Digger:
Hello Lesley.
Lesley:
Hello David.
Digger:
Hoping you’re keeping warm?
Lesley:
Bristol’s been a bit strange. Parts of it are frosty
and others don’t look like there’s been any snow at
all.
Digger:
Shall I dive into the questions?... Can you please tell us a little of the background to
Magic Dragon Toys?
Lesley:
I was a head teacher in an inner city Bristol school.
Digger:
That must have been challenging.
Lesley:
Very.
Digger:
Was that when you had to be as much of an administrator
and manager as an educator?
Lesley:
Yes. I did it for seventeen years. Parents were always
interested in what to get their children, mainly because
there’s a large asylum seekers and multi-cultural
population in Bristol.
Digger:
Yes, Bristol has always been very cosmopolitan hasn’t
it?
Lesley:
Yes, well about 68% of my children had English as an
additional language. It’s a very multi-cultural
population and new parents, new arrivals, often didn’t
know what things to get. And I’ve always been
interested in toys and children’s learning and that
sort of thing.
Digger:
That’s your excuse. (Both laugh) I’ve got a couple
of surrogate grandchildren via my girlfriend and we go
along to the school plays and what have you. I’ve seen
how the teachers get at least as much fun out of them as
the pupils. (Both laugh) So how important is it to you
that these toys are environmentally friendly? Very I
should imagine.
Lesley:
Yes,
obviously, that’s why we started the business really
because we were looking for toys for our grandchildren
and at the time, this was about three years ago, there
wasn’t very much available.
Digger:
People had missed a trick there. That’s one of your Unique
Selling Points really.
Lesley:
Yes, and the other thing is we want to provide personal
service and a lot of these big stores are so huge that
you go in there and want to buy something and you
can’t find anyone who knows anything. (Laughs)
Digger:
No, you’re right. I was talking to a lady who does
reproduction vintage design clothing and she said
there’s just no choice for anyone and everybody is
getting fed up with the sameness of everything.
Lesley:
That’s right.
Digger:
How significant is the nostalgia factor when customers
are choosing toys for their children or grandchildren?
Lesley:
Well I think people think back to their childhood and
the sorts of things they enjoyed playing with and
that’s the sort of experience they want to give to
their children or grandchildren. The more traditional
type toys are the sorts we sell. We sell very little
that’s TV-inspired.
Digger:
Good. Good for you Lesley.
Lesley:
And we avoid plastic. So tactile toys and things that
are going to appeal to children really.
Digger:
I can still remember the feeling I had when I played
with my favourite toys – a farm, a fort and a fire
engine. What were your favourites as a child?
Lesley:
I suppose things like – really old-fashioned, dolls
and soft toys. And to be honest with you, that’s what
children today go for.
Digger:
Did you have a doll’s house?
Lesley:
Yes I did actually.
Digger:
Shop bought or home made?
Lesley:
No, it was shop bought but I think Dad had done things
to it.
Digger:
He’d added electrics and plumbing?!
Lesley:
Yes, He’d added a few things.
Digger:
Good old Dad. So what do you enjoy most about running
the business?
Lesley:
Although our business is online, we do have a fair bit of
customer contact really and I like looking for new and
innovative toys. I suppose we’re looking a lot to
Europe, and if I could possibly buy from the UK and
UK-designed stuff, I do. A fabulous company just the
other side of Warminster called Tyme Again and they
reproduce swords and shield and the sort of stuff you
see in the heritage centres and National Trust
properties. They hand-make everything there.
Digger:
I know the sort of stuff you mean – like when I come out
into the gift shop at Warwick Castle -
which was conveniently built by William The
Conqueror when they built the castle. They do all those
do they?
Lesley:
Bows and arrows and also the historical bit so that you
can get a plain shield and then add a transfer with
mediaeval or Norman or whatever insignia on them.
Digger:
There are lots of toys that aren’t acceptable these
days that we used to play with, are there? For example,
you don’t see bows and
arrows and cowboys with guns. You just wouldn’t see
cowboys and Indians.
Lesley:
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that
myself.
Children these days are very aware of stereotyping.
Digger:
Are they?
Lesley:
Yes, it’s the sort of thing you talk to them about at
school but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with
children playing with toys like bows and arrows as long
as there’s a safe element to it. I’m not mad keen on
guns I must admit – I mean, I didn’t buy my children
guns and it’s not something I would encourage children
to pay with really. But, generally speaking, kids are a
lot more sensible than people give them credit for.
Digger:
And than we were probably.
Lesley:
Yes. I mean, what do children play with? At
Christmastime they’ll play more with the boxes than
they will with what’s in it.
Digger:
Yes, I have seen that.
Lesley:
As a toy retailer I suppose I shouldn’t say that,
actually. You don’t need to spend much money on toys
because there’s so much stuff you can use these days
and children can have just as much enjoyment from toilet
rolls, yoghourt pots and all the rest of it as they do
from something that’s shop bought.
Digger:
People take the Mickey out of me because I have so many
early memories of my childhood, but I used to make a lot
of models and things out of matches and cigarette butts
and cardboard– disgusting really I suppose but I was almost
encouraging my mum to smoke.
Lesley:
Children will play with whatever’s available and if
there’s nothing there then they’ll invent something.
I quite like seeing them playing with skipping ropes and
when I was at school I would let them play conkers when
it was the conker season. You’d give them a little
talk about what was sensible and give them the ground
rules. But I think children will play with whatever they
can lay their hands on and you can buy them the most
expensive toys in the world and the thing they’ll play
with is some old rabbit that they’ve had since they
were two. What everyone goes for these days – back to
your old-fashioned teddy bears, rabbits and that sort of
stuff. Children love those sorts of things.
Digger:
Do they still do that doggy on wheels?
Lesley:
Yes, I’ve got one of those on my website.
Digger:
Spinning tops?
Lesley:
I haven’t got any spinning tops in but I have seen a
supplier. And the other thing I wanted to stock next
year, and which I was really keen on, was some boats. You
know that you sail in the park?
Digger:
Yes, they were great.
Lesley:
I have stocked stuff like paper aeroplane kits too.
Digger:
I used to make those out of balsa wood.
Lesley:
That’s right, and there’s another manufacturer we
use who does retro games and they do stuff like the
trapeze monkeys. Did you see Not On The High Street - the
last episode?
Digger:
Yes.
Lesley:
They had the toy shop and some of the toys they had in
there were from a Somerset company and they also do
things like Beetle Bingo and all that sort of thing. So
I’m always looking for something that’s just a bit
different.
Digger:
There’s a guy who’s doing Pelham Puppets.
Lesley:
Yes, Pelham Puppets are still going. They were bought out –
I’m not sure who by.
Digger:
What are your best sellers?
Lesley:
Well, anything to do with firemen, fire stations and
that sort of thing. Fire engines – the wooden ones and
we’ve got a nice old London bus which is very popular.
Digger:
The Routemaster bus.
Lesley:
Yes, and the other most popular item is our rag doll
range. We’ve got the whole range and they all look
like the little Raggedy Annie. In fact, we have quite a
lot of adults buying them because they remember them
from when they were little – you know, “It’s like
the one I had.”
Digger:
I was almost tempted to buy an old die cast truck the
other day which reminded me of one I had when I was a
kid. I remember my parents buying it for me on the
motorway in the sixties and I loved that truck!
Lesley:
The other thing that’s been really popular this year
is a game called Amazing Magician. It’s a sort of
magnetic game where you have this little figure and you
ask it a question and it shoots round to the right
answer.
Digger:
I think I remember that from the old days as well.
Lesley:
Yes, from the 1950s and I think it was called Confucius
Says but I found a company that does a version of this
retro game. I got ten in thinking I wasn’t sure they
would sell and they all went out the door before I could
got
them in. I think it was people buying them because they
remembered them from when they were young and thinking
“Oh yeah, I remember playing that.”
So I think there is a big nostalgia factor in
toys.
Digger:
And why not?
Lesley:
Yes, absolutely.
Digger:
What does The Internet mean to your business?
Lesley:
We wouldn’t have a business if it wasn’t for The
Internet. We are purely an online business.
Digger:
A lot of overseas customers as well?
Lesley:
Yes, all around the world. Russia, Latvia, Estonia. I
think Russia’s the furthest place. Quite a bit from
the States and increasingly we’re getting a bit of
trade from Australia.
Digger:
Very good.
Lesley:
And The Internet’s the only way you could reach a
worldwide audience, couldn’t you?
Digger:
You come in and you have a few orders and a few
enquiries in the morning?
Lesley:
I’m running the business from home at the moment. Most
people seem to shop at about 3:00 in the morning, I’ve
noticed.
Digger:
You don’t want the machine beeping at you when an
email comes in at that time of the day.
Lesley:
You’re right. I switch it on in the morning and the
orders are waiting to get packing and wrapping.
Digger:
That’s great. Where do you see the future for Magic
Dragon Toys?
Lesley:
I want to extend the range, really. We’ve just
revamped our website and are spinning that forward in
January. It’s got some more swanky features like a
proper search facility on it so people can find toys a
lot easier and it’s got a pre-checkout. The front of
it stays the same but the way it all works is better.
You’ve got to take into account things like safety
with data protection. We’re also going to have a
Paypal facility on there because a lot of people want to
pay that way.
Digger:
It seems to be the way forward.
Lesley:
Then we have links to a Magic Dragon Facebook page and
we Twitter too.
Digger:
Have you got a lot of followers?
Lesley:
(Laughs) Yes, we’ve got a few followers.
Digger:
It makes sense to be on those if you’re selling
something.
Lesley:
It’s just a question of remembering to Twitter and
knowing what to say. Actually we get quite a lot of
customers driven through the Facebook page, and we sell
on Amazon as well so we get a lot of feedback that way.
Digger:
Excellent. Thanks Lesley. It’s funny how things have
developed. When I was in IT up until the nineties,
people used to accuse us of using jargon and using
machines that they didn’t understand. And now everyone
uses the same sorts of technology and the sort of jargon
we were using. Nobody had heard of eBay when I was first
using it in the nineties.
Lesley:
Funny isn’t it?
Digger:
And now we all totally rely on The Internet and
computers.
Lesley:
I have an eBay shop for Magic Dragon but I’ve also got
one called Spice Cook which is for curry kits.
Digger:
Great, I'm all for diversity.
Lesley:
Yes, well the Spice Cook – that just popped into my
head one day because I thought people are always cooking
curries. My parents came from Burma in the early fifties
but I was born in this country and so we were always
eating food that was totally different from everybody
else. I didn’t realise when I was at school that
everybody didn’t eat what I ate. So since then
there’s a whole curry culture and I thought I’d
stock ready-done curry kits – a number of varieties of
them. And then we just branched out selling kitchen bits
and pieces really. But Magic Dragon is our main
businesses.
Digger:
Magic Dragon could be the name of a company that does
curries as well.
Lesley:
Yes, it could be.
Digger:
Maybe you should become the Pataks of the west country?
Lesley:
(Laughs) I think I missed the boat on that one.
Digger:
Well, if you could get some kind of USP?... Think of
Reggae Reggae Sauce. We love our comfort foods.
Lesley:
Do you know, it’s so interesting because I found a
supplier that does chicken curry and that sort of thing
and I stuck them on the site and they’ve been flying
out the door interestingly which I didn’t think they
would do. And also lots of people abroad are buying curry
kits – all around the world really. Because they’re
small and they’ll fit in an envelope and they don’t
cost a lot to post…
Digger:
That sounds promising for the future. I’m very
impressed. You are literally an entrepreneur.
Lesley:
(Laughs) After seventeen years of running a school I
just came out with ideas from my head and I thought “I
can’t do anything to do with education.” But it’s
in my veins.
Digger:
I think sometimes all the stuff you’ve done before is
in preparation for what you’re doing now. And also, as
you said, you couldn’t have done this until The
Internet came along. The other skills you’ve developed
have helped and now is the right time. Good for you.
Lesley:
Take care David.
Digger:
Keep warm!
Lesley:
And you. Bye.
