Hmmmm, late again!

So, what’s been going on?
Well, as ever I’ve struggled to find the time to keep up to date with the blogging. It was months between the first and the second and about half that this time so it is getting better, maybe in ten years time I’ll be up to one a week like I’m supposed to do.
Gifted have a new outlet in Botany Bay, off the M61, so there’s another opportunity to get your mitts on our innovative range of toys and gifts.
We have some great new additions to our party bag and food box range like the ‘treasure chest ’ and ‘surprise!’ food boxes. Another new addition is ‘the press’ , part of the Don’t Break the Bottle range.

We’ve been getting out and about a bit more, having a successful time at the St.Georges day market in Manchester, where the best selling items were the Cricket sets and outdoor toys.
We’re back in the city centre at the moment doing a week on the spring market in St.Annes square.

Coming soon, the re-brand is continuing and the website is next! Starting at the end of May an extensive re-design of the site with a new look, extra functionality and loads of new features. So remember to keep checking to see how your favourite place to get wooden toys, educational toys, traditional toys ,pedal cars and party food boxes and party bags. Gifted Originals

So...
We went to the International Toy Fair in Nuremburg, burnt some serious shoe leather and generally got bewildered at the vast array of stands. This place was HUGE!
Amongst the more interesting ones to catch our attention were the Geomag stand.
They had some great news that the Automoblox range will be getting a new pint sized addition.
Hopefully the Automoblox mini range will be about a third of the size of the current model and retail at about the £10 mark.

As expected, there were heaps of wooden toy stalls. It was worth noting however that the traditional European contenders were looking increasingly expensive compared to far east competition who, by and large have maintained their competitive pricing whilst significantly improving the product quality.
We may well be looking at bringing an exclusively branded range of musical toys from a Thai manufacturer..
I'm a musician myself and have always been frustrated that kids instruments are often crap quality! (whats the point of a wooden xylophone that sounds like you've dragged a brick over a cattle grid?)
Subject to the product samples passing the test of being handed to the rest of the band for scrutiny (the drummers a beast!) you should be seeing GO toys brand percussion toys later this summer.

On to other news the re brand is nearly complete, only one small dose of indecision to overcome before we have a new logo!
The more eagle eyed amongst you may have noted the home page of the website has changed slightly (giftedoriginals). Expect to see this more often as we've implemented a new content management system that allowes us to easily .

Anyways. . . onwards and upwards!

January Blues?

Hello!
My first ever attempt at this'blogging' mularkey. . .How hard can it be? Only one way to find out.

January can be a tough time in the cut-throat world of toy retail, but it's provided a good oppertnity to catch up on work we were struggling to cope with in November/ December.
Prior to heading off to the international toy fair in Nuremburg next week I thought it prudent to at least get all our existing product lines on the website, www.giftedoriginals.co.uk
Other exiting news is that were having a major re-brand to expect to see some other changes to the site before long.