Playing At Business - toy & game business podcast with Steve Reece

Creative Play toys have been around for a long time, but this isn't an easy space with so many generic stationery products and 'Me too' generic kits for sale straight from the factory gate in China.

In Episode 75, we take a look at the key success factors, and how companies can build brands in this space & win over the long term.

With soaring container shipping prices, Covid lockdowns and rising costs in China, many toy companies have begun to look at 'Nearshore' option for manufacturing.

We run through the pros, cons and realities of Nearshoring in this episode of the Playing At Business podcast.

Not that many people know that the video game business was considered to be part of the broader toy business for quite some time before it eventually became clear that the Video Games business was a bigger beast than its parent!

In this episode of the Playing At Business podcast we talk through the differences between the Toy and the Video games business models, as well as looking at other points of intersection between the two.

Toy companies (both big & small) rely heavily on the factories they work with. Every time they produce a toy your reputation and potentially your business rest on the factory & their complying with safety, ethical and quality standards. Competitive pricing is also a concern of course, manufacturing spend is the biggest cost for toy & game companies, so comparatively small savings in percentage terms can add to up to significant money.

In Episode 72 of the PLAYING AT BUSINESS podcast we take a look at how to find and then validate good reliable toy factories. We have worked with many different factories in different factories over the years, and we have introduced more than 100 toy & game companies to new factories. The things we learnt during this process are shared in this podcast.

The toy business is moving from a single hub (China) sourcing model to a multi-hub model. India is the only other country with comparable population size, with abundant cheap production line labour and existing industrial capacity and domain expertise in plastics. There are many more reasons though why India's rise in toy manufacturing is an inevitability.

The current manufacturing solutions in India are not perfect, but as the toy business begins to clamour for ever more production capacity outside of China, only India has the potential to scale up capacity to levels like we have seen develop in China over the last 30 years or so.

More on all this in Episode 71 of the Playing At Business podcast.

There are some core fundamental practises that successful toy & games companies follow. If you look at any company operating in the toy biz with longevity and success, they will no doubt be following these 10 'Commandments'.

We run through how to make toys that kids will want in this episode of the Playing At Business podcast.

France is one of Europe's 'BIG 3' toy & game markets. In this episode we speak to Yann Fresnel (of Toy Influence), who has extensive commercial experience in the French toy market. We discuss his career in toys, what companies need to understand about the market in France and also look at how his company helps with market entry in 'La Republique francaise'.

This episode contains a lot of very useful and insightful information - for example we discuss how the Games category accounts for nearly one fifth of the entire toy market in France. For more key information and tips on how to get ahead in the toy market in France, listen to this episode now!

Selling your products into Retail is rarely easy, but getting into those accounts in the first place is one of the hardest elements of starting a toy or game business. Even for established companies persuading new customers to come on board can be tough. In this episode of PLAYING AT BUSINESS podcast we take a look at this topic and look at some fundamentals of acquiring new customers.

The only constant is change! The toy & game business is ever evolving. Over time we have observed many fundamental changes in the business itself but also in the world around us which also affects the world of toys.

In this episode we run through the 10 biggest changes we have observed over time, and how that helps us predict & prepare for the future.