Stephen Prescott can thank G.I. Joe for getting him a job as a toy buyer.
Like many other North American kids during the 1980s, Prescott grew up
fighting the evil Cobra Commander. But Prescott didn't just fight imaginary
battles in his backyard. He became a serious collector of G.I. Joe memorabilia
and other action toys.
Prescott continued his hobby right through college. One day, a small dot-com
start-up selling action figures asked him to be part of a focus group.
Prescott knew the company because he had shopped there before. He also
had applied there, although unsuccessfully. But being part of the focus group
gave Prescott the opening he needed to get noticed. The company eventually
hired him because he knew so much about their product.
"That was pretty much my number one qualification," says Prescott. His
first job was writing small product descriptions. Within months, he had become
the head of merchandising. "I was going to be an English teacher," he says.
How Prescott found his way into toy buying highlights an important rule
all toy buyers must follow: they must know everything about the product that
they are trying to put on store shelves. More importantly, they have to know
what clients want.
This requires research -- a lot of research. Prescott uses the Internet
to do a lot of his. He says that he spends a good deal of time checking out
sites and listservs where action figure collectors talk and meet with each
other to figure out which products are popular and which are not.
Another way to spot trends is through extensive market research. Buyers
try to quantify all the different factors that influence kids -- and adults
-- when they go shopping for toys.
That, however, is not always possible because the factors are never the
same. One kid may find one toy more interesting to play with than another
kid. So toy manufacturers will often settle for products that have little
play value, but appeal to a large audience. Those products are then heavily
promoted through movies, videos and fast food restaurants to ensure high sales.
Some childhood educators say such toys do very little to help kids develop
and learn as they are growing up. They want better, more education-oriented
toys.
This relationship between toys and childhood development means that toy
buyers have a great deal of influence over kids. They, after all, decide which
toys kids get to play with.
Toy buyer Ray England has thought about these issues and has come up with
his own way of dealing with them. He will not purchase toys that are heavily
promoted or licensed through a large entertainment corporation. He says he
bases his purchasing on design, quality of the material, and most importantly,
play value.
"Toys should generally train and assist, through a play situation, basic
and useful skills," he says. "It can't just be some fuzzy animal that
chirps, and a week after paying $50, is no longer picked up anymore."
England entered the toy industry relatively late. He first pursued a career
in urban and regional planning. He then started to work as a consultant on
pipeline projects. But he eventually grew tired of crossing the vast distances
of the North.
So he and his wife Ann decided to open a specialty store in 1977. It was
certainly a radical career departure for England. But he and his wife were
not entirely unprepared for it, because she had a background in early childhood
education.
And England remembered the kind of toys he liked when he grew up during
the 1940s and 1950s.
"My parents chose [toys] well. Although we didn't have a super number
of toys, what we had were good toys." They included trains and constructions
sets, items now considered old-fashioned. But there is still demand for old-fashioned
items. And the Englands have turned it into a popular business.
Ironically, England still travels a lot, only this time his destinations
include the toy fairs of New York, Tokyo and London. And going to a toy fair
can be quite an experience.
"In New York, for example, if you wanted to see every exhibitor at the
toy fair in the seven days that you were there, you would have one minute
with each of them," he says.
England says a day at a big fair usually begins early in the morning and
doesn't end until the evening. He says during that time, you are so busy
that you rarely have time to eat. And the day doesn't end when the doors
of the fair close. Hours of writing reports about toys that you have seen
during the day follow.
"After the New York toy show, I went to visit some relatives in Florida
where it was nice and quiet," England says. "I spent 14 days, eight hours
a day, going through the material I had collected, writing assessments and
making suggestions in respect to ordering quantities."
But there is no question that working as a toy buyer can be a lot of fun.
Just ask Tanyth Gadon. She helps her store owner select and buy toys. And
she says she constantly plays with the toys her store sells.
She does this partly to learn more about the toys. But deep down inside,
she is still a child who loves to play with toys. And it was this love that
brought her back to her current employer after a few years away.
"I thought, 'Gee, what is the job that made me the happiest, that
I liked the most, that I got up in the morning, and I thought, hey, I'm
really happy that I'm going there?' It was here."