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

The Toy industry does not spend enough time worrying about available production capacity. For decades we have presumed that we can get our Toys & Games produced from the same old factories in China...but things have changed... ...and the pace of change may be set to accelerate. We discuss what Toy manufacturing will look like in the future in this episode.

In the third episode of this podcast series we take a further look at The Future Of Toys, this time looking at Toy & Game Consumers. We discuss what areas could see the most change, the areas which will most likely stay the same as well as identifying one massive threat to the Toy industry  and at the same time one massive opportunity.

In the 2nd in this series we take a look at the most fun part of the Toy business - Products! Most people who work in the Toy business do so because they love Toys, most of us have a collection of the Products we have worked on around us as we work. The podcast looks at some fundamental factors of Toy products which are unlikely to change, even far out into the future, and we also look at how Tech...

In the 1st of a series of podcasts looking at the future of the toy business we begin with a look at Retail - how it's evolved, how it affects the toy business today and what future changes we can expect to see. Many fundamentals stay the same, we discuss these key areas in this podcast, but we also look at how technology is evolving constantly and affecting Toy Retail as a result.

Human beings tend to learn best by making mistakes. In this podcast we look at the 5 big learnings that toy & game people have to make...ideally as inexpensively as possible! There are 5 big areas where toy & games companies can really mess up, listen to the podcast to find out more about what they are.

Localisation is normally the poor cousin to the more exciting and glamorous parts of developing a toy or game product and bringing them to market. Yet localisation is a critical functionality and process for maximising the commercial success (or otherwise) of our products. In this episode we look at the key elements of localisation, and I share a few amusing anecdotes which show how localisation d...

Products tend to vary from category to category, but at the heart of any top selling you will normally find most or all of the 5 key ingredients we run through in Episode 83 of the Playing At Business podcast. We discuss successful products such as Spin Master's Paw Patrol ranges, Monopoly board game & the truly iconic Rubiks Cube. This episode is for anyone who hopes to develop & launch a top-sel...

It's looking like 2022 is panning out to be a tough year in the toy & game biz! The question is what companies can do in the face of a drop in consumer demand. The reality for most companies is that they have not faced a significant drop in market size, at least not for a very long time. For sure companies revenues will have gone up and down due to competition and the quality of their own product...

The world has changed so much in the past couple of decades. Sometimes the rate of change can be bamboozling...but there are some underlying fundamentals of managing toy & game businesses which haven't changed. Listen to Episode 81 to find out more...

One of the major trends in the toy business in the last decade or more is the morphing of the major toy companies into cross platform entertainment companies.  In this episode of the Playing At Business podcast we take a look at this trend, and we also look at what smaller companies can do to try to compete in the entertainment world to capture the opportunities to sell more toys!

There is one fundamental success factor for board games which is overwhelmingly present in the most successful board games of all time. From Chess to Clue/do, and from Monopoly to Mousetrap, any board game which sticks in the market features this one fundamental feature at the very core of the gameplay mechanic. It isn't glitzy marketing, it isn't necessarily a beautiful looking game box, but what...

Toy & games companies generally don't test their products enough with consumers. We all know how much testing goes into ensuring products are compliant with safety standards, but what about testing to see if they are compliant with functionality, fun and general appeal to kids & their parents? Consumer research playtesting is the not so secret, but shamefully under-utilised weapon of toy & game co...

Inflation is very high in most western markets right now. This is a challenge for the toy industry to manage, because our products are discretionary purchases, and when mandatories such as food and heating increase in price, this can reduce the amount of available funds consumers have to buy toys.  In this episode we look at the current drivers of inflation, we look at the time it is likely to tak...

Electronic Toys are not new. The toy business has a long history of dumbing and pricing down electronics & tech in general into toy formats and toy price points.  In the end though, whether these tech toys work or not in the market doesn't come down to the tech/electronic itself. Listen to Episode 76 to find out what really matters even more!

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...

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 ter...

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 I...

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'. 

Sometimes toy companies get so lost in their own internal processes and stakeholder conversations that they forget to think about what their end consumer i.e. children will want out of a product. 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 usef...

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.

This not a podcast episode, instead it is an advertorial in which host Steve Reece talks at length about his own experience in the toy & game business and how our Consultancy business came about. We wanted to put this recording up to explain how we work and what we do in more detail for anyone who is interested. We talk through each of our Consultancy services in detail. Normal service on the PLAY...