Manufacture en Famille: wooden toys Made in France Toulon

The idea

Present at the Made In France fair which took place in mid-November in Paris and among the 800 exhibitors from France, Elisabeth Dussert-Vidalet created in 2017 in Toulon her self-enterprise Manufacture en Famille. His family-made wooden toys for children aged 3 to 12 are much more than toys in the commercial sense of the term but “Didactic learning resources suitable for supporting educational work”.

The challenge

Trained as a computer and electronics engineer, Elisabeth Dussert-Vidalet worked in the automobile and navigation systems, before moving to Toulon in 2008 with her husband. It was there that she decided to make the family hobby of building toys for the four children of the house her profession. “The idea was to create things already prepared so as not to demotivate the child. If we have everything in the box, it will work. In addition, they are made of durable wood. ” However, faced with the 60% increase in the price of wood, the entrepreneur envisages an inevitable increase in its prices in 2022.

The concept

The company offers around thirty products. From the fortified castle with its drawbridge and catapult to the railwayman’s lamp and its electrical circuit, including the Saint-Ex ‘plane and the Ettore cars for the Bugatti or Ayrton in reference to the Formula 1 driver. The latest creations being the farm and its animals, and Fergus the tractor with his dump trailer.

In each kit there is an instruction manual, cutting boards and all the necessary tools: glue, saw, sandpaper, keys to tighten the bolts of the car, mechanism to move it forward … Are indicated the type of educational learning for the child, the recommended age, the completion time, the level of difficulty and a short story “A bit like the chocolate cake recipe”. Price: from 17 to 69 euros.

The capital gain

“The educational benefit of such toys is significant. Children gain confidence: they are able to build with their hands, which boosts their creativity and teaches them, among other things, pugnacity. You learn a lot through practice and the idea is to make these toys as a family. ”

These toys stamped made in France Toulon are durable: they are not in cardboard but in wood purchased from the Ratheau trading company in Six-Fours, a wood from Eastern Europe. “Strong and elegantly finished”.

The investment

To get started, the self-employed person invested 7,000 euros in equity. If she created her own website, she had to buy a used digital cutting machine and call on designers for the graphics of the packaging, the logo, the brand. His presence at the Made in France fair will have cost him 4,000 euros. An investment at a loss even if it gave it visibility. Fortunately, the manager manages to double her turnover every year (30,000 euros in 2020), despite the Covid crisis and the cancellation of trade fairs. “I continued to grow thanks to the site.”

The goal

While the toys are mainly sold on the website, they are also offered in around twenty stores in France (concept stores, toy stores, Made in France stores, museum stores) and on other online sites. The self-employed person is also looking for a local in Toulon to open her own shop. It then plans to invest in a new, larger cutting machine in order to extend its range and also to offer new toys to manufacture, especially for older children: 10/12 years and over.

> manufactureenfamille.com

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