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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.