New York Gift Show brings on the toys
By Tina Benitez and Karyn M. Peterson -- Playthings, 1/31/2007 5:00:00 AM
NEW YORK—The Toy Fair previews came early this week as toy and game companies like HABA, Manhattan Toy, Schylling, Melissa & Doug, ThinkFun and dozens more showcased some of their ’07 offerings at this year’s New York International Gift Fair in New York, which runs through Feb. 1 at several Manhattan locations. 
The NYIGF is a growing venue for toymakers to show off their latest wares, according to some exhibitors who spoke with Playthings, particularly those interested in reaching out to buyers across ancillary toy retail segments—such as museum and zoo stores, hospital gift shops and boutiques. For Bead Bazaar, a Rockville, Md.-based maker of arts and crafts products, puzzles and educational toys, the gift show covers all of its key retail markets (including some toy stores), while the American International Toy Fair is specifically for meeting with toy retailers, says Sheri Porsaid, vice president of development for the company. “Here, we get more variation [of buyers than at Toy Fair],” Porsaid says. “We fit any market, zoos, gift shops, hospitals, toy stores.” This year, the 12-year-old company is launching new craft sets, including Beadoodles, mini bead kits that can be used to make up to four accessories; Bead Bags, small bags of beads in Splash, Jungle and other design themes; Teeny Bead Meddlies, smaller bags of wooden beads, charms, and cotton string for making two or more accessories; Lacing Bead Buddies, larger, wooden beads for ages 3 and older that come with charms and strings with wooden box for storage; Frame Ready to Go, a crafty frame set that can be personalized; Bead Chests for storage of different charms; and Pop Up Puppets in Manimals (different animals) and King’s Men themes as part of the Kid Journeys line. Older kids and tweens can design with Sofistikits, which include a small booklet of accessory ideas, and the ABC Pop Ups, which are ABC puzzle pieces that double as stencils. No shows at Toy Fair
Ornaments and paper products are tops for B. Shackman Co., but toys will be just as big moving forward. For the famous Christmas ornaments, toys and novelties company—which first opened shop in New York
City in 1898—toys in the traditional wood and soft fabrics/plush categories are a focus in 2007 and will remain so in years to come, the company says. So far, Shackman has several wooden pull toys made in the Czech Republic, like a duck pull toy that quacks when tugged along, paper doll cut outs, plastic wind-up toys, classic noisemakers, play tea sets, marionettes, puzzles, flip books, masks, puppets and more.
Joanna Durret, executive vice president for B. Shackman, tells Playthings that toys are such an important category for them that her son, a buyer for the company, is currently on his way to the Nuremberg Toy Fair in Germany to search out some new toys to distribute in the states. The company used to exhibit at Toy Fair, but found they reach all their retail markets through the Gift show. However, they are not closed to the idea of exhibiting at Toy Fair again one day. “We sell a balance of paper and novelty, unique novelty for toy stores,” says Durrett. “But [toys], it’s really a category we want to expand.”
Yvette Sommer-Pechanec, a buyer for Petra Toys, Linden, N.J., tells Playthings that the company had exhibited at Toy Fair since 1987, but stopped two years ago because of concern that competitors could easily knock off its products. The Gift show, according to Sommer-Pechanec, lets the company meet with everyone at one spot. "Everybody copies,” she tells Playthings. “We don’t sell much to [bigger] toy stores, specifically, because the classic toy business has changed to more novelty.”
Petra Toys are featured at Macy's and other department and boutique stores as well as in gift and specialty toy stores. This year, the company is releasing its Dropper Popper, a bag of plastic ball halves that bounce like a normal ball; Various Magnetic puzzles and a wooden Melodic Marble Run, which can be set up with wooden slides and a marble that sets off music as it rolls down wooden ramps, for ages 5 and older.
Audrey Storch, president of Jaam, Wayne, N.J., tells Playthings that she hasn’t exhibited at Toy Fair in years because her company is small. She says, Why duplicate the same product in a booth a month later? “I stopped doing Toy Fair, because it’s more of a gift product,” says Storch. “Since the economy has changed so much in the past few years, there are just fewer toy stores and they are targeting the older crowd.”Storch currently sells Jaam's Huggee dolls—plush dolls that have a frameable, plastic face for adding pictures of friends, family, pets and more—to gift stores and catalogues. The products do very well in those markets, as well as in non-traditional sales destinations like hair salons, she notes.
Finding new marketsA handful of smaller specialty toy and plush companies were also showcasing their products at the Gift show, including Rich Frog, Jack Rabbit Creations, L'atitude Enfant, Zutano, Pamela Co., Wonder Works, b*posh and Tatiri. Burlington, Vt.-based Rich Frog is debuting expansions to its upscale lines of baby and toddler toys, including plush animals, rattles and pull toys as well as its new plush mobiles that play licensed Beatles tunes.The company also offers plush books and blocks as well as bath toys, such as terrycloth finger puppet sets for the bath and this year's new fishing game featuring a terrycloth fish and "pole" for the tub. Atlanta-based Jack Rabbit Creations is introducing a number of new wooden toys and plush sets among its full line at the show this week, which includes the sea-themed Itty Bitty Beach Band wooden instrument set; new Boing Boing mice, ducks or pirates, wooden spring games with figures that bounce up when you push up on them; classic wooden string climber toys in bear, fireman, and monkey; wooden puzzles; magnetic wooden vehicle sets; wooden push toys; plush magnetic dog and snake sets; plush play balls; plush animal sets (in beach and farm themes, for example); and new jack-in-the-box styled toys in monkey, dog and pirate themes. L'atitude Enfant, distributed by Crystal Lake, Ill.-based Pint Size Productions, is showcasing new items in its Original Grannimals line of knitted animals available in five sizes (from keychain to giant and three variations in between). Adorable characters such as Lou Le Loup (Lou the Wolf), Cesar Le Renard (Cesar the Fox), and Theo L'ours (Theo the Bear) are joined by a pig, hedgehog, hen, mole, duck, donkey, mouse, cow, rabbit, dog and cat. Additional new items on display include the company's new soft playhouses, which feature a tiny play environment and plush dolls and accessories that tuck inside it, including a Tree House (with forest animals and a an embroider "stream"); a Snow White House (with finger puppets of all the characters and a reversable queen/witch doll; and the Flower Pot house, which includes eight tiny insects. Cabot, Vt.-based Zutano is expanding its line of designer mix-and-match baby clothes with a handful of new soft dolls and toys this year, such as the colorful new plush monkeys that will join Hip Hoppy the rabbit, Baby Hip Hop, Minzi Mouse and Good Dog. It's showtime for toys
One Gift show exhibitor that will be ready at Toy Fair next month with a 5,000 square-foot booth is Westport, Conn.-based Melissa & Doug. Showcased at the this week's fair were just a few Toy Fair highlights like a working, miniature Grand Piano, with wooden piano bench and adjustable top that doesn’t fall down, which will retail for $59.99. Other new items on display later this month will include arts and crafts products like triangular crayons made of more durable plastic resin; paints and origami paper; a Tabletop Puppet Theater with wooden stage and four marionettes; an expansion of the First Play line like a soft toolbox and wooden rattles and pull toys; classic games made of wood like Mancala, Chinese Checkers and Shut the Box; a Monster Bowling set of plush monster dolls and ball; wooden block sets; various religious puzzles in the Windows to the Past line; and an all-new wooden train set, which has compatible pieces to BRIO and RC2 sets. Manhattan Toys, Minneapolis, showcased all their new products, which will also be previewed at Toy Fair next month along with their entire line of product. New poseable Groovy Girls with four new outfits are one highlight. while Floppy Groovy Girls at a lower price point of $6.99 will also debut. Other new items include a new Baby Stella doll with bath and cradle; pirate, mermaid, bunny-in-a-magic-hat and other puppets with sound; and Recordable Plush Pals, plush dolls that can record the voice of mom, dad, a grandparent or anyone for child. Another new line is the Nocturnables, plush dolls with light-up tummies for soothing the transition to bed time.
Accessory and toy company Streamline, Valley Cottage, N.Y., was also exhibiting some new craft and novelty items at the show, including wind up toys; an arts and crafts kit called Design Your Own Clock; and various, playful character clocks, banks, bags, magnet toys and musical hand bells. “We have different buyers here at the Gift show,” says Streamline’s Audrey Langdon, marketing and visual manager. “But we still see some Toy Fair buyers here.”
Specialty toy and game make3r Eeboo, New York, was also on hand at the Gift show with three hot products—The Tea Party Game, The Picnic Game and The Paper Doll Game kits. A Once Upon a Time matching flash card set will also available as well as new puzzle pairs in Alphabets and additional flash cards in French, Spanish, and Good Manners themes.
Melissa Milne of the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based The Orb Factory, says that its craft mosaic can fit in at gift stores, museums, arts and crafts stores and other boutiques, which is why they are at the Gift show; however, toy stores are still a vital distributor for them, and they will exhibit at Toy Fair with a larger presence. The Orb Factory’s Sticky Mosaic sets, which feature sticky foam pieces used to make mosaics on included boards, come in several different themes and sizes. The new Create by Numbers sets of Mosaics each feature thousands of foam pieces, five design boards and picture hangers. "The kits are unisex, which is pretty hard to find in arts and crafts. They’re kits that boys actually like,” says Milne.
For Westport, Conn.-based Odyssey Toys, Toy Fair is still the “big” show for them. But the Gift show is another venue for meeting with newer retailers and some buyers who cannot make the Toy Fair in February. New products on display this week are a Deluxe Pirate Ship set with figure, Fire and Garbage truck sets in the Hometown Heroes line; a new Space Explorers line with a reversible and magnetic backdrop for setting the scene; and additional magnetic play sets in the Animal Adventures 
line in Ocean, Polar, Safari, Dinosaur and Jungle themes.
“We’re about open-ended imaginative play," says Jessica Klein, sales manager for Odyssey Toys. “Toy Fair is still a big deal for us, because our toys are local. We’re from Connecticut and want to continue to keep it local too.”
Other toy companies being represented at the Gift show this year include Aeromax, Blue Orange Games, Channel Craft, Enchantmints, Funrise, Käthe Kruse, KidKraft, Mary Meyer, Noodlehead, Ravensburger, Russ Berrie, Play Visions, Pretty Ugly, Schleich, Toysmith, University Games and Vilac.
