GoodToyGroup_web

THE GOOD TOY GROUP Smith: We have a product director and a design team. The members suggest products and get us all the information for a particular piece and then we take over.We vet the prod- ucts, take care of the design and printing; then the store owners have it direct-mailed to their own customers. Each catalogue is personalized for that store. For instance, if you lived, say in San Diego, you’d probably get a catalogue from Geppetto’s, which is a large toy store with nine different locations in San Diego. It wouldn’t say it was from the Good Toy Group; it would look like it was directly from Geppetto’s. The product and the design inside is all the same; it’s the personalization on the front and back covers that is different for each store –what they want to say, what coupons they might want to give to their customers. BVM: How do you stay in touch with your members and how do you reach out to prospec- tive new members? Smith: We communicate through email, through Facebook, through Drop Box, through Google Drive.We also have a meeting at Toy Fair, which is in New York City every February; we have a meeting in June at the ASTRA con- vention. As far as getting new members, we look at every possible avenue to find them.We do online research, we do research through our trade association, we ask our members.We go to two trade shows a year as a vendor, so we’re set up to interact with anybody who would come to a trade show. BVM: How many specialty toy stores are there in the country? Smith: The number changes and the defini- tion of ‘specialty toy’ is different depending on who you are. Toys “R” Us is considered a spe- cialty toy store by the media analysts because it’s only a toy store, but it’s not one that we would work with. So, the number ranges from 900 to 1,500 depending on the economy and who’s counting. But, that’s the general number. ASTRA is the trade organization for our part of the market and they have excellent research on their website, but they also don’t have a solid number. BVM: So, there is a trade association for toy stores, but your company’s membership is spe- cifically targeted toward catalogue production and dissemination. Is that right? Smith: Yes. Our goal is marketing.We are a marketing company. Now marketing changes as the world changes, so it’s digital and every oth- er conceivable kind of marketing that you can think of, but it started out as direct mail.