Developing the Global Toy and Gaming Market at Icecat

Today, I start my adventure as an account manager in the toys market at Icecat. A new challenge in a, for me, new and interesting online environment. It started all this January, when I attended the Toy Fair in Nuremberg with René Rozendal. A good way to get an impression of the toy industry, but also to get an impression how it is to work at Icecat. A great experience for me!

January was also the start of the global pandemic, which is now a reality in our everyday lives. It’s a difficult period for everyone since we have been hit by the Covid-19 Pandemic over four months ago. I think this is also a period that leads to new possibilities and opportunities. For example, in the toy industry. According to the NPD Group, a leading global information company, the global toy industry shows a sales increase of 4% in Q1 2020 across the 13 global markets it tracked. This global lockdown drives more families into games and puzzles.*

In addition to the toy industry, the online game industry has proven to be resilient to the challenges of a global pandemic as well. While people all around the world have to live at home, many of them are returning to, or picking up, video games for entertainment. The industry increased in popularity during the last quarter. Based on data provided by GSD for the period of March 16 to March 22, there where 2.74 million games downloaded across the EMEAA region, a 53% increase over the previous week.**

Personally, I believe that we could be very optimistic about the coming period. I think this transformational period will open new doors in several markets with the facts above as an example. The acquisition of Cedemo’s product information and data business will contribute to helping clients in an even more extensive form.

I am looking forward to meeting clients and all my new colleagues in person and achieve great things together.

* https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/2020/the-npd-group-reports-on-first-quarter-2020-global-toy-industry-sales/
** https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-04-09-covid-19-the-state-of-the-games-industry

Koen Gerlach

Account Manager Toys and Games at Icecat - Helping brands and resellers with optimize their product content for ecommerce