So I'm still at work on what is probably the biggest project I've ever undertaken: A guidebook to the modern yoyo world.
This book will tell my story, the story of modern yoyo, and most importantly, the stories of many other yoyoers! I'm covering the nature of contests, the communities we exist in (online and off), the types of yoyoer (collector, competitor, creator, etc) and more. I'm still collecting stories and I'd appreciate it if you would take a few minutes to have a look at the questions linked below. If you have a story to share I'd love to hear it. There are many questions, choose one and go into some detail, think about what you would like to read about someone else. If you have time, feel free to answer more! Thanks in advance!
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I'm giving away a yoyo!Congratulations to Upmanyu Shrivastava who won the contest! Thanks to everyone who entered. Click the link below to enter. All you have to do is setup a yoyo for full loop and try something. Even just a throw and bind. Upload a video anywhere, use the form to send me a link. Winner will be drawn randomly from all entries!
I’ve had a few conversations lately with different online skill toy retailers. What I’ve been hearing is something I’ve been experiencing as well. It’s becoming harder to make an online skill toy retail store work. There are a number of challenges, old and new that are faced by online retailers.
Inventory choices are the biggest challenge. It’s very difficult to decide what to stock. 1. Competition: Do I only stock major brands that have brand recognition? If I do, then I’m competing directly with every other online retailer to sell a product that doesn’t have limited availability. Or do I focus on smaller hard to find products? Then I’m in the position of doing the leg work to help a new or small brand get recognition that they can’t do themselves on the off chance their stuff will sell. It’s hard because I want to support start up brands, but have limited funds to tie up in products. 2. Unpredictability of sales: I have had products from one supplier sell out in a weekend, only to have their next release sit on the shelf for months. No idea why. 3. Shipping and volume: Generally the markup for retail is 40% in the yoyo world. Which is less than half of what you are seeing if you go buy a pair of shoes at a retail store. What doesn’t get taken into account with that number is overhead. -cost of freight to the online store -taxes, duties, paypal fees -cost of running the website -shipping costs (very few yoyo retailers actually charge what it costs to ship including labour and packaging) -promotional costs 4. Dead stock: When I order skill toys for the store, I have to do the mental math of “If I buy 10, at a 40% markup minus shipping and taxes I need to sell 6 or 7 to break even”. If I only sell 4 initially then I’m sitting on funds that could have gone elsewhere, and often are sitting on my credit card accruing interest. 5. Employees: Do I do it all myself or hire help? I don’t have any actual Employees, but I occasionally hire one of the kids from the local club to come in and help with small jobs. I have paid graphic designers for imagery and support for promotional strategies. The bonus packs that go into every box that ships out have a cost that varies. The concrete costs of the bags, stickers and candy are easy, but the time it takes me to package them together is harder. It’s tricky to work all of that into the cost of yoyos, but it is yet another chip away at the 40%. I think the biggest challenge going forward is that it is so much easier to sell products online than it was even 5 years ago. I recently switched the store over to Shopify because of how complex yet simple it is. All of the finances, inventory control and shipping are in the Same place. This means that manufacturers large and small are more likely to sell direct. Their fans are (quite reasonably) more likely to buy direct rather than through a retailer because they want to support the creative end. But it makes choosing what to stock a challenge. I happily stock MonkeyfingeR design begleri because their initial releases include retailers. Aroundsquare releases direct first then sells to online retailers, which makes it harder to move their products. Both brands have solid followings that will buy direct first before they look to Return Top Shop. This is pretty consistent across the board. So where to next? I’m finding myself in a position of having a few brands I know can sell, a few products that I am willing to spend time promoting and sticking to those. I know I can sell yoyos that retail for under $30. Over that, brand recognition is required, and a scarcity market (sells out quickly elsewhere) helps. Do I put money into bringing more brands in to draw customers? Or do I put that money into creating original products with Rain City Skills? Do I switch tracks and put more time and energy into building the local yoyo scene through school demos and public workshops? Or do I need to put some money and time into advertising? Either way, it’s a learning experience that I’m really enjoying! Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments. -Jeremy “Mr Yoyothrower” McKay are Rain City Skills has been a big bucket of experimenting for me. I have learned a lot about running a business, connecting with people and managing suppliers! This will be a brief recap of what's come before, most of which is in various other blog articles in detail that I will link you to. If you are just here to read about the new "Showgirl" yoyo, scroll down a bit!
A high quality throw, but more importantly it provided an epic unboxing experience. The throw came packed in a glass mason jar (so hipster) and wrapped in a hemp carry bag. We included 3 sets of Lego pieces at different weights so you could tweak your center weight. 1/3 every three even came with a Lego minifigure! So, while this throw broke the bank, it started to build the idea of Rain City.
Our 2nd yoyo release on the other hand was a smash. The gamer sold like hot cakes, to the point where I had to do a 2nd run of a yoyo for the first time ever! I did not expect the popularity of the design. I had asked Justin for a design that would be very beginner friendly and reasonably inexpensive to machine for the kids I work with in schools. It was also an opportunity to let Justin Scott Larson have his dream yoyo. It turned out it was a perfect combination of the right design for the time, a great theme and a lot of fun. We did a total of 8 splash colourways themed around popular video games (Samus, Space Invader, Legendary Trio, Madden, Space Invader II, The Hero (link), The Plumber and Leeeeerooooooyyyy Jaaaaannnkiinnnnns (WOW). I did a writeup on the whole story, check it out here. Our 2nd (and 3rd, 4th, and 5th) begleri releases did better than the first, and were another experiment. I followed up on something the begleri community had been asking for, a monthly mystery box. I offered a discount 4 month package, or the option of buying each month after the subscribers received their boxes. When we started the only design we had firmly planed was the updated fidget slingers for september. We mixed up the materials, Stainless Steel, Brass, Copper and Aluminum. Justin Scott Larson and I had a blast coming up with fun and interesting ideas for the 4-month run and learned a lot. In the end it wasn’t a money maker (I underpriced what I offered, and we last minute decided to do the D20 which cost twice as much as the rest). What it did do was work as fantastic advertising. It gave me a chance to really get into the begleri community and connect with players, a chance to find out what people liked and didn’t like and to get to know who they were. I wrote up the story on each bead, you can read them here. Left to Right: Fidget Slinger, September (Fidget SLinger 2.0), October, November (D20) and December (Canadian FOrest).
One of the best parts with the BEHgleri was the community buy in. 2 members took up the call to design a fantastic sticker played with the fact that the design looked a little like a hamburger that I had printed (Travis Techinsky and Chris McCauley) which turned out great. I sent them each 100 and a gamer yoyo as a thank you, and all the pre-order BEHgleri came with a 10 pack of stickers. To round out the theme I found zip pouches that had a picture of a hamburger printed on them! This was such fun that we are definitly going to do it again! The SHowgirlFinally we come to the "Showgirl" The story behind this one is neat. After the gamer was a hit, I put out a poll in a couple facebook groups to decide what next to do with the yoyo side of things. I got a number of responses. I toyed with the idea of a Titanium gamer, and let others make suggestions. The 2 most common responses were "Classic 'O' shape" and "Make something weird". The something weird is definitely still going to happen, but the idea of an "O" shape appealed to me. Going back a couple months, in November I got contacted by a community member Troy Butner who was looking for a handful of people to help him fund a prototype run of his dream yoyo. He had no ambitions to start a brand, he just really wanted to make this yoyo. He got a dozen or so people together and ordered the throw. He did a great job of keeping everyone informed throughout the process and discussing colours and other ideas. Early Jan, I received my copy. Just looking at it, I was in love. 1 throw and I knew this was the next yoyo Rain City needed to make, so I asked Troy if he'd be interested in partnering to do a full retail run. He was overjoyed! The best part, he already had a Rain City worthy name! The Showgirl.
Once we got the on design adjustment made it was time to pick colours! Troy really wanted a throw that referenced roses, so the 3 colour bouquet of shades of red called "Curtain Call" was born. A curtain call is the part of a show when the performers are all called back to the stage to take a bow and the stage is showered with roses! At least that's how it works in the movies. For the rest of the colours I put our artistic director Mrs. Yoyothrower to the task. She reached out to the local burlesque community for suggestions and we got some great ones! We settled on 3 more colourways. The Red/Black/Gold splash that is "Cabaret", reflecting what is often the preferred colours for a high class performance space. The Purple/Silver Orange is an explosion of colour called "Atomic Bombshell". A 4th colourway called "Va Va Voom" suffered from one of the challenges of the business, people going on holidays!. The anno shop had some difficulty creating the effect we wanted, so rather than rush it we decided to wait until after Lunar New year to get the last 25 done in a different anno shop. Of course while we awaited the actual machining and anno of the yoyo came the part I like best, crafting the unboxing experience! I went to a local crafting store that always has tonnes of odds and ends and weird things. I found lengths of what can only be called mini feather boa! So i grabbed 30 meters in 4 different colours.
For the Lego Troy and I hunted and found some gemstones and little roses that were perfect. Each colourway will come with it's own combination of parts. For the packaging we went with a classic black box. Releasing on Valentines day meant the dollar store was full of sparkly things! So on the boxes went glittery heart stickers and patterned rhinestone stickers. To round it all off I managed to find a zip up case that had a rose printed on it! It will ship with a 10 pack of string in it, but it's also big enough to carry your Showgirl around in style! The showgirl is now available at Return Top Shop, grab yours while they last! So a thing that happens all too often in the yoyo world (In the world of small hobbies in general) is that success if often reviled. If you are a small operation, pouring your heart and soul into your products for little or no return, you are amazing, the community supports you. If you get some success, get some sales happening, enough that perhaps you are starting to get compensate for your labour, that’s OK too. There is a line though. It’s somewhere between making just enough to keep going, and making an actual income.
I’ve seen this discussed so many times. “Brand X used to be good, then they started making mass produced garbage” or “Brand Z makes good yoyos, but they are too big now so their yoyos don’t have soul”. What's funny is that this often translates to “the yoyos are too well made I liked it better in the beginning when “x” brand was still figuring out how to design a good yoyo and was dealing with machine shops that couldn't make consistent yoyos.” I think there is definitely a tie-in to rarity being a desire able trait. There is an odd need inherent in Western Culture to root for the underdog. I’m not sure where it comes from but you see it all over. There is nothing more exciting in sports than when a team no one expected makes it to the finals. It might be part of the democracy/capitalism mindset. The idea that anyone can be anything if they work hard enough. But at the same time, we seem to want to pull down those that do make the big break. There is nothing like catching a move star/rock star/politician/CEO in an embarrassing situation, letting the media and the gossips take them down a peg. So where is the line. Somewhere between a brand barely managing to sell 50 of a yoyo and being able to sell 5000 of a yoyo. Is it because at 5000 of each yoyo you have moved from a guy playing with yoyos to a business manager? Is it because at that number you are clearly earning too much money to be in it for the love of the sport? How does one avoid this, or is it even possible? Is it about maintaining direct community engagement, posting videos of you yoyoing, just to prove you still throw and aren't just in it for the money? I don't anticipate rain City Skills ever getting big enough to have that problem, but you never know! What do you think? I’ve had a few conversations lately with different online skill toy retailers. What I’ve been hearing is something I’ve been experiencing as well. It’s becoming harder to make an online skill toy retail store work. There are a number of challenges, old and new that are faced by online retailers.
Inventory choices are the biggest challenge. It’s very difficult to decide what to stock. 1. Competition: Do I only stock major brands that have brand recognition? If I do, then I’m competing directly with every other online retailer to sell a product that doesn’t have limited availability. Or do I focus on smalller hard to find products? Then I’m in the position of doing the leg work to help a new or small brand get recognition that they can’t do themselves on the off chance their stuff will sell. It’s hard because I want to support start up brands, but have limited funds to tie up in products. 2. Unpredictability of sales: I have had products from one supplier sell out in a weekend, only to have their next release sit on the shelf for months. No idea why. 3. Shipping and volume: Generally the markup for retail is 40% in the yoyo world. Which is less than half of what you are seeing if you go buy a pair of shoes at a retail store. What doesn’t get taken into account with that number is overhead. When you add in the costs below the actual profit margin can be pretty close to 0% at times. -cost of freight to the online store -taxes, duties, paypal fees -cost of running the website, time maintaining and updating -shipping costs (very few yoyo retailers actually charge what it costs to ship including labour and packaging) -promotional costs -losses -products that just plain don’t sell, or only sell below cost. 4. Dead stock: When I order skill toys for the store, I have to do the mental math of “If I buy 10, at a 40% markup minus shipping and taxes I need to sell 6 or 7 to break even”. If I only sell 4 initially then I’m sitting on funds that could have gone elsewhere, and often are sitting on my credit card accruing interest. All too often those last 3 end up being sold at discount, so I’ve made no profit even though I’ve sold 10. 5. Employees: Do I do it all myself or hire help? I don’t have any actual employees, but I occasionally hire one of the kids from the local club to come in and help with small jobs. I have paid graphic designers for imagery and support for promotional strategies. The bonus packs that go into every box that ships out have a cost that varies. The concrete costs of the bags, stickers and candy are easy, but the time it takes me to package them together is harder. It’s tricky to work all of that into the cost of yoyos, but it is yet another chip away at the 40%. I think the biggest challenge going forward is that it is so much easier to sell products online than it was even 5 years ago. I recently switched the store over to Shopify because of how complex yet simple it is. All of the finances, inventory control and shipping are in the Same place. This means that manufacturers large and small are more likely to sell direct. Their fans are (quite reasonably) more likely to buy direct rather than through a retailer because they want to support the creative end. But it makes choosing what to stock a challenge. I happily stock MonkeyfingeR design begleri because their initial releases include retailers. Aroudnsquare releases direct first then sells to online retailers, which makes it harder to move their products since the majority of sales happen on release. Both brands have solid followings that will buy direct first before they look to returntopshop. This is pretty consistent across the board. With yoyos big brands like Yoyofactory or Duncan are stocked consistently in many other established stores, so there is more competition for those customers. Their minimum quantity orders also make it hard becuase I can’t generally count on selling 12 of each colour. The smaller brands don’t have the reach into stores, but they also don’t have the massive fan base buying them. So where to next? I’m finding myself in a position of having a few brands I know can sell, a few products that I am willing to spend time promoting and sticking to those. I know I can sell yoyos that retail for under $30. Over that, brand recognition is required, and a scarcity market (sells out quickly elsewhere) helps so at least I know when other stores sell out there will still be customers. Do I put money into bringing more brands in to draw customers? Or do I put that money into creating original products with Rain City Skills? For the last few months almost half of my sales have either been Rain City products, or a hand ful of rarities that I have gotten my hands on. Do I switch tracks and put more time and energy into building the local yoyo scene through school demos and public workshops? Or do I need to put some money and time into advertising? Either way, it’s a learning experience that I’m really enjoying! Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments. -Jeremy “Mr Yoyothrower” McKay Begleri Buyers GuideWhat begleri to choose? Like any sport or hobby, the equipment is both a huge part of the hobby, and at the same time almost irrelevant. If you play basketball, you need to have a ball. But do you need to have the $200 official NBA ball to start with, or will the $5 thrift store ball work to get you going? Yoyo players face this dilemma all the time, and the question was answered a few years ago when a World Champion won the national title with a $12 beginner yoyo. The simple answer is that you need whatever you can get your hands on that will work to build the skills. After that everything is ‘want’ The available products on the market range from $1 for a set of mass produced plastic cheap quality Chinese beads to near $100 for high end titanium beads. The joy of begleri is that unlike yoyo or kendama, precision and balance are less a factor. You need a pair of beads that are reasonably close to the same shape and weight, but they can be hand made, crafted from just about anything you can get your hands on. The standard cord to use is paracord, but you can make you own cord out of anything that isn’t going to snap when slinging and will hold a knot. Once you get past the start up and into the area of “want” you are looking at a wide range of choices. I’m going to cover a few options in different price ranges with some of my opinions on them. I’ll be sticking to beads I’ve actually played with, which for the most part limits the discussion to what I stock at Return Top Shop. Take it with the grain of salt that I’m not an expert, and I’m not you. My tastes won’t be your tastes. I’m dividing this into 4 categories: 1. Beginner/inexpensive beads 2. As-is beads (not modifications or upgrades available) 3. Modular beads 4. High-End/Collectable
The Pros: They don’t break your stuff when you fling them across the room, they bounce when you drop them so they are an easy pick up when you drop while walking and slinging. The Cons: The balls are very large relative to most peoples hands, limiting your trick options. They are also ‘tacky’ and don’t slide between the fingers easily. The cord is tricky to change so you are generally stuck with the length of the band that comes with it.
2. As-is beads There are a lot of these on the market. They are the easiest and usually cheapest thing to make as you are just dealing with the machining of a single part. There are a wide range of these available on the market in general in a variety of materials. The Aroundsquare Everyman AL sport and the R2FG ACM are great starter sets. The Rain City Skills "October" beads have a bit more weight and momentum to them. The Pros: Simple and usually less expensive. There are a variety of designs on the market. So you can try different shapes and sizes The Cons: Not adaptable, the weight is set so if you see a shape you like you have to adapt your style to it’s weight. 3. Modular Beads
4. High End/Collectables There are many makers that only sell direct and as such you can hunt to find collectable begleri sets that aren’t available in retail stores. Some such sets are made of Titanium (The A02 Titans, the MonkeyfingeR Ti Ape Grapes and Kokonutz). The Zeekio Hand Painted Steel are a head addition to a collection. Finally the Kudos Begleri offer a variety of wood/metal combinations. If you have found yourself with the collecting bug I suggest you join one of the online begleri communities to see what else is out there. I’ve linked a few below and there are many more to be found. I've talked about what I carry at Return Top Shop, but there is a wealth of variety out there. Below are links to a few other brands that you can generally only get in one place. I encourage you to look around, try different things and see what works for you!
MonkeyfingeR Aroundsquare - Wide range of products Sketch Begleri - Monkey Fist style begleri TGP - One of the longest running makers, plenty of original designs. Butterfield Machine Gumdrops Begleri - Very active in the Begleri community, head to Begleri USA on Facebook to read her weekly posts Thanks for reading! Feel free to add to this overview in the comments, I’m happy to update it with feedback from the community. Facebook - This links to what seems to be the biggest group, but there are a bunch of others that are pretty easy to find. Discord - There is at least 1 begleri channel I know of but you need an invite. Use the contact form to send me an email if you are interested in joining. Instagram - Not much for discussion but a lot of people post videos and pictures there. Just poke around #begleri The Costs of yoyo contestsYoyo contest organizing. If you have ever organized a contest, my hat is off to you. It’s not an easy thing. Even the smallest local contest organizer has a lot of responsibility. It’s not a thankless job, the people that attend are always very appreciative, but as far as recognition outside of that, not much happens (and if you are running the World Championship you usually get a pile of negativity). Having said that, this article isn’t about complaining, it’s about giving you a realistic outline of what goes into running a contest. Who knows, you might actually want to run one after reading this! At the very least you might look at approaching the local contest organizer and offering to help out. For anyone who has attended a contest, you know there are some things to expect. You can generally expect qualified judges and a stage. You can expect to see vendor tables where you can do some shopping , a practice area and somewhere to sit. There’s a sound system for the music and nowadays there is an expectation of a live stream, or at least high quality video is posted to youtube afterward. There are prizes, often a raffle. A good contest usually has access to food and drink as well. You also might notice the banner with the sponsor’s logos on it. Generally this is all put together a handful of people, headed up by a single person.
Chris Mikulin at the judges table at Western Canadian Regionals 2013 Beyond that most of what is needed is volunteers – an MC, registration desk, raffle ticket sales, setup crew. It’s a big job to put together even a small contest. My hard costs for a small contest are usually just under $1000CAD. It’s a stretch to get that back between limited sponsor cash, raffle and registration fees. Sometimes I do, sometimes I just have to cover the additional costs myself. The upside to running a store at the event is that my table profits are usually at least close to enough to cover the difference Here is a sample breakdown for Western Canadian Regionals and Canadian Nationals. For the most part I treat these two the same. I’m usually either running one or the other as Canadian Natinoals alternates east coast/west coast. So When I’m not running nationals, WCR serves as a replacement west coast contest for those that can’t travel. As far as the main tasks go they are usually close to the same, with scaled up costs. A larger/nicer venue is needed, everything else costs a little more.
3. For a national contest we are usually able to get more cash sponsorship, sometimes up to a total of $1000. The banner cost goes up as you need a bigger one for a bigger stage, so usually around $200 for that.
Canada is small beans in the yoyo world. Our community is limited by geography and access to yoyos (The word yoyo is trademarked). Step outside and things get bigger. A few years ago the Vancouver group considered putting in a bid to host worlds’. We ended up deciding it wasn’t feasible due to cost. Getting a large enough venue and covering all of the associated costs was going to end up requiring somewhere between $100 000 and $140 000. No one around here had the cash for that, and we didn’t feel confident we would be able to recoup the costs. I don't know what costs are for contests outside of Canada, but they probably vary based on size and location. If you life in a major city, venue costs will be likely be a lot higher than a small town. Steve Brown recently replied to a question on Facebook regarding contest costs by providing a per minute cost breakdown of a couple contests he runs which maker for interesting reading. I've quoted them below.
For a 6 hour Canadian Nationals that works out to about $400 per hour or around $6.50 per hour.
Food for thought for sure. I think I’ll leave the massive contests to the people who have the knowledge and skill set to organize something that large, but I’m content to keep running our small Canadian events. More than anything what makes it possible is the huge amount of local support I have from parents and yoyoers alike. When I am putting on an event all I have to do is post “I need someone to do _______ at the contest” and I always get a volunteer. Yoyo is not a major sport. I don’t see it ever becoming a major sport. Volunteers will always be what makes our happy little corner of nerdsville run. If you have made it through this article, feel free to join in the comments. I’d love to hear either your experiences running a contest, or a shout out for volunteers that have made your corner of the yoyo world a better place! As a little bonus, use the code “contestblog” to get 15% off any new “Vosun”, or "Magic Yoyo toys between now and October 31st!
I think everyone hits this point from time to time. When you pull out your yoyo it’s easier to slip into the comfortable groove of the combos you’ve worked hard to master and get smooth. If you have only got a few minutes to yoyo then you don’t want to get partway into learning a trick only to stop and have to go back and start again next time. A piece of it is screen time. My yoyoing practice time has always been when I’m out walking. When I started I spent a lot of time watching tutorials, but over the years my screen time has shifted more to sales and promotion, from King Yo Star to Return Top Shop to Rain City Skills. When I am out walking I don’t watch tutorials because it eats up data (yes I know I could download and load onto my phone, but then I would have to remember I want to do that when I’m at my computer :P). I also don’t walk to and from work anymore. My wife and I moved in with my father in law to take care of him, and that changed my commute from a 20 minute walk to a 1.5 hour transit. Less dedicated yoyo time. Have you hit this rut? Did you get out of it? If so, how? Please drop me a line in the comments! Don't forget to click the link below to sign up for my blog mailing list for updates! |
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