Kidult Toy Expert Profile: Steve Reece

So we're going to begin this article with a shock revelation, despite all the recent furore about 'Kidult Toys', adults have been a major consumer segment of the Toy market for a very long time.

Steve Reece has been working in the Toy business since the late 1990s. One of his first ever projects as Hasbro's in-house consumer researcher was to run a project interviewing adult collectors of Action Man, the pre-eminent European action figure at that time. To be fair, that group of people could best be described as 'unusual' at that time, but even back then higher spec, higher priced action figures were made on various brands including iconic action figure brand Star Wars directly targeting adult collectors. Steve has been working with companies to understand the Kidult Toys market for a long time at this point, most industry analysts describe Steve as a Kidult Toy Expert.

What has changed in the twenty something years since then is that new generations who have been brought up on popular culture and pop culture merchandise have aged, and versus their parents generations who were arguably more straight and serious, today's adults will happily buy or receive as a gift a Toy if it represents something they are into.

It isn't just about Pop Culture though, in the adjacent world of 'Hobbyists', generations of model train enthusiasts have shared their passion with their kids and grand kids.

CONSUMER SEGMENTATION OF THE KIDULT TOY SPACE

The following consumer segmentation diagram shows a more detailed nuanced way to approach this space. It should be pointed out that there are those who we might categorise as Kidults who find that description offensive or insulting, they prefer to be known as 'adult collectors'. Our view is that the Kidult space is actually bigger than just collectors as the following diagram shows, so we continue to use the phrase as the most commonly accepted descriptor.

If you want more detail on the segmentation of the Kidult Toy market, you can read a more in depth article we published here: https://www.toyindustryjournal.com/post/a-deeper-examination-of-the-kidult-toy-space-consumer-segmentations

And if you are interested in our Kidult Toy Expert Consultancy services, just click here for further details: https://www.kidsbrandinsight.com/services

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Why Successful Amazon Toy Sellers Should Diversify Into Offline Sales

One of the major trends in the Toy & Game business in the last decade has been the growth of companies coming from outside the Toy & Game business and successfully establishing themselves across multiple markets via Amazon. These companies use their knowledge of tech and algorithms to beat established traditional players who see Amazon as one sales opportunity alongside bricks and mortar retail and the e-commerce sites of major mass market retailers.

Because these companies have no set parameters in terms of their own 'business as usual' they can invest more in advertising than the incumbent companies and they can adapt both their approach, but also their product development around what works best on Amazon's platform alone.

The challenge though for these disruptors in the Toy & Games business is that their eggs are firmly over weighted in one basket. Like all tech driven platforms, Amazon's method of operation, algorithms and trading terms can be changed at any time, and this can cause problems. No prudent business owner should be happy to have one retail platform alone dominate their revenues.

Once a company has established a successful business selling Toys & Games on Amazon, strategically speaking they need to work out how to diversify so that their entire business is not reliant on one platform.

In the last ten years, we have Consulted for a few dozen companies to help them establish 'traditional' Toy market distribution. We have helped them build up sales rep networks in some markets, selling in to book stores, bricks and mortar mass market chains, independent/mom & pop stores and beyond. We have also helped them set up a matrix of international Toy distributors and Board Games Distributors in countries as diverse as India, Korea, Australia, Germany, Canada and beyond.

If you are successful at developing and selling Toys & Games via Amazon, the good news is that your products have already accumulated enough social proof and industry kudos to be attractive to other distribution channels. Some of our clients have hundreds of thousands of positive reviews on Amazon across their product portfolios, other retailers, distributors and sales reps are very keen to sell products with such a high level of proof of value and positive consumer reception. For typical retailers, the biggest concern they have is whether products they buy will sell off their shelves, so if they can see that the products have already sold good quantities and been positively reviewed by consumers they are much more likely to want to list those products.

There are some sensitivities when it comes to setting up Toy & Game distributor networks though. Amazon's pricing policies can cause challenges for other less dynamic retailers, and as such, distributors do sometimes have to be persuaded to take a product without getting the rights to sell on Amazon, but there are ways and means of persuading them on how to manage this.

If you are a successful seller of Toys or Games on Amazon, and you have ever asked yourself 'How can we sell our products offline, in bricks and mortar retail around the world?', then we may be able to help you. We have undoubtedly already worked with companies like yours with the same challenges and opportunities. For more information on how we can help, how we work and our fees, just click here: https://www.kidsbrandinsight.com/services

That is why (& how) successful Amazon Toy Sellers should diversify into offline sales!

Steve Reece: UK Toy Expert & European Toy Expert

Steve Reece is the Managing Director of Kids Brand Insight, a Toy expert Consultancy. Having trained in market research (back in the days before research morphed into consumer insight), Steve started working on testing Toy & Game products with children and families in the late 1990s for a leading market research agency in the UK, before moving into the Toy & Game business full time as Hasbro's in house researcher in Europe.

Steve then went on to run various pan-European research studies, as well as running qualitative research tests in the UK. Following this Steve moved into Brand Management with Hasbro, managing iconic brands such as Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit and Play-Doh across more than 40 European sales territories.

Steve then lead a couple of highly successful start ups - one for a major Toy company, and one in the realm of Board Games, before setting up Kids Brand Insight back in 2011. Since then, he has worked as an international Toy expert Consultant with particular expertise on the UK Toy market and European Toy market.

Today, Kids Brand Insight consults with international Toy & Game companies of all shapes and sizes, applying expert knowledge across the world of Toys, but especially in the UK and Europe.

For more information on our Toy Expert and Board Games Expert services, just get in touch via the 'Contact' page.