Partnerships

The current economic climate may not be the most comfortable of places to be trading in but it has had the benefit of making us look outside our comfort zones to ensure our business continues to grow. One of the major decisions we have made is to partner with another soft toy wholesaler, a company called UKIC.Whereas we specialise in knitted toys UKIC have a wide range of traditional plush
I am sure that our regular customers have noticed the expansion of our soft toy ranges with Value based products. Unlike the rest of our ranges we do not source these ourselves but distribute them for UKIC

The devaluation of sterling has had two main impacts on our business. The first is that we have to raise significantly more money to buy in new ranges of our knitted toys than previously and the second is that the trade price of new products should increase by 25%

In order to offset both of these problems we have agreed to distribute part of UKIC�s range

UKIC have a strong market in multiple retailers but are not set up to sell to independent retailers. This is for a variety of reasons including pack quantities which start at 96 pieces and a minimum order requirement of over £1000
Our business is specifically set up to wholesale soft and knitted toys to independent retailers which means that we buy in products we think will suit your customers, split the pack sizes down to 3 and allow you to buy individual sizes and colours

Not only does this mean that we are able to widen the choice of soft toys we can offer but it also means that we don�t have to raise huge amounts of capital to do so. It also means that we can spread the increased cost of materials across a wider range

We need to point out to our customers that while we visit all the factories that make our own Best Years product we do not visit UKIC factories. Also UKIC have different criteria for age selection � we insist on embroidered eyes for all baby products and UKIC do not. They obviously have all relevant test certificates but as a wholesaler we have always been particularly cautious and will continue to be so for our knitted toys

We are hoping to increase the number of partners we work with during 2009 and are currently working with 2 Fairtrade companies so that we can also expand our ranges of ethically sourced products If you want any more information about the UKIC product range please email gaynor@bestyears.co.uk