Yahoo Finance How jigsaw puzzles became the latest warriors in the battle against the digital revolution
They may not seem the most likely champions in the digital counter-revolution, but jigsaw puzzles are certainly playing their part.
Indeed, so strong is their resurgence that jigsaws have for the first time been included in the UK’s official shopping basket, as researchers for the Consumer Price Index found that retailers are freeing up more space on their shelves for the puzzles.
At John Lewis, jigsaw sales have risen by 16pc this year, while the jigsaws and games category at the National Gallery gift shop is 49pc up on this time last year.
It is a similar story for board games, which are rapidly gaining popularity, while book sales are through the roof. And that’s not forgetting the much-heralded return of vinyl, which is expected to enjoy a seventh consecutive year of double-digit growth in 2017 and which overtook digital sales for the first time last year, according to Deloitte.
Games and puzzles enjoyed a sales increase of 17pc in 2016, with a particular surge in adult age groups, according to figures from market research group NPD.
It does not take a trip to any of the new board game cafés in London to see that a pattern is emerging, and it is a trend that is providing significant encouragement – and financial benefits – to the manufacturers and retailers of these more traditional, old-school hobbies at a time when technological advances had threatened to render them obsolete. “British shoppers are showing a renewed appreciation of physical products,” wrote John Mercer, a lead analyst at Fung Global Retail, in a recent report.
Vinyl, premium stationery and physical books are three of the most significant examples of this rediscovered taste for the tangible, but the likes of board games and jigsaw puzzles are very much riding on the crest of the same wave.
“Tangible goods still provide consumers with aesthetic pleasure, a feature that cannot be achieved by a digital screen,” Mercer says. “As a result, even as music moves to the cloud, vinyl record sales have surged to a 25-year high in the UK. At the same time, there has been a reversal of the declining sales trend for printed book sales in the US and the UK, while ebook sales have stagnated.
“Consumers appear to be choosing these formats as a kind of indulgent experience – products such as stationery and vinyl have shifted from being functional items to premium products,” says Mercer.
This is good news for companies such as Gibsons Games, a family-owned independent jigsaw and board game business based in Sutton, south London. Traditionally focused on board games, Gibsons was forced to diversify in the 1980s as the growing threat of computer games reared its head. It started selling jigsaw puzzles and, in the words of managing director Kate Gibson, the great-granddaughter of the company’s founder, never looked back.
“We started with six puzzles and we now have over 200 in our range,” she says. “That has become a really successful part of our business, predominantly with the puzzler who does puzzles as a hobby.
“Often these are 50-plus, retired people who might do 10 or 12 puzzles a year and really enjoy that therapeutic, relaxing pastime. It has been a huge growth area for the business.”
Board games, too, have experienced a boom in recent times.
“In the last five years we have seen a real resurgence both in general games and traditional wooden games like chess, through to games such as 221b Baker Street, which we used to have in our range in the 70s, 80s and 90s, when the sales just dwindled,” Gibson says. “We revamped and repackaged it four years ago and we have seen sales go through the roof.
“Puzzles have always been popular with the older market and that continues to be the case. But I think the games-playing market is becoming much broader. We are seeing the family board game really come to life.”
Gibsons is the UK’s leading manufacturer of jigsaw puzzles. It now employs 16 staff, a number that has grown steadily in recent years, including in 2016 when three new positions were created. Its main competitors are European companies Jumbo and market leader Ravensburger, which announced a 20pc growth in sales and a 17pc jump in profits in its most recent full-year results.
So what is behind this trend? “We love nostalgia, don’t we?” says Gibson. “And I think there is a bit of a backlash sometimes about technology and social media. The idea of sitting down and having a connection with people over a game or a puzzle – there is nothing like it.”
It is a view echoed by Sara Allbright, a senior buyer at John Lewis. The retail giant saw a 54pc spike in board game sales last year, while book sales were up 185pc. Adult colouring books, another manifestation of the same trend, are up 154pc on last year.
“People see it in terms of trends like mindfulness in a world of technology,” says Allbright. “Using things like jigsaws to re-engage and take a moment away from the day-to-day.”
Such is the growth in demand that John Lewis last year launched a new premium, wood-based brand in the shape of Wiltshire-based Wentworth Puzzles.
“We were looking at what was new in the area because it was so popular for us,” says Allbright. “We wanted to try something different and it really worked.
“Board games and colouring has quite a cult, ‘cool’ following but jigsaws seem to be the secret that no one ever really admits to loving. But if you put one out and leave it alone, within five minutes people are over having a play.”
The fact that many of these pastimes or trends are developing “cult” followings is ample evidence for the short-term boom in their financial success, but it does leave a lasting worry.
As Mercer points out, “these trends must be kept in perspective”. They are likely to remain “relatively niche”, he says, and demand could drop off just as quickly as it picked up if they fall out of fashion. But the world of jigsaws and games also provides fertile ground for new ideas and there is space for new designers and companies to move into. The hope, and indeed the belief, is that the industry will remain fresh and creative.
“There are lots of people coming up with new ideas and it is a relatively easy way for people to get into selling products, and coming up with these ideas,” says Allbright. “There are a lot of people who have one good idea and have grown their businesses from there. It’s entrepreneurial.”
Indeed, some of John Lewis’s best-sellers are slightly wackier, novelty jigsaws such as a Marmite puzzle that comes in a Marmite-shaped tub. There is a well-performing Pringles version, too, so this is not a business restricted to the traditional countryside setting you might expect to find on the old family jigsaw gathering dust in the cupboard.
There are plenty of opportunities for those looking to work their way into this world, and – for now at least – plenty of people willing to play.
