Children'S Retail Marketing: Types, Benefits & Implementation Guide

Emotions play a significant role in purchasing within the children's toy market—far more than in many other product categories. Your ability to create a positive atmosphere and experience in the store, along with skillfully managing the impulses of both young and adult buyers through well-designed toy store displays, is key to driving successful sales and building customer loyalty.

Today's blog is dedicated to offering recommendations and insights on efficient toy store merchandising, focusing on the layout and display strategies critical to retail success

Key Takeaways

Toy retail merchandising requires a delicate balance between appealing to children’s preferences and parents’ purchasing decisions. Effective store layouts and strategic product placement play a significant role in driving sales. The following key takeaways explore strategies for aligning merchandising to meet these dual objectives.

• Toy merchandising must appeal to both children and parents. 

• Store layouts should enhance the shopping experience. 

• Proper product placement increases sales. 

• Merchandising strategy should consider emotional appeal. 

• Data and analytics help improve merchandising effectiveness.

As a store manager, you should be ready to demonstrate the product and address different target audiences. This is important because the types of purchases and, therefore, the behavior and needs of customers can vary. It all depends on who initiates the purchase.

Let's consider the possible options and what the retailer should pay attention to in each of them.

Typically, this scenario involves purchasing a gift for a child on a special occasion such as a birthday, Christmas, or another significant date. These purchases are usually pre-planned and involve a higher expenditure.

Therefore, the retailer's primary task is to assist the buyer in quickly finding the right product and providing all necessary information and services, including wrapping and accessories. It's important to note that parents often select toys or gifts with a focus on educational or traditional games, prioritizing their quality, safety, and utility.

Children are particularly drawn to novelty toys because they are motivated by emotion and tactile engagement. In this context, visual merchandising along with creating an atmosphere of fun, magic, and celebration is crucial.

Capturing a child's attention is only the first step; the next is influencing the parents' purchasing decisions. Based on our experience, key factors that sway parents include:

• Availability of necessary information about the product.
• Accurate price tags.
• The willingness of store staff to help or advise parents.
• Informing about promotional offers.
• Friendly service: chat with children, offer them to try their future toy here and now.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that attractive packaging and the opportunity to play with toys significantly affect children's choices. Bright colors and cartoon characters are the simplest methods of capturing children's attention in toy merchandising.

Therefore, if space permits, creating themed zones on the sales floor where children can play, and hosting contests and educational activities with prizes, enhances this experience. These play areas should be adorned with products that relate to specific cartoons or toy collections, providing a positive experience for children and a compelling reason for parents to make a purchase.

Global trends suggest treating children as full-fledged clients, focusing on fostering positive emotions and a sense of wonder. A new generation of families, particularly those from Gen Z, increasingly allow children a greater role in purchasing decisions. Successfully appealing to both children and parents is crucial for toy retail success.

During family shopping trips, parents often encounter children's persistent demands of 'I want!' and 'Give it!' More than 40% of parents say their children's nagging regularly gets the better of them, leading them to buy the desired items to quiet the children down and reduce stress. For this reason, retailers often position these items as impulse purchases.

From our experience, the majority of impulse purchases in a toy store occur in two specific areas: the front of the store, where customers' hands are still empty, and near the cash register. Statistics show that about 42% of items picked up at the start of the shopping journey are impulse purchases. This tendency is linked to children's shorter attention spans and greater susceptibility to distraction. Retailers can capitalize on this initial enthusiasm and the unique characteristics of children's perceptions by positioning more expensive items at the beginning of the shopping path and more affordable ones towards the end of the sales floor.

Place low-cost “impulse” products at the cash register for customers who are tired of thinking and making decisions. Make it easy for them to buy something before they leave:  small and bright toys should prevail here.

Make everything as easy as possible for the customer — from inspecting the toy to picking it up and interacting with it. This is especially true for soft toys and boxed goods, such as games and interactive toys. 

Recent studies show that 74% (almost ¾!) of impulse purchases occur due to viewing and attracting attention rather than searching for a specific product.

Use original techniques to attract and “hold” attention, in particular, thematic and brand zones, colors, and signs. 

If there is no affordance, that is, a small gap that shows that the game/toy can be picked up, it will be viewed and chosen significantly less. Also, turn the package at a slight angle so that the product hangs a little from the shelf. When using this technique, carefully monitor the accuracy and safety of the layout.

The area near the cash registers, as well as low-cost promotional offers, is an excellent option for another category of your customers – children who can drop in at a store after school to buy something with saved pocket money.

Competent presentation is the basis of merchandising and allows you to increase the share of impulsive purchases of toys. 

In general, you should define and know the demographic of your customers. After all, it can vary depending on the location and size of your store. If it's a small shop near a neighborhood school, your customers will be primarily schoolchildren with a small budget, such as an allowance. If you’re in a large shopping center, you will also be visited by those looking for expensive branded toys. Plan and manage inventory and display with these features in mind.

The main task of the display in efficient toy store merchandising is to present your assortment as effectively as possible for your chain, skillfully leveraging the psychological aspects of buyer behavior. Customers should be able to navigate the toy shop layout easily. Therefore, the assortment is divided into categories linked to navigation, then sorted by priority and displayed on the shelves.

The principles of toy shop display are similar to those used in many other stores. However, in toy store merchandising, you must always remember that your primary audience includes children.

• Types and purpose of toys (dolls, soft toys, machines and equipment, constructors, interactive, board games, etc., depending on your assortment)
• Age and/or gender. It should be noted that in recent years the gender factor has become less applicable. However, the organization of the display according to age is widely used in those stores where a wide range of a specific product category is presented or this category is dominant, as well as in brand areas and the case when your store has some specialization (for example, puzzles).

When laying out products in a toy store according to a child’s age, remember the key rule: Eye-level - purchase level! Out of sight is out of attention, so place your toys at the right height for kids or parents. That is, necessarily take into account the height of children of a certain age.

• Promotional products, bright novelties and collectible selections. These goods should be displayed outside the main display because children pay attention to such merchandisers’ "reception". 
• Thematic areas. These are widely used and "work" in toy sales because children are primarily visual. Therefore, cooperate with manufacturers and suppliers; receive POS equipment and materials from them on various topics – hit cartoons, superheroes, new collections of figurines, etc.

Efficient toy store merchandising involves strategic placement and grouping of products to maximize sales and enhance the customer experience. A well-thought-out toy store display can dramatically influence purchasing decisions. By implementing cross-merchandising techniques, stores can effectively showcase complementary products, increasing both the value and convenience of customer purchases.

For example, displaying dolls alongside their various accessories, such as outfits and houses, invites customers to visualize the full potential of their purchase, encouraging them to buy more than just the basic item. Similarly, placing batteries next to radio-controlled toys ensures that customers leave with everything needed for immediate play, enhancing customer satisfaction.

Moreover, by situating merchandise such as themed clothing, stationery, and coloring books adjacent to toys based on popular cartoon characters, stores can tap into the emotional connection fans have with these characters. This not only enriches the shopping experience but also boosts sales by appealing to the collectors’ market and encouraging impulse buys.

Implementing these strategies in toy merchandising, especially in areas dedicated to specific brands or types of toys, not only makes the shopping process more intuitive but also significantly drives up sales by appealing to diverse customer needs and interests.

Toy display your most popular and newest products prominently to attract customers. Capitalize on early enthusiasm by placing your premium toys on the first stands customers see. 

Since the vast majority of toy store inventory experiences low turnover, it's possible to track the effectiveness of specific techniques, layout methods, or experiments. We recommend doing this by marking the products that are displayed on different types of equipment, allowing you to track from which equipment a particular item was sold. This enables you to monitor whether items that were allocated promotional equipment or were part of a featured display are selling better.

Planograms are a tool for increasing sales in the chain and an explicit instruction from the central office for points of sale. Creating a planogram considering only the visual aspects of the layout is a loss of potential sales. Ideally, a planogram should be created taking into account data on sales, profitability, current balances and other indicators that are important for your chain. 

Moreover, planograms will help you unify the layout in different store formats and simplify work with its optimization. 

Toy stores are characterized by small size or a complete lack of storage space. Therefore, the display is often created considering the product stock. This is a challenge for planogram managers because it is necessary to form the layout so that the shelves are not empty until the next delivery. If the product runs out before its delivery, the planogram managers must quickly deliver alternative products that will work to improve the efficiency of the equipment.

Shelves designed and filled based on sales data analysis will help you sell more toys. However, do not confuse the concepts of full and overflowing. Get the balance right.

Others' behavior strongly influences people. Children also have the desire to imitate, to have the same or a better toy than a friend, classmate, etc. Periodically, there is a trend for a particular toy or gadget, which provokes hyped demand. Such an unexpected surge or certain problems with suppliers can leave you without a sufficient supply of toys that are fashionable and needed immediately.

However, you can skillfully turn such a situation to your advantage. Tell customers (preferably creatively) that the reason for the empty shelf is high demand for the product, and be ready to offer an alternative from the available assortment. Such alternative goods will be considered more desirable. Parents are more likely to buy a toy if a similar product is already sold out. However, don't misuse this technique leaving too many gaps on your store shelves.

As you can see, there are many issues and aspects of toy display management, both general and specific. Software solutions will help manage them all based on analytics and modern technological algorithms. We created AI-driven merchandising software Shelf Efficiency and are constantly improving the solution taking into account the real practical experience of our customers from various fields, including the toy market.

Leafio Shelf Efficiency can and will help you:

• Zone shelves by a selected feature or a combination of features – by gender, subject, age, brand, and other indicators. The created zones can be automatically filled according to the parameters you need, and you can apply sorting by ABC indicators, sales, stocks, promotions, etc., to them. 
• Implement the function of auto-facing – automatic display of a certain number of facings of selected goods on the shelves.
• Analyze the display and its impact on sales and other vital parameters; make appropriate adjustments. Children's products are characterized by low turnover, compared to food retail, for example. Therefore, the period for the analysis needs to be longer. Using this tool will help you distinguish how effective your merchandising is and how it is possible to improve the chain’s overall performance.

Above, we have already considered labeling as one of the analysis tools in conditions of low turnover of toys. Automation of analytics will allow you to collect more extensive data sets, so the analysis itself will be of higher quality, with less influence of the human factor.

• Create a display taking into account the current stock.
• Monitor the accuracy and correctness of the display, as well as the presence of goods on the shelves. It is possible to implement this by communicating with store employees through a mobile application. You set a task, and employees send you a photo of the result. You will be sure that the layout is created according to your planograms and is also neat and safe for buyers.

With the help of the mobile application, you can also monitor the relevance of the layout and receive up-to-date information about the dimensions of the products, their photos, prices, etc.

Managing the merchandising of a toy store is a complex yet exciting challenge for retailers. The rewards of mastering this challenge are not limited to profits; they also include the happy faces of your young customers and their parents. For over 15 years, we at LEAFIO have been helping retail chains not only to build efficient business processes but also to provide the best service and satisfaction to our customers.

Together, we will elevate the merchandising of your toy store or chain to a new level.