Big Tree Group, headquartered in Shantou on the eastern coast of Guangdong, in what is considered by many in the toy industry to be the toy capital of China (a prefecture-level city where sourcing and distribution are made easier for market participants due to the large number of toymakers), today offers customers a lineup of over 300k different kinds of toys, acting as an authorized agent for more than 8k Chinese manufacturers. The company also has two sizeable showrooms in Shantou where they showcase their dizzying array of toys (as well as processing orders and shipping them out to destinations all around the world), everything from sports and educational toys, to remote control cars, dolls and toys for infants, even the company’s own proprietary Big Tree Magic Puzzle construction toys, which are similar to LEGO, the maker of which overtook Hasbro, Inc. (NASDAQ:HAS) last year to become the number two toymaker after Mattel, Inc. (NASDAQ:MAT).
Seemingly able to source just about any kind of toy from Chinese producers, BIGG is in an enviable spot amid a domestic manufacturing industry that grew 8.5% last year alone to around $29.21B according to IBISWorld’s Toy Manufacturing market research from late 2013. IBISWorld also noted in their report that China, the biggest manufacturer and exporter of toys on earth, has also become a larger and larger consumer of toys as well. Families in the rapidly growing Chinese middle class are spending more and more on their children, with domestic demand rising some 16.8% per year over the half a decade leading up to last year, coming in at around $17B for 2013. Little wonder then that revenues for Chinese toy manufacturers have been tracking at around 10% growth per year, an extremely healthy environment for BIGG, which is also thriving due to their having fully embraced ecommerce vectors from very early on.
The recent innovation earlier this year by BIGG establishing a branded toy experience platform, Afangta (www.afangta.com), is set to drive improved ordering and product distribution capabilities for Big Tree Group’s customers, as well as their vast supply chain partner network. Afangta’s comprehensive client-focused toolset, featuring things like an information exchange, as well as full catalogs to look through, gives domestic consumers, channel partners and manufacturers a web portal that is as “one stop shop” for information and services, as the company is for finding great toys.
Other features of Afangta, like online trading services and bulk purchasing, will further facilitate the expansion of BIGG’s business model and clients can rest assured when using the site thanks to a third-party payment guarantee system implemented via China Union Pay, the PBOC-enabled and sole domestic bank card organization in the country. Afangta is a solid move to increase domestic clientele for BIGG and help flesh-out their brand presence at the same time.
Toy Industry Association data for 2013 pegs the size of the U.S. traditional toys category as a whole at around $21B, a very boisterous market despite NPD Group data showing retail dollar sales of toys in the U.S. slumped by about one percent last year. Nevertheless, some segments of the U.S. toy market, like youth electronics, or arts and crafts, have seen handsome growth, up 18% and 8% respectively, perhaps indicating a gradual consumer shift more towards console, PC, and mobile gaming.
BIGG is helmed by one of the most hardened veterans of the Chinese toy industry with over two decades in the game, the founder of toy export/import company Shantou Dashu Toy Corp. Ltd., CEO Wei Lin. Further bolstered by an aggressive management team of senior industry professionals and positioned to capitalize on the toy industry’s growing global demand with priced-to-move toys in extremely wide variety, BIGG was even highlighted by Market Advisors, Inc. recently, with the established stock research and analysis firm giving BIGG a 12-month price target of $0.20 per share in late July when they issued their report.
For more information on Big Tree Group, visit www.bigtreegroup.net
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