Toy and Games Retail

Seth Godin writes about something I’ve thought for a while now: that specialist retailers can indeed take on the large discounters:

The answer is to tell Walmart to go away. Toy companies are beginning to discover that they can’t win this game. The answer is to find a new and better and more consistently profitable way to launch the remarkable stuff… Over time, consumers will be trained that the toys they need are only available in places that aren’t Walmart.

Now, I’m not saying for a minute that I think that people will stop buying toys and games in Wal-Mart or Tesco or wherever. However, I think there is a need for somewhere that can demonstrate new games and toys to parents and kids. In fact, capture the kids attention and they’ll bring the parents with their money.

On so many occassions now, I’ve bought somebody a game as a present from Cheap Ass and they love the games, and go out and buy it and other games for their friends and families too. But it can sometimes be hard to find them. Dave and I have talked about this on and off, so it’s nice to see some validation of our ideas from somewhere else :-)