TnP talks to Craft Buddy director, Gary Wadhwani, who tells us the story so far, what’s next and beyond that. Gary’s positive and entertaining story unravels the whys, wherefores and strategy that have brought Craft Buddy to where it is today. There are hints of future strategies, and objectives. Oh, and there’s a clear devotion to fun (and duty) along the way
How and why did you choose the toy sector plus arts & crafts kits as your favourite activity for both business and enjoyment/fun?
This is a question we often get asked, given that back in 2010, we were two young men in our twenties who started an art & craft business – not something you necessarily hear that often!
My co-founder Dino and I had two different career paths that eventually brought us together to found Craft Buddy Ltd. Dino, my younger brother, was always creatively inclined, and generally good at making things; he was a dab hand in DT at school, and arts & crafts. He was also a keen trader, and in around 2010 he spotted an opportunity to sell arts & craft supplies on eBay, which back then was the go-to ecommerce marketplace; Amazon hadn’t really taken root in the UK at that point. Following university, Dino had pursued a career in the City in asset management.
In my career to that point, after leaving Accenture, a management consultancy – work which I found rather intangible and dull – I then worked for five years at a Dutch DIY retailer, in buying and international sourcing. I was based in Amsterdam, but spent large portions of the year in China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, working with manufacturers and sourcing products as varied as garden furniture, lighting, Christmas decorations and air-conditioners and heaters. This was a dream job for someone in their twenties, as I got to see the world, meet some fascinating entrepreneurs across Asia during the China economic boom years, and learn about business and trade all at the same time.
In 2010, Dino and I decided to combine our skillsets and experiences, and we added a short trip to China onto a family holiday to Hong Kong with our parents. With Dino’s product idea, and my product sourcing and international trade know-how, we found a manufacturer willing to support us, and we imported a small consignment of arts & craft embellishments, which we thought we would sell on eBay. We still had our other jobs at this point – this was going to be a side hustle, and we were curious to see how far we could take it.
After initially selling through our consignments a few times on eBay, we could see there was a business to be built; so we tried our hand at a domestic trade show, and from there on, our B2B business grew. By 2014, we had a healthy mix of both B2C and B2B sales, and could count the likes of QVC, Hobbycraft, Paperchase and John Lewis among our customers. It was at this stage, with some great trade partners on board, a healthy e-commerce business in place and around five full-time staff members, that we felt confident enough to leave our other jobs and take the plunge to commit ourselves 100% to building Craft Buddy. We haven’t looked back!
What makes Craft Buddy unique and a stand-out in the sector?
When we entered the space, arts & crafts was seen as dull and boring. Our goal at Craft Buddy has always been Making Crafts Cool Again.
Back in 2010, our observation was that arts & crafts was confined to specialist retailers like Hobbycraft, where you’d find largely adult-oriented products, typically in the realm of sewing, crochet and knitting; or you’d find totally different, much more basic ‘Blue Peter style’ products in toy shops, aimed at preschoolers. There was nothing cool, in the middle, designed to appeal to eight- to 18-year-olds and kidults.
What we’ve tried to do in the last decade at Craft Buddy is bridge the gap, by making trendy and contemporary arts & craft products that both kids and adults – and increasingly kidults – can enjoy. Our journey into licensing has helped. By bringing on board partners such as Disney and Warner Bros, we’ve been able to develop activity-based kits powered by beloved characters such as Stitch, Harry Potter, Disney Princesses, Marvel Superheroes and Star Wars characters.
With this approach, we’ve been able to bring arts & crafts into new spaces – events such as Comic-Con, and retailers such as Forbidden Planet – where you would not have seen arts & crafts before.
How would you describe the unique fun of Craft Buddy and its portfolio?
Our main brands are Crystal Art, our trademarked brand of the hobby which is also known as diamond art or diamond painting; and Paint By Numb3rs, our brand of painting by numbers. We develop and launch large new collections twice a year for these brands, and we distribute them globally. Outside of these two, we have other adult-focused brands such as Forever Flowerz – a great product that enables you to make your own artificial flower arrangements – and Craft Buddy Home.
Crystal Art, our flagship brand, is a relaxing, therapeutic craft that involves placing gems onto a numbered, sticky template; a bit like paint by numbers but with small, sparkly crystals instead of paint. We have a huge variety of product formats of Crystal Art – including greeting cards, Buddies (2D figurines), notebooks, canvases mounted on wooden frames, bookmarks, keyrings, coasters and so much more. It has gained popularity rapidly since around 2015, when we launched it in the UK and Europe; and it boomed during the pandemic. Paint by numbers is a more established hobby, having been around since the 1950s, and probably still better known, although Crystal Art is rapidly gaining ground worldwide and I fully expect it to overtake paint by numbers soon. Google search data already indicates this is close to happening.
At Craft Buddy, we pride ourselves on innovation – we want to make the most fun and rewarding arts & craft products out there. We’ve taken Crystal Art, in particular, into so many unique directions, that it has kept our audience interested, and grown new audiences at the same time. When it comes to licences, what I think is so unique about our licensed art & crafts is that you can interact with your favourite characters in a much more intimate way than a regular toy or collectible. This is because you are playing a role in creating and building the end product itself. There is something very powerful about this – you feel more connected to the end product, and more inclined to keep it, display it and show it off on social media.
What is the sales ratio split between licensed and non-licensed ranges? And is the licensed portfolio growing fast?
This statistic is certainly evolving, but in 2024 for the first time, the sales ratio split has tilted slightly towards licensing. Our licensed portfolio is growing but I wouldn’t say fast – and this is very deliberate on our part. We’re very careful and strategic about the licensors we partner with. Given that we serve multiple demographics with our products, the best licences for us are those in which the characters resonate with both a young and adult audience.
Two good examples of this that are currently doing well for us are Lilo & Stitch and Harry Potter. Both franchises appeal to a variety of demographics and so we are able to create compelling and appealing product with these properties for both kids and adults.
All this said, we still care deeply about developing our in-house ‘core’ product, i.e. non-licensed ranges that we develop ourselves or work on with independent artists. This has and always will be important, for our adult audience in particular and for seasonal ranges such as our Christmas Crystal Art collections, which do extremely well for us.
Have Craft Buddy’s short, medium and long-term objectives – both financial and wider impact – varied much in recent years and, if so, why?
Our overall goal is to get our arts & craft products into as many hands as possible worldwide, to bring joy to the widest possible audience, including kids and adults – both female and male.
Within that broad objective our financial objectives do evolve, in so much as, as with any fast-growing business, when you meet your targets, you then try to shift the goalposts further and strive for further development. This year, we broke the 8-digit turnover mark for the first time and reached 40 staff. We believe we have a really solid platform now – built upon a superb team; a wide base of customers home and abroad; and multiple sales channels – including B2B and B2C – that we can use to springboard our growth in the years to come.
Which range is currently the most successful and what was the most successful previously? And why?
One recent standout bestseller in the past 12 months has been our D100 Crystal Art Sticker Album, a collaboration with Disney, in which we launched a market-first arts & craft collectible sticker album to celebrate Disney’s centenary year. This was a marriage of crafting and collectible stickers that was phenomenally well received by end consumers. Other popular lines are our Crystal Art and Paint By Numb3rs Buddies, in which you can create standing figurines of your favourite characters such as Spider-Man or Darth Vader, either by crystalising or painting; and our Crystal Art Card Kits, a perennial bestseller in which you can craft your own gorgeous greeting cards. Following a recent licence partnership with Me To You, we developed some beautiful Tatty Teddy Crystal Art greeting card kits, which were nominated for the Licensing Awards 2024 in the stationery category – this was a massive achievement in what is a relatively new category for us.
And which range has been unsuccessful and why in retrospect? You may not want to answer this!
When you take big swings, there will inevitably be misses! I’m pleased to say that our hits have vastly outnumbered the misses in recent years – we haven’t had too many turkeys! When there are, as long as we learn from our mistakes, we move on.
Of new and upcoming product ranges, which ones do you think are going to be the most successful?
The team and I are really excited about our Spring/Summer 2025 collection – there are so many exciting new product formats, it’s hard to pick which will be the most popular!
The reactions we’ve had from both our international partners in Los Angeles at the Fall previews, and our UK domestic key accounts at our in-house previews in recent months, have been consistently fantastic.
I am particularly excited about developing product in which we bring Crystal Art to preschool for the first time. I also love the look of our new collectible sticker album, our follow-up to the hugely successful Disney 100 album. And then we have a range of animal-themed Buddies launching, the designs of which I adore!
What is/are your personal favourite(s) on the Craft Buddy product front?
Probably Crystal Art Buddies. From a product perspective, I knew they’d be a huge hit the moment our head of product showed me the first prototype in 2021. And now that my four-year old son has started collecting them, they’re always on view in our house, either out on the dining table or proudly on display in his bedroom!
What were your favourite toys and games when you were young?
Toys-wise, I always loved die-cast cars and Lego. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I dearly loved the games consoles Nintendo and Sega brought out – I have particularly fond memories of long days spent on the MegaDrive, playing Sonic, Streets of Rage and Golden Axe; and later on the Nintendo 64, playing Mario Kart, Mario 64 and GoldenEye. These consoles were ground-breaking at the time. As an early secondary-schooler, I got into collecting trading cards (baseball, basketball) and DC & Marvel comics, more because I enjoyed the trading aspect than particularly loving the subject matter! Character-wise, I loved Ninja Turtles, Transformers, He-Man and Disney’s DuckTales.”
What is the most fun you and your colleagues have in the working day?
A day at Craft Buddy is always fun! We work in a fairly small, close-knit office with everyone’s desks in close proximity; jokes and banter are a regular feature. Once a month on a Friday, we host a company social, where our office kitchen becomes a bar and we invite a bartender to come in and rustle up some cocktails – he does a terrific spicy Margherita. The socials usually start at 4.30pm and have gone on as late as 10:30pm – with extra-special ones featuring a DJ, beer pong and a bit of karaoke!
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Arts & Crafts has certainly been a growth area in mass market retail for the past few years, and we’ve ridden the wave. The pandemic shone a light on arts & crafts and helped to bring it into mainstream view. While it is well known that activities such as baking and puzzling enjoyed their moment in the sun, it’s lesser known that arts & crafts like our Crystal Art and Paint By Numb3rs enjoyed huge popularity, as people looked for relaxing, calming activities during a stressful time. We’ve been fortunate to continue to maintain healthy business growth post-pandemic, as we’ve refreshed our product lines, introduced popular new licences and continued to innovate at a rapid pace.
Finally, I think the growing realisation of the dangers of phone addiction and excessive screen time has led many people to seek healthy offline activities, and this is where arts & crafts comes to the fore, as something productive, therapeutic and functional – all our products can be used (eg our greeting card kits, notebook kits) displayed or gifted.
With a great team in place and wonderful customers, we see the future as very bright here – and I’m hugely excited for the brilliant new products we have launching in Spring/Summer 2025!
0203 417 6565
sales@craftbuddyltd.co.uk
www.craftbuddyltd.co.uk
