TecToy moves away from nostalgia and invests in retail automation

With an image associated with the nostalgia of someone who was a child or teenager in the 1980s and 1990s — with toys like Pense Bem (a classic that it created itself) and Atari (which it started to manufacture more recently) — TecToy no longer wants to be stuck only to the call of the past.

And that means that the company will be able to leave toys and games in the background, but without abandoning them.

Close to completing 35 years, the company intends to bet on new segments, such as retail automation.

Among the products she wants to produce are self-service totems, which are increasingly popular in the country’s large chains.

The president of TecToy, Valdeni Rodrigues, selected three years ago to redirect the company’s directions, sees the chances of a “turnaround” with optimism — and guarantees that the current growth has proven that the decision was right.

“We did not have a change of focus, but a diversification of the business. TecToy itself no longer supported itself on the basis of video games”, says the executive.

This is not to say that this line of entertainment is not relevant to the company.

In Manaus, where it was attracted by tax benefits and where today it maintains its only factory, TecToy produces more than 200,000 consoles a year – all from brands with “vintage” appeal, such as Atari, Master System and Mega Drive.

The executive says that many customers, worried about seeing their pet products disappear from the market, asked TecToy about the new growth strategy aimed at supplying products to other companies.

Without opening numbers, Rodrigues says that the company’s financial situation is equalized. This occurred after a series of funds invested in the business, at which point founder Stefano Arnhold left the company.

In 2017, according to the latest public data, as the company was publicly traded, the loss was BRL 21.5 million. In 2019, the year when investors arrived, TecToy had 35 employees and a factory that was practically stopped.

Today, there are almost 2 thousand employees, according to Rodrigues.

As part of this task of putting the house in order, the company recently closed its factory in Cotia, in Greater São Paulo. The president of TecToy says that the manufacturing unit did not make economic sense.

And that’s why the decision was taken to consolidate all the brand’s production in Manaus. In the process of deactivating the São Paulo unit, which had been set up just two years earlier, 200 employees were laid off.

emotional attachment

According to the executive, adults who used the products during their childhood follow the brand’s customers – many of them give their children toys like Think Well or Atari, whose games are not violent like those of the giants Xbox and Play Station.

And there’s also the question of the much more affordable value – the Mega Drive sells for R$299, while Sony’s new Play Station costs around R$4,500.

In the electronics line, the company also offers tablets, baby monitors and smart lamps. With the arrival of the ultrafast 5G internet in Brazil, the president of TecToy says that the launch of a new cell phone has entered the plans for 2023.

“We had a first cell phone model, but it was a trial balloon. Now we know that we will need to have some differential.”

retail automation

Even if bringing new products to the portfolio is a priority, the bet for greater growth is in the area of ​​retail automation, which last year jumped 60%, according to Rodrigues.

In this business, the company provides, for example, kiosks where the customer can do their own checkout, something that is starting to become popular in some retailers that are more advanced in the digitalization process.

TecToy also has a third business arm: the manufacture of retail payment machines. Few people know that they swipe their debit or credit card on a product from the manufacturer of Pense Bem.

“Our clients in this segment are the large acquirers, such as PagSeguro, Stone and Cielo. We have 80% of this market”, says the executive. It is from this experience that the company intends to offer new products related to retail automation.

Look ahead

For the founder of the iN brand consultancy, Fábio Milnitzky, it is evident that the TecToy brand has in a part of the public a “perception associated with an emotional sphere and the territory of games”.

“The origin and originality of the brand are in this universe, but the association is more indirect when it comes to technology and innovation.”

Therefore, it is still difficult to say whether the company will have a place in the sun in the internet of things (IoT). Everything will depend, says the specialist, on the flexibility to embrace new audiences and needs.

“The challenge is for a brand that mirrors the past, with a retro appeal, to sustain itself on IoT and automation, which are closely associated with innovation and the future.”