THE $1BN SHIP THAT SAVED CHRISTMAS FOR MOOSE TOYS
CALL it Manny Stul’s billion dollar ship of fortune.
Faced with a logistic crisis as Christmas loomed a few months ago, management at his Moose Toys took things into their own hands to turn from toymaker into supply chain expert. The business world was grinding to a halt as ships waited to dock at overloaded ports, where trucks banked up waiting to deliver goods to shops where consumer demand for goods was far outstripping supply.
It was the biggest time of year for a toymaker – and Moose had a smash hit on his hands with award-winning Magic Mixies Magic Cauldron in huge demand in the US.
It just needed to get the product from its factories in China, to the US and into stores or warehouses of ecommerce giants in time.
“We ended up chartering an entire ship for ourselves from China,” the billionaire Moose owner reveals. “That’s how we were able to get through Christmas. Without that ship it would have been a bloody disaster. But we got the ship into port, then it was getting [the products] on to trucks to get it into stores, and getting the stores to accept the delivery because it was chock-a-block for them at the time. It was incredible.”
So successful was the strategy that Moose is now on course to smash through the $1bn revenue mark for the first time this financial year, after Stul had projected the company to have income of $850m back in November. “And the prognosis for next year is even better.”
Stul is referring to the Magic Mixies phenomenon that has sales of the interactive toy – that comes with a cauldron, spell book and wand – soaring as it wins a string of “toy of the year” awards in the US and beyond.
While Magic Mixies have helped fuel the most recent sales boom, Stul says licensing deals with brands such as Bluey, Octonauts cartoon series and Marvel have helped smooth out revenue peaks and troughs between the hits.
Moose is now one of the world’s most successful toy companies, built up from its Melbourne headquarters.
It has been a remarkable journey for the company and Stul, who arrived in Australia with his Polish World War II refugee parents in 1950 and went on to float giftware company Skansen on the ASX before buying a small, struggling Melbourne toy firm in 2000.