Small firms receive valuable advice at Toy Fair
By Joyce M. Rosenberg
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Most of the manufacturers at this year's Toy Fair weren't big names like Mattel and Hasbro — they were businesses like Kids Corral, Ooz and Oz and Playhard.
Associated Press
Most of the 1,500 participants at the toy industry's big trade show last month were small companies aiming to build their businesses, rather than big concerns out to take over the market with the next Cabbage Patch Kid or Talking Elmo.
Jeff Scott, co-owner of Playhard Inc. of Boulder, Colo., attended the Toy Fair in New York City with his Flashlight, a flying disc that lights up.
Jeff Scott's company, Playhard Inc., went to Toy Fair with Flashflight, a flying disc that lights up. It was the Boulder, Colo., firm's first visit to the show, and Scott said, "We had a great success."
Scott said Playhard got several orders, but more important, he and his co-owners got some solid advice about areas such as packaging, pricing and marketing from retailers who stopped by their booth.
For him, the best part of Toy Fair was "having those professionals take us under their wing and provide us with information, saying, 'Jeff, this is where you need to go with it.' "
Kids Corral, which takes parents' ideas for toys and games and markets them, had a similar approach.
"It was not a situation where we wanted to come out and sell a lot of products," said company president Morgan Reynolds. "We got a chance to meet quite a few people and explain who we were and meet a lot of store owners. It was very educational for us and that's what we wanted it to be."
Reynolds said his New York-based company didn't even take order forms to Toy Fair, but will follow up with the contacts it made.
Kids Corral's approach is one recommended for any small company attending a trade show — it's more important to make contacts and get feedback on products and services than it is to write orders. And many companies that go to Toy Fair as prospective customers aren't looking to order merchandise on the exhibition floor; deals are often firmed up weeks or months later.
WizKids, a Bellevue, Wash.-based maker of boys' games, found that preparation can help turn a trade show into a success for a small company. WizKids set up appointments with customers and the media in advance of Toy Fair, and ended up with 142 meetings in six days, said Martin Stever, executive vice president.
The company was introducing Shadow Run and Creepy Freaks, two new games, and with all the appointments it made, found visitors to its showroom more enthusiastic than WizKids executives expected.
