Astra President Sue Warfield talks tariffs – and what to expect from next month’s Astra Marketplace & Academy event

Sue, it’s great to catch up. To kick us off, what set you on a path to working at Astra?
I found my way into this whole industry because I had children – that’s how many of our members found their way, especially retailers. They had kids and were wanting to make sure their children received good quality products.

I was working for a family-run company that was kind of a mini department store. They had some educational toys, but this was a long time ago – 1970! I was a new mom, so I convinced them to expand our toy offering into better quality toys. As part of that, I signed up for Toy Fair. I went every year after that and got really involved in the toy industry. I joined Astra in 2000. When I found Astra, I thought: ‘This is what we are!’ So yes, it just evolved from there.

For anyone new to Astra – which stands for American Specialty Toy Retailing Association – how did this trade body come about?
Back in 1992, there was The Toy Association – this big association with big members – and then there were these smaller, independently, family-owned toy stores that felt they were underrepresented, – and had really great products! They said: ‘We’ve got to make ourselves known and band together’, so they started this organization. Now it includes manufacturers, reps, the whole community. Astra is passionate about getting everyone to work together to make themselves successful.

You’ll be delighted to know I have a question about tariffs – but before we get there, what, tariffs-aside, is keeping you busy at the moment?
Since I came on board, one of the things that’s been really important to me is staying connected to our members. In order to do that, we’ve got to be out there – we’ve got to meet them where they are and not just hand things out and hope they read it. So, we’re trying to meet our members where they are more often – and that includes having more events. So that’s been a focus.

We’re also worried about play and children and adults. We have our Certified Play Expert program, which we have really expanded upon in recent times. It’s about the science of play and how important it is from birth all the way through our lives.

On the events, can you talk us through what to expect from your upcoming Marketplace & Academy?
I believe our show is unique from other shows for multiple reasons. We believe play is important for everybody, so we do more fun things! We always kick the event off with meet and greets, so people can get to know who’s there and feel comfortable. Then we have a keynote speaker – this year’s is Matthew Luhn. His family owned toy stores in the San Francisco area, so he grew up in the toy business. But he was also an illustrator and did things for Pixar and Disney. He’s going to be a lot of fun.

Then we have our education sessions – and offer these, or our keynotes, during show floor hours (which are 9:00am-5:00pm). All of our education happens on a Sunday to kick things off, since our manufacturers pay for the show for the most part, we can’t have buyers pulled off the floor for things.

Then we have a party on the opening evening of the show, and that’s a lot of fun. We’ve hosted lip sync battles before and this year we’re doing Astra’s Got Talent. We did that on our Toy Boat back in March and it was amazing, so we’re bringing that to the Marketplace & Academy in June. I don’t know any other show that does that!

No! If you’re not sold by everything else, Astra’s Got Talent will get you there!
Ha! And then, of course, we’ve got the show floor on Monday, Tuesday, and half of Wednesday. On Monday night, we host our second annual Awards Gala. Last year was our first one and it was great. We felt it was vital that our Gala wasn’t an elitist event – it had to be at a price our retailers could afford, so it’s only $50 for a ticket. It was a lot of fun last year and I know it will be just as much fun this year.

Terrific. And before I forget, who won Astra’s Got Talent? The first one on the Toy Boat?
Well, you’ll think it was a ringer, but it was Victoria Weatherspoon – our marketing manager. She’s an aspiring actress and she did a Tina Turner number. It was amazing. We also had a father-daughter team singing ‘Anything you can do I can do better’ – they were amazing too. We had a juggler… The whole thing was exceptional!

Sold! Now, what would you say the specialty toy retailer community does well that the bigger retailers maybe can’t match?
They do events. They’re very creative about finding ways to bring people into their stores. And they’re independently owned stores, so they can truly curate their products. When somebody comes into their store, they can really help that person and tell them about their products and direct them to what’s right for them.

The other thing they can do is respond quickly to things. If a brand-new product comes out that they think is awesome, they can buy it right now. They don’t have a locked-in planogram to worry about. And that’s huge when you consider the consumer. One example of that is Wigglitz by ZB Designs. It was at Toyfest and took off! They’re these 3D printed mini-collectibles – and made in the US, which right now is a good thing. Everybody went crazy over them.

Lovely! And does Astra also work with a lot of the speciality games stores? Hobby board game stores?
Absolutely. We’ve worked more closely with GAMA in recent year and I just had a call yesterday with Horizon, a big hobby store distributor. We’ve even got a category at our Awards for ‘Geek Games’. It’s an important part of the industry to us.

Great. Now, tariffs…
I’ve been talking about them for weeks.

How have your members navigated the last month or so? And things may well change again by the time this goes out…
Many of the retailers have been frozen – they don’t know what to do. Some of the manufacturers have been that way too. We’re trying to tell them to keep moving forward. I understand why they stopped shipments, but they don’t need to stop everything else. With our show coming up, some manufactures have said: “I don’t know if I should be there… I don’t have product.” I said to them: “Well, are you still planning on being in business or have you already decided you’re going out of business? I hope you haven’t decided that because I think it’s too early for that.” And they need to be there because the retailers want to talk to them. Our retailers are going to be there, and they’ll want to talk to manufacturers to continue to build these relationships for, hopefully, when things change on the tariff front. Now, it’s already changed a little for the better, but it’s still a lot for them.

At our upcoming show, we’ll have tables around our show where we’ll have someone that can look up your local state federal representatives, and we’ve got postcards that’ll have our return address, our logo, a QR code explaining what Astra’s about – and the back will be blank. We can then address the postcard to the representatives, and we want members to write their story on the postcard – because stories make a difference. You don’t just want to write ‘Remove these tariffs’ – you’ve got to explain the effect it has on you, your staff, and your customers. People need to share their stories to help provoke change, so we’re providing a platform to do that at the show.

Great idea. And do you think specialty retailers today have to prepare for more uncertain times? Is that the ‘new normal’?
We all know the only constant is change. There’s always going to be change. What’s important is that we are all connected and that we continue to help each other – so that when these crazy times happen again, the community is there to help and comes up with solutions. Look at how the independent stores stepped up when Covid hit. Now it’s tariffs and we have to educate the public on why China is not a bad thing for toys.

Last question Sue, what keeps you enthusiastic and passionate about the industry and what you do?
Kids are our future, and if we don’t pay attention to that, our planet is in trouble. I have children, I have grandchildren… Play deprivation is causing real problems in society, and so we need to provide good quality play products for our children and the generations coming up. That is what keeps me going; that’s what fuels my passion for all this. It’s very, very important. And our members believe in that too… And our members fuel me as well. I get so much energy out of meeting with our members.

Great answer. Sue, it’s been a pleasure! Good luck with next week’s event – and do come back and tell us who wins Astra’s Got Talent! I have money on the juggler.

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