Its a shame since the products are well crafted and well designed, but they are at the top end on price, and the recession and poor weather this year must have hit them.

As we understand it, they also moved in to commercial units for schools, and the government crackdown on spending has presumable reduced that market too.

A real shame, and we hope they make a comeback somewhere else.

The TP Star trampolines were only launched in 2010, and their innovative design excited some but disappointed others. It’s fair to say that they were new, and different, but not everyone liked the colours or amount of plastic.

The space-age design was the key selling point about these trampolines, and TP made sure that the design worked by testing them with over 1 million bounces on a special testing machine at their headquarters.

The crab like feet gave a better base for the bouncer, and the octagonal shape helped create an excellent bounce.

We will be very interested to see what a Star 2 looks like. Will they keep the revolutionary design, or will it change? We think the design change will be minimal.

Shannon McDonald of Big Game Hunters said ‘When the spring is poor, we se a late start to the season, sales never really recover. So, with this great start to the season we want to see if the opposite is true and sales can stay high for the whole season’.

Best selling lines this Spring have been:

Playhouses – especially Wooden Playhouses. there are some new lines out this year, with wobbly walls and all pre-painted, so wooden playhouses have a new energy and excitement to the ranges.

Above Ground Pools – of course the key factor here is the weather. When its over 25 degrees at any time of year, AGP’s just fly out.

Croquet Sets  – No-one in the industry has a rational explanation for an increase in the sales of Croquet Sets, except that the recession may have restricted sales and they are now bouncing back.

Sandpits – Low cost, and huge fun, sand pits are making a return, buoyed up by new styles such as sandpits in the shape of Pirate Ships. Great sand play fun.

The sectors in the Outdoor Toy market that are not doing quite so well despite the good weather are 12ft Trampolines and 14ft Trampolines. For some reason the larger trampolines that sold so well 5 years ago are now being outperformed by the smaller trampolines. Isn’t the world a strange place?

Trampoline spares though are doing quite well, and we plan to do an update on the market for spares in the next few weeks.

Any one else out there in Outdoor Play World with updates on what products are selling?

This year the season started early with very heavy snow in December, and for some it came too early. Many retailers had not taken full delivery of their winter sledge stock just as the snow was falling.

Of course, when the snow was on the ground, the sledge sales went crazy, with consumers begging for quick delivery.

But, just as the demand for sledges picks up, so to do the delivery problems as couriers find it hard to get deliveries done. Another major problem for retailers.

Then, as they all sold out, with the season actually still to come, they all restocked, ready for the January and February real sales. But, what happened? You guessed it, warm weather and no snow so no sales.

So, as we speak at  the end of March, retailers have plenty of Sledges, with no prospect of snow, and are left complaining about their unhappy lot. We know pools are also difficult, but at least when the sun shines it does not stop the couriers delivering. Who would be a Sledge reatiler?

Top of the poor performing list are Trampolines. Our spies estimate sales could be down by as much as 40%, leaving many trampoline specialists exposed and suffering. Worst are the larger trampolines with one retailer telling us that 12ft trampolines were the biggest sellers last year, but down 50% this year. It could be that innovation in design with Pink Trampolines and Oval Trampolines filling the stores have left the normal standard sizes suffering.

Above Ground Pools are notoriously a late starter and dont really sell until June, but other products such as Climbing Frames and Playhouses are doing much better.

Spares like Trampoline Pads were still doing ok, but one retailer told us ‘I cant make a living from selling spares, they are nice to have  but we need the proper products to sell too’.

Also doing much better than the big products are things like Swing Seats and a Climbing Frame Slide, as consumers forget the big complete climbing frames and start to design and build their own.

One retailer told us that Sports products were also holding up, we cant say that this was a universal feeling.

Many retailers thought that the poor performance could be down to the bad news at the moment and the late Easter. Perhaps consumers dont feel that the summer is coming until the Easter School holidays start, so hopefully things will pick up as the schools break up.

We hope so, because its worrying. Normally a late spring season is not made up with extra sales in the summer, its is just lost sales. We will wait and see.

Brightminds say that  ’Higher than anticipated integration and marketing costs allied with a poor response to marketing activity ……resulted in a much contribution than was expected from the brand.’

Clearly the purchase was not as good for business as expected, but with so much of their sleepover and educational toy business being at Christmas time, the weather in December could not have helped. It seems to us that a boost to non Christmas sales will be in the strategy so expect a drive on summer outdoor toy sales, especially for pre school and educational toys.

The QuadPod is a new style of  swing seat which has 4 different design options to suit children from 6 months to 8 years. Since it can grow as your child grows, it represents great value for money.

The features are many, but include  a safety harness, and a beautiful design. In fact the Quadpod product is a triumph of design from TP. It looks great and performs as a swing seat eve better.

It is easy to change from one size to another, and can suit a child from only 6 months old.

And we think Tp knew all along it would be a great success, since they gave it the iconic product code of TP999.

See the TP Quadpod Here: http://www.gardengames.co.uk/acatalog/TP_Quadpod_Swing_Seat.html

Wait no more. In two weeks, the full-blown season will be here. And whilst there is not amazingly aggressive news as regards new outdoor toy products, the trampoline market goes in to overdrive in about 2 weeks time.

So to the Climbing Frames market, and Playhouses, but the Above Ground Pool Sector starts later.

When do you see the first moves in the market? How was last weekend?

When do you see the first big sales, and shake off the gloom of the winter?

Intex and Bestway Pool products will be around 30-40% higher in price this year compared to last year.

The main reason is the collapse of the pound. So many of the pools available last year were carried over from the previous year and even the year before when the pound was higher so the full effect of the reduction in the pound vs the dollar has been delayed until now. To make matters worse, many of the pools are actually paid for in September, when the pound was even lower than it is now, so the pools sector is likely to be the one outdoor play sector with the biggest increase.

As an example, the Intex 15ft Easy Set, which was often available for £150-£170 last year will most likely be at about £250 this year. Thats an increase of up to 66%.

Don’t say you were not warned!