Ningbo Customs was informed that the General Administration of Customs "China Customs" magazine released the 2022 "China's top 100 cities in foreign trade" list, Ningbo City, with a comprehensive score of 81.99 points ranked fourth in the country, and continue to rank first in Zhejiang. This is the best result achieved by Ningbo since the establishment of the statistics. The top three cities were Shenzhen (88.57 points), Shanghai (86.67 points) and Suzhou (82.50 points).

The 21st China Ningbo International Stationery Fair, the most eagerly awaited global stationery industry event, will be held on 27-29 March 2024, occupying all the halls and galleries of the Ningbo International Convention and Exhibition Centre, covering an area of 53,000 square metres. More than 1,500 new and existing exhibitors will showcase over 100,000 stationery, office supplies and creative products in four main areas: Office, Learning, Art and Life. Since the beginning of the show's preparation, the organisers have launched online and offline media promotions covering the whole world to attract more and better quality buyers from both domestic and overseas industries.

Shanghai Maxieye Automotive Technology Co Ltd will construct its autonomous driving and artificial intelligence R&D headquarters in Ningbo, East China's Zhejiang province, according to a deal the company signed with Ningbo during the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit on Nov 9.

To enable more stationery companies to participate in this industry event, the organisers have made great efforts to add 68 booths in Hall 2/3, Hall 1/6 and Hall 7/8.

From the Ningbo Port Office was informed that a few days ago, the State Council (PRC) approved the People's Government of Zhejiang Province, agreed to expand the opening up of the port of Ningbo, expanding through the mountain, Xiangshan Port and Shipu three port areas open area of 58.13 square kilometres.

According to customs data, in June 2023, China's total import and export value of 500.1 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year decline of 10.1%. Among them, the export of 285.32 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year decline of 12.4%.From January to June 2023, the national stationery industry (statistical calibre: 125 stationery HS code) completed a total of 31.938 billion U.S. dollars of export value, a slight increase of 0.64% year-on-year.

2024 Ningbo International Stationery Fair will be the first time in Hall 2 to create and re-launch the "art drawing materials, educational toys featured exhibition area", the exhibition area based on the industry's development of a high degree of foresight and market demand for the depth of the excavation, focusing on the art of drawing materials, educational toys and other products, attracting a large number of high-quality enterprises in the industry, to fully present the creativity of the stationery industry and the fun, so that aesthetics and creativity to produce a more intense collision.

DIY toys, also known overseas as Arts & Crafts, is a low-key but steadily growing category. According to Circana's market sales data, the U.S. Arts & Crafts toy market volume ranks 10th out of the 11 major toy categories it tracks and counts in 2022, with about more than a billion dollars in share, essentially unchanged from 2021, and up 5 percent compared to 2019. Compared to outdoor and sports toys, the No. 1 category with a total of more than $5 billion but an 11% year-over-year plunge, arts and crafts toys look fairly flat.Four factors for the category's evergreen nature1. the high demand for handmade activitiesCrafts as a direct exercise of children's hands-on activities, in addition to in-school craft classes, also involved in out-of-school.According to the British government department of culture, media and sport to do a survey shows that more than 70% of children aged 5 to 10 years old in the United Kingdom in the off-site more or less involved in some form of handicraft activities; and to the age of 11 to 15 years old, the proportion is still as high as 67 per cent, the visible market demand for arts and crafts products is very high, providing a lot of space for this kind of toys.2. to help children away from the screenWith the popularity of smart products such as tablets and mobile phones, the problem of addiction has become the heart of parents. Arts and crafts toys have become one of their tools to keep children away from electronic screens.Especially since the epidemic three years since the Internet class, parents are more urgent need for this, hoping that the child through the handmade work, re-establish the connection with reality. This is because the more physical connection to the outside world, the richer the senses and the better the brain development. When a child has too much exposure to touch screens, cognitive development is limited.3. Psychological needs in terms of emotional stress reliefIt has been scientifically proven that doodling, mechanical movements or focusing on one activity helps to divert a person's attention thus de-stressing the mind. This is also highlighted three years after the epidemic.Arts and crafts are also a very popular form of grandparent-child bonding activity, allowing the elderly to keep their minds active and enjoy the company of their grandchildren. At the same time, young women who do colouring, knitting, and other arts and crafts activities have been gradually increasing in number recently.4. art handmade related variety show driveFor example, the popularity of "One Cut Dress", "Great Britain Sewing Contest", "Repair Master" and other handcraft-related competitive variety shows will also drive the popularity of related arts and crafts products (also including toys).Tips for vendors to boost product buzzDon't see that the market size of the arts and crafts category is not big compared to other categories, but the competition is still very fierce. Therefore, manufacturers mainly focus on two aspects: solving parents' pain points and catering for trends.Consumer pain point 1: safety issuesAs art handmade toys with different traits of slime, coloured clay, paint and other chemical materials account for a large proportion, and manufacturers often add a variety of additional substances to present special effects in order to improve the novelty of the product, such as adding fluorescents to achieve a luminous effect, adding colour-fixing agents so that the pigments remain as bright as new, and adding a variety of small particles to create a rich visual and so on.In addition, these products are in direct contact with children's skin, so they need to be more careful. 2020, there was a putty-textured art and craft toys in the harmful substances in the incident led to children's vomiting, followed by a large-scale product recall.In addition to enhancing the safety of the chemicals involved, there is also operational safety. For example, sewing and knitting sets, manufacturers simplify the operating steps to make it easy for children to get started, while optimising the tools to reduce the sharp parts, and even some products directly remove the needles and replace them with other means to enhance safety.Consumption pain point 2: cleaning and storageNot every family has a dedicated space for children to freely splash around, especially families with average conditions. Therefore, I'm afraid that playing with arts and crafts toys to make a mess at home will cause headaches for every parent.Noticing this pain point, many manufacturers have improved their formulas and playthings, and also further made their products reusable to enhance the value for money. For example, Trends UK has launched the PaintPop paintbrush series, there is a cap, the refill can also be screwed out like a solid glue, fast-drying, easy to wipe.Consumption hotspot 1: licensing co-brandingIn recent years, the big IP licensing co-branding is one of the key drivers of toy consumption. According to the data of the International Licensing Industry Association in recent years, the sales of authorisation in the field of toys have been growing year after year, and in 2020 it will grow by more than $6 billion compared with 2019.In the arts and crafts sector, a common way to play with licensing co-branding is to incorporate the IP's graphic design in the finished template. There are also arrangements for players to create freehand creations of the character's representative props and skills in the IP's representative scenes.Consumption Hot Spot 2: Unboxing Surprise + MiniSince the rise of the unboxing video on YouTube in 2016, surprise toys have played out, taking advantage of the unboxing video to add another fire to this type of product. This year has seen another miniature miniature craze. Arts and crafts toy manufacturers also want a piece of the pie in this field, so the past sub-theme of the bright box material packaged into a variety of blind boxes, or the overall size of the product reduced.Consumption Hot Spot 3: Live Streaming / NetflixIn the world of live webcam, beauty webcam is undoubtedly the largest category, while the impact on girls is very large. In recent years various children's manicure, hairdressing and beauty categories as well as fashion design and sewing and craft kits have begun to increase. Although socialising outside has been reduced in the three years of the epidemic, it has not affected the mindset of girls to dress up and share and communicate on social media.Vendors are more focused on tangible profitsWith manufacturers rolling so hard on product development and creativity, what do merchants value more?According to Emma Dadswell, head of Toys n Tuck, a small British toy shop, said: "Compared to product creativity, we value the price, favouring products priced between £5 and £10, because the profit margins of selling arts and crafts products are still considerable. In addition, is the product packaging design. The packaging design should be beautiful enough to attract people, while highlighting the experience advantages of good use and easy to clean, in order to make guests passionate about placing orders." Unlike the high demands of big chains, the concerns of small shop owners are also very grounded.Declaration: This article comes from theChinese and foreign toy manufacturing. If copyright issues are involved, please contact us to delete.

The National Toy Hall of Fame is celebrating its 25th anniversary with public participation in the induction process. The hall will induct an extra toy this year, chosen by fans, from five that have been finalists multiple times in the past.The ‘Forgotten Five’:1) PEZ: Started as breath mints in 1927, they evolved into candies and collectible dispensers, many made in a factory in Orange, Conn2) Fisher-Price Corn Popper: A push toy with colorful balls used to help babies learn to walk.3) My Little Pony: Mini horses first marketed by Hasbro in 1981, targeting young girls. They were so popular, they inspired comics and feature films.4) Pogo stick: This spring stilt was patented in 1891; the familiar 2-handle version in 1957.5) Transformers: Shape-shifting robots first marketed in 1984 by Hasbro and Takara Tomy

A Peppa Pig character getting ready to ready for to parade at the 2023 New York Toy Fair on September 30.  The fair is moving to New Orleans in 2026.The North American International Toy Fair, an annual fixture that brought fun, games, and nearly everyone in the toy industry to Manhattan for more than 100 years, is leaving the Big Apple for the Big Easy.The Toy Association, the trade group that hosts the fair, announced today that the fair will move to New Orleans starting in 2026. The next, and last - at least for now - New York Toy Fair will be held in March of 2025.The Toy Association, however, has changed its mind before, and could do so again, as trends change in the evolving toy industry. For now, though, the association is committed to hosting the toy show at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans in mid January in 2026, 2027, and 2028.The show will be held January 17-20 in 2026, January 9-12 in 2027, and January 15-18 in 2028, all in New Orleans. This year the association shifted the fair to the fall, saying it wanted to accommodate the needs of manufacturers and retailers for longer lead times for toy orders. In recent decades the New York Toy Fair traditionally has been held in February, at the Javits Convention Center.For some time though, toy manufacturers have grumbled about the timing of the fair, saying the February dates are months after retailers already have seen the new toy lines for the upcoming holiday. Some had suggested that a fall Toy Fair date would put media attention on toys at a crucial time of year and help drive holiday toy sales.But when this year’s dates of September 30 to Oct. 3 were announced, there were complaints that the fall dates were too close to the showroom previews held in August and September in Los Angeles by the big LA-based toymakers, such as MattelMAT -0.4% and MGA Entertainment.The event at the Javits Center this week is the 118th New York Toy Fair, but the New York Fair has been derailed several times by the pandemic. After hosting the 2020 fair one month before New York shut down due to Covid, the 2021 New York fair was virtual, with Zoom rooms replacing showroom visits. The February 2022 show was cancelled due to the surge of the Omicron variant.The fair became a post-holiday tradition in the pre-internet (and pre-television) days when retailers would visit toy showrooms - nearly all of which were in New York City - and start thinking about the next Christmas. It was a time when manufacturers would present their best offerings for holiday hits and retail buyers would place orders.Most of the activity centered around the building at 200 Fifth Avenue where the major toy companies had showrooms. Starting in the 1960s the building’s owners began renting exclusively to toy companies.But as toy companies needed larger spaces to show off their product lines at the fair, and as more companies moved their headquarters outside of New York and gave up their New York showrooms, the event moved to the Javits Center.In a statement accompanying the announcement of the New Orleans shift, Aaron Muderick, chairman of The Toy Association, said Toy Fair was shifted to the fall this year because before the pandemic, retailers and manufacturers had been asking for a fall show, instead of the usual February time. Now, however, Muderick said, industry thinking has switched back to the view that “Toy Fair’s key audiences find the most value in a North American trade event taking place in the first quarter of the year, ideally mid-January.”In explaining the selection of New Orleans, Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of The Toy Association, said the city has “state of the air facilities including a brand-new airport, renowned restaurants, museums, music, an array of event spaces, and a strong collaborative partnership between the convention center, New Orleans & Company, and the business community”. In an interview before this year’s Toy Fair, Pasierb said the switch to the fall event this year was a signal that going forward the association would be nimble in deciding where and when to have the event.