Michael Acton Smith is the founder of top licensed toy property Moshi Monsters, but he’s not content with just one brand. In this exclusive interview, he explains to Dominic Sacco about choosing tablets over toys, eclipsing Star Wars ...
Tags: Michael Acton Smith, Mind Candy, Toys
Toy distributor The In Thing has a host of special offers running at Toymaster 2013 show in Harrogate this week. The company has several exclusive show offers - many giving a 50 per cent margin to retailers - only available at the show. ...
Tags: Toy distributor, Toy
It took just two weeks for this year's Toymaster show to sell out – beating the record which had been set in 2012, when all space had been filled by the end of January. This time round, however, the organisers revealed in ...
Tags: Toys, toy industry
Distributor The In Thing has moved into a new office which is double the size of its previous premises. It also increased its turnover by almost 50 per cent during its 2012/2013 financial year. The firm’s head of marketing, ...
Tags: Toys, Toys Industry
Distributors are clamping down on unscrupulous eBay toy dealers who buy rare figures in bulk and resell at extortionate prices. Known as ‘scalpers’, these traders buy a store’s entire Skylanders stock before selling it ...
Tags: Toys, Toys Industry
When eBay launched in 1995, the premise was simple: allow consumers to sell their unwanted goods to others via online auctions. Today, the multi-billion dollar business has localised sites in over 30 countries. Over 190,000 businesses ...
Tags: Toy Industry, Toys
With Skylanders facing a big rival product for the first time this year in Disney Infinity, how will the products compete with one another and what does this mean for toy industry? "It will be interesting to see how this year pans out for ...
Tags: Skylanders, Disney Infinity, Toys
Independent toy retailers will be able to stock the new Skylanders figures from The In Thing this year. The Swap Force figures, which connect to the video game, will arrive in the autumn. It’s expected national retailers will be ...
Tags: Skylanders, Toys
Just as we were getting used to the yearly cycle of Skylanders announcements, previews and releases Disney Infinity comes along and muddies the waters. It will be interesting to see how this year pans out for both products, and whether ...
Tags: Skylanders, Toys
"THE toy industry is dead." That's the sort of statement that catches your attention, but I can't claim the credit for it. It was written by Richard Gottlieb, a highly respected toy industry analyst over in the States. Gottlieb's theory ...
Tags: Toys
Sales of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys are continuing to soar. It's been named the number one new toy property in the UK in NPD's March retail sales data, in terms of value sales. Flair's action figures are also the third-placed ...
Once upon a time, the Star Trek holodeck was the future of play. A blank room with a large console from which the room could be transformed into whatever scenario, situation, environment or world the user wanted. Within this fantastical ...
Tags: Toys, Toys Industry
Distributor The In Thing's fresh prehistoric collectable range Predasaurs will be included in Box of Awesome. Predasaurs has already enjoyed a swathe of marketing activity of late, with 200,000 cover mount samples on boys magazines, TV ...
Tags: Toys
I was really pleased to be asked, as a special needs parent, to write an article for ToyNews. As with anything I write, I think about my approach and I started by looking up the definition of toys. This is what good old Wikipedia said: ...
Tags: Autism Mumma, Toys
‘Toy industry terrified of tablets’ has been a much-talked about subject of late, but our cover story this month explains why traditional toy companies shouldn’t be scared of embracing new technology. To be fair, the toy ...
Tags: Toy industry, Toy