sweet floam - imagearea.co.uk
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sweet floam - imagearea.co.uk
30 TN60.final 24/7/06 5:24 pm Page 1 30 ToyNews August ‘06 www.toynewsmag.com BRAND FOCUS FLOAM Floam sweet floam Distributor The In Thing may just have this year’s hit craze on its hands with quirky modeling putty Floam. Is Floam the answer to retails woes? Jon Salisbury grabs a chat with MD, Paul Jackson to find out….. FLOAM is the product sold by The In Thing that has been hitting the headlines recently and winning big retail support in the UK. But how did the firm end up in the toy market? Paul Jackson started in retail and once owned a number of greeting card/gift shops, so he was ideally placed to see what was happening at the sharp end of the business and the kind of products that were driving huge volumes. When Ty Beanie Babies started to sell extremely well in the late 90s, he quickly realised that there was a huge demand from the secondary market for retired and rare styles, while the strict account opening conditions enforced by Ty Europe meant that there was a massive number of retailers who wanted to stock Ty products but were not allowed. Bingo, a profitable business was born. “The In Thing was formed in early 2000 selling mainly Ty beanies plus Pokémon from a very small spare storeroom above one of my shops,” Jackson recalls. “I started with just two staff, who still work for The In Thing today, and the rest, as they say is history. We now have 33 staff and operate out of a 12,000 square foot purpose built unit.” That unit is in Accrington in Lancashire. The In Thing has over 20 working websites, with its main two being TheInThing.com for wholesale and distribution and IWantIWant.com for retail. Jackson has definitely made the web work for him and is not scared of developing different sites for different occasions. “We have numerous ‘mini sites’ that are usually specific to certain products that we are concentrating on at the time.” The edges are definitely being blurred between supplier and retailer these days but Jackson considers himself to be a wholesaler/distributor and takes advantage of the firm’s extensive e-commerce capabilities with retail websites. But always selling at the suggested RRP so as not to upset the retailers that it supplies. To quote from the firm’s site: “As a reseller, choose any number of our 3,500+ products and sell them in your shop, on eBay or on your website. As a manufacturer, we can offer you a virtual warehouse with next day fulfilment for all your retail needs”. The In Thing can post direct to resellers’ customers with despatch documents detailing their company logo without the hassle of buying, holding or shipping stock as it has the infrastructure to handle thousands of orders a day. Floam is one product that The In Thing has been selling that really seems to have caught the public and the trade’s imagination. It has even led to the introduction of a new verb in the language of the toy trade: to floam. The majority of interest for Floam has originated from the United States where it’s huge. Paul Jackson Floam is described as a microbead compound, a modeling clay crossed with porridge. With hundreds of tiny balls that give it a stretchy quality, a lightweight feel and a funky texture and manages to stick to almost everything without being messy. It’s squishy, stretchy and can transform anything into a Floam creation. Readers may recall the original Floam being sold by Mattel under licence from Nickelodeon. “I researched Floam and immediately knew it was perfect for The In Thing, so contacted the New York-based manufacturers and initiated discussions regarding distribution rights in the UK. A distribution agreement was signed in early April for TheInThing.com to distribute Floam on behalf of the SAS Group of New York to the UK and Ireland. We have recently afforded Magsons a sub distribution agreement to further increase the availability of Floam.” With over 3,500 products in its range at any one time, The In Thing has to constantly update its range with hot, topical products. “We have recently secured the sole UK distribution rights to another superb toy based product that we will be launching in either early September or mid-December,” says Jackson. “We are very confident that this new product will prove as popular, if not more popular, than Floam.”