Little Brother Books’ Matt Reynolds talks top sellers through lockdown and making a slow return to normal.
All this week, LicensingSource.net will be catching up with a selection of licensees across key categories to ask them how their businesses have been impacted by COVID-19 and what conversations the industry needs to be having to aid recovery.
Today: Matt Reynolds, md, Little Brother Books.
“Most licensors have been pretty understanding of the challenges lockdown has brought to licensing deals this year. This has been very much appreciated. Obviously, support and understanding from both sides is needed to make sure a fair solution is found on current licensing agreements and terms.
Although a number of our retailers remained open during lockdown, customers were encouraged not to spend too much time in supermarkets and other specialty/value shops (and most other books retailers were closed) so they didn’t spend time ‘browsing’ for non-essential products (including most non-food categories), so therefore missing our impulse products. We also found that retailers were cautious on orders (or cancelled orders) because of this.
Minecraft and Fortnite have been our bestsellers during lockdown and we have finalised a number of new brands including O.M.G Dolls, Poopsie, 44 Cats and Kindi Kids.
It is still going to be a slow return to normal as long as government guidelines and restrictions are in place for retail. Therefore, I believe Christmas will see most retailers returning to some kind of ‘normal’.”
This feature originally appeared in the summer 2020 edition of Licensing Source Book. To read the full publication, click on this link.
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