and counterfeits. It is easy for me to sit here and say that people should be steering clear, but you can see the attraction. 39% of consumers have bought a toy on one of these sites so far this year, while for youngers consumers that figure rises to 60% – and that number will almost certainly increase in the run-up to Christmas. Like Aldi and Lidl, these sites initially appealed to customers on lower incomes, but over time, the stigma of the ‘digital dollar store’ will surely give way to a wider demographic seeking bargains.
Some of those bargains will no doubt be genuine, but others… it certainly doesn’t take long to find fakes, counterfeits and potential safety risks on these sites. And is that likely to change? I hope I am wrong, but let’s just say that I am sceptical. So, should the toy community endorse this behaviour by listing their products on these sites, alongside products of questionable provenance, conferring on them a legitimacy which some might question whether it is merited?
Read the rest here.