How Astra Supports Toy Entrepreneurs: Sue Warfield’s Four-Decade Journey and Vision as Astra’s Director

EP038_11-24-24_Sue Warfield

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to Toy Business Unboxed, your gateway to the secrets of the toy industry. Here, Jason Hsieh, a toy entrepreneur and expert in the field. “Every product we develop is really inspired by some of the real life experience that we have with our son.” “60 percent of all toys last year were sold on Amazon.”

“Be passionate about it. Because it’s a road. It’s a journey.” “Like when you have an idea that you think is gonna somewhat change the world, make things better, I’d say go for it.“

Jason Hsieh: Welcome to another episode of Toy Business Unboxed Podcast. Today, we are super excited to have Sue, a true veteran in the toy industry, with over four decades of experience. And Sue’s impressive career has spanned the role as a buyer, A store owner, a sales rep, [00:01:00] and also Astra board members. And now she’s also the director of Astra. And her main focus is on strengthening relationship, fostering innovation and driving success for the specialty toy retailers. And in today’s interview, we’ll explore some of her journey in her careers and also learn about how Astra is here to support other toy entrepreneurs and also toy makers and also board game makers and also the importance of staying focused on the ever involved industry as well. Thank you so much for joining us on the interview today, Sue.

Sue Warfield: Thank you for having me. 

Jason Hsieh: You have been doing this a long time. Let’s go back to the original point what inspired you to even got into this, career many years ago?

Sue Warfield: I think what inspired me is what inspires most people. The children in our lives. I was a mom, I had three children that were in Montessori. And I was looking at better products for them because the Montessori schools all use [00:02:00] really interactive, using your imagination, those types of things. And those are sometimes harder to find they were especially 40 years ago. And so I started working for, I was working with first in arts and crafts company, and then I worked for a company called St. Paul book and stationery. It’s not around anymore, but it was a mini department store and they had an education section and they had some really good products that some of the education companies were making, but they were. Gosh, awful, plain cardboard boxes. So I said, Hey could I really expand the section because we have parents coming in and I think we could build this business, started taking them out of the boxes and started going to toy fair. And that was what got me going. 

Jason Hsieh: What is one of the role that you enjoy the most out of the all the different role you have done in the industry? 

Sue Warfield: All of the roles involved, all of them did. And it’s the retailers. And the retail environment that has kept me going and shaped my perspective, because that’s when you see people face to face, you talk to parents, you talk to [00:03:00] educators, you talk to aunts, uncles, grandparents, moms, dads, everybody. And that is what shapes my perspective. The most is listening to them and hearing what their needs are and what is important to them with their children. 

Jason Hsieh: I see. And for me as an entrepreneur myself, I’m still fairly new to the retail side of things. Since I first started back in 2016, my majority of my focus has been almost a hundred percent online trying to make the e commerce side of things work. And it’s only fairly recently that we started exploring more about retails, trying to learn about the landscape. And I think this is very different. There’s a lot of different skillset that we also need to learn as an entrepreneur. And I think one of the trickiest part for retail is doing COVID. A lot of the store got shut down with all the restrictions. 

What was your experience looking back, navigating Astra, and as an organization, through COVID, and how does that shape some of your approach on how the organization is right [00:04:00] now?

Sue Warfield: It was, Really one of those bad news, good news things in a way. And many of our retailers were almost afraid to mention that it was good news. Because how do you say that a pandemic that is literally killing people is good because it wasn’t and we had a rough time even on our staff because we had to let four people go. We had a little salaries, we ended up having to start with a whole new staff, which, because the left, it was all understandable why this all happened. What we did with navigating that is we really worked with our members and our board to explain to our retailers how to pivot and they did. Most of them did. They started doing more online. They did Facebook live where people could walk through the store, see things. They did personalized shopping for people. They did curbside pickup. They did delivery within their immediate area where they could do it right away. Worked themselves almost to death because donors, they couldn’t bring people in because it was Covid.

So it wasn’t sustainable, but when things started to open up again, [00:05:00] they kept those services. Because it really, they did an amazing business. And when you think about it, people were looking for something more to do with their kids at home because their kids were all at home too and stuck at home. Kids got tired of everything online and the families got tired of everything online and they wanted to do more things to interact with each other. So games became really big. Puzzles, anything to help their kids with education beyond that screen. They had to look at for school. So our stores actually like I said, they almost are afraid to say that they did very well over covid because you feel bad that something like that increased your business. But it did. And in the long run, it helped them be better retailers because they added things they hadn’t had before and they kept them up.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, and I think also it changed kind of the relationship between the manufacturer and the retailer as well. Because there’s no trade show to go to. Yes. During that time, obviously. 

Sue Warfield: Exactly, yeah, it did. They, became more dependent on that retailer to put those products in and get them [00:06:00] online on the retailers. It was an interesting time. It prepared Astra as well as an organization to be prepared for future things that could happen. Whoever would have thought that would happen. Now we know, even within our budget, we have more set aside for times that might change and not put us in the position where we have to let four people go. And we have to reduce salaries. If we can at least keep a lot of the things going. If something ever happens like that again, which we hope it doesn’t, but we have to be prepared. We never thought it would be in the first place. 

Jason Hsieh: That’s true. Yeah, I think everything happened for a good reason. There’s always learning lessons. 

Sue Warfield: You have to learn from anything. 

Jason Hsieh: How will you advise businesses? That’s getting try to understand the world of retail. I know your specialty with Astra is obviously the specialty retail, but that’s also the big box retail. There’s also different type of retail. There’s also relationship with sales rep group. So how will you advise the business to really get started and really trying to maybe have more traction on that side of the [00:07:00] business as well?

Sue Warfield: I would say that obviously I come from the, Specialty toy side. But as a rep, I did have to call on some of the big box. I was based in Minneapolis. Target is based in Minneapolis. I had manufacturers that said you have to call on target and others that said we don’t want you to call on target because of a larger issue there on what some of those big box stores require. But for our retailers, what makes them special are independent ones. Is that they work and I’ll there’s some other ways I’ll talk about this a little later in the interview, but their specialty is knowing their product. They need their product, let’s face it a big box. There’s no way that they can have in any of their departments. People that know those products, they have to do different things in the big box. Same on Amazon. Same on anybody that’s big on online. Our retailers did do more online and that’s one of our things we have to market more is that, hey, check out your [00:08:00] local retailer. They’re online too. People forget that they just, but our retailers aren’t. And as manufacturers, because our stores specialize in knowing their product, the more manufacturers can do to offer demo products. To offer training for the sales people in the stores so that they can learn as much as possible about the products and the sales reps are also the ones that if you train the sales reps, they can work with the retailers. And I think that’s a big thing that is missed on the right on the website as a rep for many years. It was really important for me to be able to know as much as I could about my products and then go in. Do those retail stores. I’d offer training sessions and go over many of my lines because they want to push that they can, if you walk into the store, we get, in fact, I just got it again yesterday. Somebody said, Oh, what’s a hot product today? Get it all the time. And our stores don’t work that way. Cause a hot product for one child. Might not be that exciting to them versus another child just because it’s top sales [00:09:00] doesn’t mean it’s going to engage Any one individual child and that’s what our stores focus on you come in tell us who you’re shopping for. Tell us their age, tell us their interests, tell us and we’ll pick a product that they’re gonna love as opposed to oh Here’s the hot top selling product that You might get home, the kid opens it and goes, plays. On the other hand, another kid might love that product. So our specialty stores focus on the individual and really picking out the right products and knowing their products. And so the more a manufacturer can do to help them understand their products, the better it will be and they’ll increase their sales.

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, also I think that’s the thing that’s very unique because of that personalization and also that I think that human connection with a retail store that big box retailer just couldn’t do. You don’t really talk to anyone beside the cashier. 

Sue Warfield: Yeah, exactly. They might be able to [00:10:00] point you where the toy section is or where the dolls in 

Jason Hsieh: that’s about it. Sometimes some of the retail that I talked to, they will have like in store special events as well to try to bring the local community together. And that’s, what makes it easy. 

Sue Warfield: And that’s what right now, we’re in the middle of neighborhood toy store month, and we really try to get out there. In fact, we’ve got some on our Facebook page. We’ve got some talk about neighborhood to a store month on Saturday. I’m going into a local store here that I do my holiday shopping at for my grandkids that are here in the area. I’m going to do a video that will be posted on our Astra about that store and walking through it and explaining why I shopped there. I know it could go on Amazon. I know these toys, but I don’t know them as well. I still don’t know them as well as those retailers that are in there every single day working with them. So I go in there, I say, okay, I’m back for my granddaughters once, seven going on eight, one’s three going on four. Here’s what they love, here’s what they’re most interested [00:11:00] in, and I can tell you that last year, one of the presents that I bought for one of them, literally she opened it and hugged the present. Oh my gosh, so obviously they know how to pick ’em. And then the other one started playing with one of ’em and didn’t even wanna open the rest of her presents. And that’s the 3-year-old now what? 3-year-old wants to stop right then and not open other presents that are sitting under the tree, so they know their product. 

Jason Hsieh: That’s definitely a very interesting story. Yeah. With so many different moving pieces, within the toy industry. 

How do you and your organization to stay grounded and focused on your goal?

Sue Warfield: Bottom line, it comes down to community. I have a fabulous staff, I have a great board of directors and we have great members and it’s all of that keeps us all focused on our goals because we all have the common goals. And that’s keeping play so important in our lives all through our ages. It’s so important and good play and, [00:12:00] understanding how important good play is to our emotional and physical development at the young age and all the way through our lives. I think it’s been, it has been proven. We have a course and it’s been proven that it’s really important. And we all work together for those goals. I didn’t have that community. It would be harder to stay.

Jason Hsieh: Are you referring to the certified play expert? I also went through that course myself and my sister, our marketing director also went through that course with me. Actually, we did an in person version earlier this year, so yeah, it was actually very insightful for both me and my sister as well. I feel like it’s like a very short college lesson in a nutshell in a very intensive period of time. There’s a lot of things we went through on the curriculum. Not just how the play have impact on the child’s development and also learning it from different perspective, how to make recommendations to the child based on their need. You never see that [00:13:00] kind of in depth education in a big box retailer. 

Sue Warfield: Yeah, that’s what we, that’s what keeps us all focused is that goal and what we know. And because we have a community that backs that up, we support one another. And that’s what keeps us focused. 

Jason Hsieh: Can you share some additional example on how Astra can help both the manufacturer and the retailer that’s listening or watching today’s podcast? 

Sue Warfield: Yes. We try very hard to connect them all so they understand one another. We’ve been having monthly Zoom, of our members to get more input from them on what we can do more and also so they can communicate with each other on specific topics and those have been really good. People have loved those and then we get more input on what they like to see including manufacturers and reps together, manufacturers retailers, reps. We’re trying to do all the different to help them understand one another. And in our most recent one, they said we just need to get together and hear what everybody a day in the life, [00:14:00] and we’re going to work on that for maybe one of our sessions at our show in June and the life where a rep says what their day is like a manufacturer sells with it tells what their day is like, because a lot of them just don’t understand one another. And I think the more we can do to get everyone to understand what their challenges are, and how they can help one another. I think it’s better. We also have done something different in 2023 that we’re report repeating in 2025. The toy boat. 

2023 this was like, what the heck are you doing? Toy boat? What do you mean? And what we did, and we’re doing it again in 2025 and we still have openings, so hopefully people will, take a look. But, we booked a certain number of cabins on a Royal Caribbean cruise. Just a short one or night, and we offered tabletop for manufacturers that were on there. On 2 mornings this year, and are in 25, 2 mornings of that sailing will have tabletops that the manufacturers can just [00:15:00] have a tabletop with some of their products and the retailers that are on the cruise come walk through there. We have conference rooms set aside. So we do education sessions in some of the days and then we do our toy and game thing in one of the in the conference room on one evening And we open up to everyone on the cruise. So it’s almost like a consumer check of your products as well. And the Royal Caribbean can’t advertise it cause it’s not their event. But what we do is all the people that we have on board, we give them a card, they hand them out to people. And what our sellers found is in that environment, they were able to really build relationships with their vendors. They don’t have time to do it at trade show.

Jason Hsieh: That’s true. Yeah. 

Sue Warfield: Able to learn from other retailers because you have all this time on a ship. In all the different meet up with people and that shows you have your evenings, but let’s face it at any show, if you’re working the show hard as either a manufacturer or a retailer or a rep, you’re exhausted in the evening. 

Jason Hsieh: Yes. I [00:16:00] agree. 

Sue Warfield: You might go out to dinner, but you don’t have time. You’re just too exhausted to really talk about how can we build your business? You’ve done that all day. Everybody’s done that all day. You’re relaxed, you’ve only had sessions of education. You’ve had the tabletops a couple mornings that are only for a few hours. And now, whatever you started at those tabletops, you can say, hey, yeah, let’s meet up tonight at X, Y, Z loans. Let’s talk some more. And everybody that was on that cruise in 2023 said, oh, my gosh, did that improve my business? Retailers, manufacturers, everybody. And so we’re hoping that we we obviously have some cabins left and we know it’s going to be the same type of environment with the same type of and we have some great speakers. At the end, I’ll give where they can find that info. It’s all on our website. I’ll also give my email because if somebody just wants to email me, that’s sometimes easier than trying. You would get a lot out of it. I guarantee you’d get a lot out of it. That’s the one thing I can guarantee people will get a lot out of. It’s [00:17:00] such a different environment. It’s a different experience.

Jason Hsieh: For sure. You really get to know people in a more intimate setting. Plus you’re on the boat. You couldn’t really go anywhere else. 

Sue Warfield: We do have a couple of days we stop, but you’re still in the evenings. It’s just such a different environment. 

Jason Hsieh: Thank you for putting that whole program together. That’s very, unique. I’ve been to a lot of other trade show and other organization. I think Astra is the only 1 that do the event, which is awesome. 

Sue Warfield: I’m telling you, when I did it, when we did it in 2023, people thought we were absolutely nuts. And then we’ve literally had people that have come on the ship that have already signed up again for 2025, and they’ve done testimony and saying, yeah I was finally pushed to go on it last the last time. And I’ve been a big negative person and oh, my gosh, they were the first to book for 2025. 

Jason Hsieh: We’re definitely included in the show note for people to take a look as well. I [00:18:00] want to kind of transition some other question I have really about the industry as a whole. 

Based on your experience, what are you like seeing as some of the biggest challenge that you see in the specialty toy industry right now that we’re facing in today’s environment and how does Astra also help those specialty toy retailer to stay competitive?

Sue Warfield: I think it all depends on who you talk to in the retailer, retail environment on what the challenges are. What we’re finding is that the biggest challenge is letting people know we’re there and what we do. Quite frankly, stores do not have a budget for advertising like Target, Walmart, Amazon, tv ads for them all the time. Way that a independently owned retailer can pay for TV ads. So our biggest thing is working and we’ve increased our marketing budget for 2025 because we’re really going to go out there and try to let do more advertising, marketing. Advertising, marketing, however you want. To make our retailers more visible [00:19:00] to the consumers. Because 1 thing that we have done is we paid money for an independent research company to do some surveys. 

The first one was going to be just quantitative. They did, they sent out, they have a base of a lot of people. They do research with, they sent them out and asking about specialty retail, et cetera. That was quantitative. We followed it up then with qualitative where there were. I think we had six to nine. I can’t remember now six groups for sure. 

Jason Hsieh: Oh, okay. 

Sue Warfield: Rumors on an actual panel around the country. So it was on zoom asking questions about specialty retail. The vast majority said, we really like to shop at neighborhood toys, and we almost feel guilty when we shop on Amazon. But we just don’t have 1 close to us. And for those of us, just listening in the background. Some of us were just pulling our hair out because some of these people we knew where they were from [00:20:00] and they had great retail stores 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah, 

Sue Warfield: even know or they shopped at some of them and said but I still like to be able to go online at night and Take a look and they didn’t know they had online. I’d say one of our biggest challenges is just having the awareness of the consumer know that we’re there that we offer online that we offer delivery. Many of our stores offer all the same things plus personalized service. And many of our retailers offer free gift wrapping, which was also mentioned in these consumer things that when they do go to these stores, it’s so great because they can just go in and everything’s taken care of. That’s 1 thing that we’re doing and then we really try to keep our retailers focused on what they do best. Let’s not worry. If you spend all your energy worrying, Okay. About what other people are doing, namely the big box target, Walmart, Amazon, whomever it may be, you’re going to waste energy because they’re not going away.

Jason Hsieh: True. That’s true. 

Sue Warfield: They’re [00:21:00] not going away. Don’t worry about what they’re doing. Worry about what you’re doing that they can’t do because we know there are things that they can’t do. One thing they can’t do is very quickly decide to put something on their shelf. They see something that they think is really great, but they just saw, they like it, they literally write an order, send it to me now that doesn’t happen. That’s one thing they can do. So they can always bring in something exciting right away. And offer that, they obviously provide what we’ve already talked about, the personalized service. So focus, they do events. You mentioned that a lot of them do events that are specific to this industry.

Jason Hsieh: Yes. 

Sue Warfield: And again, that’s not something the big box, the target’s certainly not online. 

Jason Hsieh: Yeah. They never do that. That’s very unique. 

Sue Warfield: We’re trying to keep them focused. Don’t waste energy on things you have no control over, basically. Put your energy into the things you have control over. 

Jason Hsieh: As part of [00:22:00] the podcast that we do, I also talk with a lot of manufacturers, also retailers sometimes, and sometimes people have this kind of like a fear mentality, especially when we mention Amazon. It’s like a love and hate relationship. 

Sue Warfield: Yes, it is. 

Jason Hsieh: And what we do at Toy Launch is actually helping people to overcome some of those uncertainty and really help them as their partner to really guide them to the process and really help them to be excelling at, especially the manufacturer that we currently partner with. We currently partner with 22 different manufacturer helping them with their processes on navigating the online landscape, because I went through that whole process myself with my own toy brand. And that wasn’t very straightforward. That’s a lot of, I would call, landmine that people can step on and blow up.

I think what Astra also offer and it’s a lot of different training and also collaboration. And I think you already mentioned a few of them throughout today’s interview. That is the toy boat and there is [00:23:00] of course, there’s an annual marketplace that you guys also do and also the training, the certified play expert as well. And you also mentioned about the monthly meetup or the opportunity to talk to other people in the industry. 

Sue Warfield: Yep. Yep. And then we’re also working on. Way back prior to COVID, we had started some regional groups just an opportunity for people in various regions to get together. Started it in the Minnesota area, just because that’s where I was at the time and I was starting the program and we offered just a couple of times, just get togethers to talk and chat and learn from each other and socialize. We offered some that were a specific subject that we’d have a panel discussion on. We offered some where they were just roundtables where we moved around and had subjects and people could talk. And we’re going to bring those back because people love the, when we did it in the 

Jason Hsieh: I would love to get involved in it. Please let me know. I actually run a local group right now. We meet once a once a month. 

Sue Warfield: Yeah. Yeah. So [00:24:00] definitely. I will come back to you and we’ll talk. We want to get that going 2025 again, just because it was the people that were in that group. It was just great. And they learned from each other because we had all types all member types were invited and they could bring a guest that wasn’t a member as well. We try to be inclusive. We want people to know what we’re about and how else do you learn? Then come to an event and to have it just member only. Then you’re not going to learn. We hope to make them a member if they come, but they got to learn.

Jason Hsieh: What are some of the trend that you have been seeing recently shaping the industry? 

Sue Warfield: An industry in general for retail. And this just came out recently in an article as well. I can’t remember which, if it was New York times or, but an article came out about a survey that was done again of consumers and their shopping desires at stores. And the big trend was, I don’t want to see as many choices. Fewer choices that have been basically [00:25:00] curated and I understand that because we found that even in toy stores, that when you’re helping someone individually, if you give them too many choices, they can’t even make a decision. I don’t know if any of us can relate to that. Somebody has something and you even ask somebody, let’s go out to dinner. What are the choices? Let’s, no, it’s too many choices they can choose, right? 

Jason Hsieh: Yes. Okay. That makes sense. 

Sue Warfield: And that is exactly what our retailers do. They spend time curating. And so more choices isn’t necessarily better. And then people that know how to direct you to just a couple of choices. That was interesting because that’s what we’ve always been. So I think that’s another thing that we can really work with our retailers to make sure their consumers understand that hey, come to us. We have selected the best, throw everything on the wall and see what sticks type of thing. 

Jason Hsieh: What are some of the advices that you could give to someone that is looking into [00:26:00] growing their toy businesses using some of Astra’s resources and also network that’s not part of Astra yet? 

Sue Warfield: First of all, take a look at our website. It’s basic astratoy.org it’s very simple. A S T R a Astra toy, T O Y. org. There’s a lot of things on there that a consumer can see, including our store locator is on there. But main thing is if you join, get involved. So many of our members. I wonder how they can how, can I learn more, get involved, might be in our zoom meetings. It might be coming to, hopefully it’s coming to our show in June. It could be joining on the toy boat. It could be just being part of a committee, but the more involved you are, the more you will be able to grow your business because that’s how you learn. That’s how you grow. That’s how you give us input as to what we can do to help you grow, we need our members and you need to be involved. 

Jason Hsieh: Of course and I would love to contribute [00:27:00] to some of that as well. Anyway, we can. 

Sue Warfield: Yeah. I encourage anyone listening to this over time, whether it’s live now or on future, then when you publish it. Let me know, send me an email if you want to get involved, send me an email if you want to know more about Astra, we have, I can turn over to our membership specialist. She can tell you all about it. I can help you in any way that would. That your curiosity peaks right now.

Jason Hsieh: And I have another question I like to ask all the guests is for those people that’s listening, that’s like really new to the industry.

What would be one of the number one advice you would give them? For people that just getting started. 

Sue Warfield: We do actually have an inventor membership. That is our least expensive membership, because it’s an individual. All the rest are organization, but as an inventor, you’re on your own. So we have an inventor membership and it on our website under membership types of membership. And once, if you do join, then [00:28:00] you’ll have access to people that can, we have a community board. You can ask questions and we’re working on a mentor program. We’re working on 2 different ones. 1, that is more of a year round. Trying to match people up to help people individually and then something called an innovation council that has been working on a 6 week program that will have only so many people that will apply and get into it. And it will cost some money, but you’ll have 6 weeks of really intense sounds boring, but detail information about specific subjects that will be coming in January. What will happen is the applications will go out in January. And then, of course, will the innovation council will go through those applications because it’ll be really great. They will have experts that will help on various aspects of how do you get into this market basically in all the different things that are important. So we’re doing that. And then we’ll also have individual ones for people that are maybe already members. I still need some more help. Even at our show, we do have an option of a booth [00:29:00] for anyone that has five products or less. And the cost of that booth is 1750, but it does include a year’s and what we do with those people. We try very hard to have some zoom meetings prior to the show. If you signed up for those booths, here’s what you need to do to be as successful as you can be as a new person in those booths. It’s a good deal. 

Jason Hsieh: It was. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think we, we did met a lot of people when we were at the show. And also, like I mentioned earlier, participated in the certified play expert and that has been really eye opening and a very unique learning opportunity and experience for both me and my sister. And we also really trying to figure out how we can also grow our businesses over the years. And also with the help of Astra and also being involved in the community more often as well. 

Sue Warfield: Yes, like I said, it’s our members that keep us excited and going. We love to hear from you. We really [00:30:00] do. 

Jason Hsieh: As we wrap up the episode, I will also make sure we include all the resources in the show notes and pointing people for more information so they can find out more. 

For our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode of Toy Business Unboxed podcast. We really hope you have enjoyed the conversation and find it insightful and inspiring. If you like what you have heard, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform so you never miss a new episode. We really appreciate your support and would love it if you can leave us a review and share the podcast with your friend and colleague.

For more resource tips and the latest update in the toy and game industry, visit our website at toy-launch.Com and join the conversation and connect with us on social media using #ToyBusinessUnboxed. We’d love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes. Until next time, keep innovating, keep creating, and keep bringing joy through toys. This is Jason Hsieh, signing off from the Toy Business Unboxed podcast, and we’ll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much, everyone.