Mei Man: I drew Superman during the Great Depression

Chapter 204 Show Window
"Is there a toy store nearby?"

Colin was not shaken by the toy return incident, he thought for a while and asked Herman in front of him.

According to the location mentioned by Herman, the two came to a toy store near Fisher.

This is a small-looking store filled with various toys, most of which are mainly wooden and metal toys. The most prominent place in the store is a box made of jack pine ( Ponderosa pine) made of 'alphabet blocks', in fact, this is a very famous building block toys in the early days.

Engraving letters on the wooden square pieces allows children to play while having some educational significance.

Others, including ball toys, metal assembling toys, jigsaw puzzles and skipping ropes, are all common types of toys in this period.

It is worth mentioning that Colin even saw the Mickey locomotive model authorized by Disney in the store, which is said to be one of the most popular items in the toy store.

Of course, Superman dolls are also part of this popular category.

Taking his eyes away from the wide variety of toys in the toy store, Colin quickly saw the box of Candor City Lego toys.

It's just that compared with other toys, the position of the Lego toy box is not conspicuous.

This is obviously affected by returns, and even during the period when Colin and Herman were watching outside, a person took a Lego toy building block box to the toy store to return the goods.

"Sorry, sir..."

Witnessing the whole process of the other party returning the goods, Ke Lin stepped forward to stop the other party.

"who are you?!"

Looking at the figure blocking him in front of him, the man couldn't help showing a vigilant look on his face, and subconsciously stuffed the refund money in his hand into his arms.

Not far away, the owner of the toy store seemed to have noticed the situation at the door of the store, and poked his head to look out.

Seeing this, Herman at the side hurried forward to explain.

"it's me."

"It turned out to be you, Herman, I thought it was some suspicious guy? By the way, what are you doing?"

As a toy manufacturer, Herman is obviously quite familiar with the owner of the store. In fact, all the toys produced by Fisher in the past have been sold in the other's store.

"Don't worry, sir, we don't have any malicious intentions."

Taking his eyes away from the man's hand, Colin made an explanation, pointed to the toy store behind him and said, "Actually, we are the manufacturer of the Lego toy that you refunded just now, I just came here to ask Why do you not like this toy?"

Being caught by the toy manufacturer, the expression on the man's face was somewhat embarrassing.

He hesitated for a while before explaining: "Actually, there is no special reason. I just don't like the weight of this Lego. not."

The advantages of Lego's lightness seem to have not been accepted by the public in this era.

After briefly explaining his reasons for returning the goods, the man hurriedly left the shop.Watching the back of the other party leaving, Colin turned his head thoughtfully, and the owner of the toy store on the other side was also complaining to Herman.

"...It seems that people don't like this toy called LEGO. Although the sales volume of the previous wooden LEGO is not high, at least there are no such high returns. In just one morning, I have received almost five or six Those who came to return the goods, this is not a good sign Herman, if possible, I hope to return the Lego toys in the warehouse to you..."

"this?"

Facing the toy dealer's request, Herman seemed a little hesitant.

"no problem."

On the other side, Colin nodded and agreed without hesitation.

Hearing his response, the toy dealer looked puzzledly at Herman, who also pointed his head and introduced: "This is Mr. Colin Luper, the maker of Lego toys. All Lego toys produced by Xue are in cooperation with him, and he is also the creator of Superman, Fisher's Superman dolls are produced under his authorization."

Through these introductions, Herman vaguely reminded the toy dealer that once Colin was annoyed, maybe the other party would not allow him to sell Superman dolls in the future.

As a nearby toy dealer, Herman obviously has a good relationship with the store owner, so he was willing to remind him.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Colin Luper..."

The toy dealer obviously heard the meaning of Herman's words, and explained to Colin with a reluctant expression: "I didn't mean that, although the return situation appeared one after another, in fact, customers who are really willing to buy Lego toys There are not many, it may be that everyone has not fully accepted this brand new toy, and maybe the situation will change after a while."

In the Great Depression, toy manufacturers also suffered.

Toy manufacturers like Fisher who were able to make money during the Great Depression were obviously a minority. In fact, most of the toy manufacturing factories were forced to go bankrupt at the beginning of the Great Depression. Toys that are still in circulation on the market today include Most of them are old brands that have been produced for several years before the Great Depression.

These commodities have been circulating in the market for a long time, and there is almost nothing new about them. Similarly, in terms of sales, they can only be described as stable.

The Superman doll is obviously not in this list.

Toys like Superman or Disney authorized toys are supported by their popularity, and are easy to sell for toy manufacturers.

This is also one of the reasons why he changed his attitude after learning that Colin was the authorized party of Superman dolls.

During this period, it is not easy to find toys that can really make money. Once the popular product of Superman dolls is lost, the loss to the toy dealer is not just as simple as selling one toy.

"No, you misunderstand me, sir."

Of course, Ke Lin is obviously not the kind of person who cares about the return of the toy dealer.

The reason why he agreed to return the goods was not out of momentary anger, but because he had his own ideas.

"I misjudged the situation of Lego products. Next, I will sort out the toy dealers who want to return them. I will take back the Lego toys in their hands and distribute them. I will focus on putting Lego toys on display. In the toy store in the cupboard."

What you see is what you get, this is a fairly classic way of selling in sales.

Commonly used in the sale of such products as clothing, and Ke Lin also put it on top of his own Lego toys. In the toy store, he has discovered that most of the stores sell simple toys. Toys do not need too much explanation, just put a product to allow customers to make a choice.

Lego toys are obviously not listed here. As a new toy product, customers cannot feel the charm of this kind of building block toys simply through the packaging box.

After all, unlike 'alphabet blocks', the history of Lego bricks from birth to sale is only a few months.

Moreover, the transition process of toys from wood to plastic is also extremely short, far from the accumulation process of Lego building blocks in history.

Therefore, in this case, if customers want to accept this kind of lightweight plastic toys, only by continuously displaying the finished products can they arouse customers' interest. At the same time, after the display of toy products, customers also clearly understand The general situation of Lego toys can greatly reduce the occurrence of late returns.

In addition, although there is no world accumulation of Lego bricks in history, Ke Lin also has a brand effect that Lego bricks did not have in history.

Through the addition of Superman, it can better help Lego open the toy market.

In fact, although the return situation of Lego toys still exists at present, its sales are also amazing.

After all, in addition to those customers who have novel ideas or buy simply because of advertisements in radio dramas, the toy itself has a group of loyal fans.As readers of Superman, they buy Lego toys not only for the toys, but also for the added value of this toy.

In short, with the existence of these readers, at least Colin does not need to worry about the situation where Lego toys cannot be sold at all.

After listening to Colin's explanation, the expression in the toy dealer's eyes became a bit more struggling. He glanced at the Lego toy boxes piled up in the corner behind him, and finally gritted his teeth under Herman's gaze.

"No, Mr. Colin Looper, I will not return the merchandise, I intend to continue to sell these Lego toys in the store."

Seeing the series of psychological changes of the toy dealer, Ke Lin still reminded: "But, sir, next Lego toys need to have a special display space, and you don't have this condition here."

"I will find a way. Just give me one day, just one day. There will be display cabinets in the store tomorrow."

To this, the toy business answered in a decisive tone.

Sure enough, on the second day, Colin saw the toymaker's solution in the shop.

He actually asked someone to build a movable glass cabinet that night to specially display Lego building blocks.

Looking at the LEGO brick model of Candor City that was assembled in the cabinet, Colin naturally had no reason to refuse, and he even "intimately" asked Herman to send more LEGO minifigure toys to the cabinet, including A Lego minifigure of Superman and a green villain of Brainiac to restore the scene in the comics.

Of course, except for the toy dealers near Fisher, not all toy dealers are willing to accept Ke Lin's proposal.

Some of them are because there are no cabinets in the store, but more of them are because of the return status of Lego toys, which makes them not optimistic about the subsequent product sales, so they quickly accepted Ke Lin's request for return, and the remaining All the Lego toys that were bought were returned.

Although Colin understood these returned toy dealers, he also set rules.

That is, in the future, Lego toys will only choose toy manufacturers who are willing to display the finished Lego building blocks in the window to cooperate.

In the future, if these toy manufacturers want to cooperate again.

Sorry, according to the regulations, install the window first.

And the requirements for this window are not just as simple as a moving glass cabinet, but a real window in a shop.

In the next few days, Colin has been working on the selection of Lego stores, and finally succeeded in persuading the toy dealer to display Lego assembly through the window.

Therefore, soon, in the windows of some toy stores, a large number of assembled Lego bricks were displayed.

Different from the ones purchased by customers, the Candor City assembled in the window is a complete version of multiple model landmarks, so the effect is more eye-catching. Feel the charm of Lego building blocks for a while.

This kind of toy, which relies on plastic building blocks, has a charm that is completely different from wooden and metal toys, especially when various colorful Lego toys are matched together, it can make people have a novel feeling.

With the promotion of window display, the sales of LEGO bricks have also shown a steady upward trend, and the original returns have also been greatly reduced.

At the same time, those toy dealers who returned the goods before also came to Fisher to express their willingness to re-purchase.

In this regard, Fisher or Colin's answer is very simple, that is, to follow the rules and sell Lego toys only when there are window displays.

Also because of this, the number of toy stores in New York City windows has increased by dozens in a short period of time, which shows the popularity of Lego.

……

"A few days ago, the toy auction record was refreshed. At the Christie's auction house in London, England, a first edition of Cando City Lego toy building blocks specially used for window display was sold for a sky-high price of 1293477 pounds. This series of building blocks is the first one launched by Lego. Themed building blocks are extremely collectible."

"The Cando City LEGO toys auctioned by Christie's auction house are the scenes that appeared in the "Superman" series of the "Messenger Daily" published by the American Messenger Comics Company in 1932. One of the classic designs of Superman, also equipped with LEGO Superman and an extremely precious Brainiac LEGO figure in the window display case, which was not in the Candor City LEGO toy distribution at that time, it was A special gift from Fisher-Price adds to the value of this LEGO set."

"The person in charge of Christie's auction house revealed that this Candor City Lego toy has been treasured by a toy store in Churchville for decades, and it was not discovered until recently. Candor City Lego Toys in Although the production volume at that time was huge, and it was reprinted and released in succession, there are not many assembled building blocks of the original version that can be handed down intact, which is one of the reasons why this toy can be sold at a high price.”

(End of this chapter)