Without a doubt, our No. 1 selling item at YoYo Joe’s in 2009 has been yo-yos. And, it’s not even close.
I’ve been selling yo-yos for years, both back at my family’s retail store and now at my own. People always ask me, “How’s the yo-yo business?” and I answer “Oh, it has its ups and downs” (insert groan here). As of right now, we’re definitely in an ‘up’ period — what could be seen as the beginnings of the next big boom.
Yo-yo selling has, traditionally, been a cyclical toy. Sales …

We’re sweating the little stuff. Little stuff is huge.
I read recently that consumers are cutting back from buying 25 useless things to buying five quality things. Our customers (at least of the grade-school variety) are buying 25 really small things.

It’s Spring, and everyone should be bursting with happy energy. Instead, customers whisper in a tone like you might have a terminal illness, “How’s business?”
It’s the latest trend … customer concern. First, it was once a day; now, it can be three or four times. “Are you doing OK?”
Everyone is suddenly noticing that shops are closing. Shops they liked, shops they hated, shops they had never noticed until the brown paper went up in the windows. It’s not an easy trend to grasp.