How London’s rubber duck shops keep above water

If it appears like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck — then it could possibly be one of many rubber specimens lining the cabinets of Duck World, a string of colourful shops which might be staying afloat  as tons of of different London retailers close their doors. 

Duck World’s 700-strong rubber flock contains each dimension, gown and occupation, with a retailer worker telling CNBC that in style fashions embody the superhero-inspired “Spidy Duck” and the vacationer favourite “Phone Sales space” duck. Some are fluffy, ceramic or change colour, although not all are designed to get moist.

The corporate has 4 brick-and-mortar shops in London — all in prime actual property areas — and one in Miami. However with worth tags starting from £5 to triple digits, and data nonetheless singing the decline of the U.Okay.’s retail sector, there are questions over how Duck World is getting by.

It seems a number of the hurdles going through broader British retail are affecting Duck World, too.

“The previous couple of months have been fairly difficult,” Irina Fedotova, fintech-worker-turned-Duck-World-co-founder, informed CNBC in a July 14 interview. Alongside her enterprise accomplice Filip Perkon, she opened the primary of Duck World’s outlets — dubbed “nests” — in January 2023 with the mission to “unfold happiness.”

However sticky U.Okay. inflation, nationwide wage will increase and enterprise charge aid cuts have been piling on the strain, with Fedotova admitting that Duck World has needed to increase costs throughout its product strains in latest months. 

Nonetheless, she has religion in Duck World — “The rubber duck has all the time been such an iconic factor” — and its ongoing attraction to vacationers, reward seekers and collectors.

“The common purchaser is, surprisingly, a millennial,” Fedotova stated.

On a short stakeout at two Duck World institutions, CNBC noticed buyers starting from rambunctious toddlers to middle-aged vacationers. One buyer informed CNBC that her server buy was a duck for her children to make use of as goal follow with their water weapons.

“I believe a few of these outlets not less than have a reasonably loyal buyer base,” retail analyst and JDM Retail CEO Jonathan De Mello informed CNBC by cellphone, noting a sure immunity that collectibles have within the face of macroeconomic downturns. “Duck World is a kind of types of companies.”

De Mello recommended Duck World might obtain an “extraordinarily excessive” return on its rubber duck gross sales, as “gross margin might be 70% minimal — perhaps 80-85%, thereabout,” underneath the idea of low uncooked materials and manufacturing prices.  

Most of Duck World’s merchandise are designed within the U.Okay. — and lots of are manufactured in China, Fedotova stated. The enterprise was, due to this fact, affected by the retaliatory tit-for-tat between Washington and Beijing that introduced tariffs into the triple-digit percentages in April.  

“We’re in search of alternate options [to importing from China],” Fedotova stated, however added that producing the merchandise within the U.S. simply does not add up.

Capability and infrastructure have lengthy cemented China’s monopoly on toy manufacturing, though rising geopolitical dangers and the hazards of an overreliance on one nation uncovered through the Covid-19 pandemic have propelled some toymakers to diversify.

Mainland China nonetheless accounted for 71.4% of world exports of toys within the six months to Might 31 this 12 months — edging down from the 76.9% of first-half 2019, in keeping with knowledge shared by S&P International Market Intelligence with CNBC. Against this, the U.S. produced simply 1.1% of worldwide toy exports within the six months to the tip of Might 2025.

Producing rubber geese within the U.S. is not inconceivable. CelebriDucks, a producer of superstar licensed rubber geese, boasts that its flock is “made 100% in America,” with begins in Ohio and closing manufacturing in Michigan.

Past provide chains, retail analyst De Mello warns that one danger issue for companies peddling small on a regular basis luxuries is the rise and fall in favor of so-called “treatonomics” — a serious shopper pattern of 2024, in keeping with Barclays. It found that 46% of Brits “say they prioritise spending on small, reasonably priced, mood-boosting luxuries similar to pastries and cosmetics, even whereas tightening budgets.”

“You may lump these little rubber geese into that kind of treatonomics,” De Mello stated.

He famous, nonetheless, that some collectibles are “fads,” and “as a result of it’s a customer-base that’s finite … there’s a restrict to … that stage that house that you have to commit to those issues.”

But even exterior of Duck World, rubber geese proceed to attraction and take pleasure of place in a lot of London’s quite a few memento shops. In Vienna, rubber geese impersonating Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and focused at vacationers fetched a good-looking 14-euro worth ($16.40) tag.

Toys total have been driving a excessive: SumUp found that in 2024, video games and toy shops logged the second-highest enhance in U.Okay. retailer openings since 2020. Internationally, in the meantime, Popmart’s Labubu dolls have loved meteoric fame after going viral on social media.

The “trendification” of collectibles can come about from preliminary emotions of enjoyable or nostalgia triggered by an merchandise, “then another person spots it and it kind of snowballs from there,” Cathrine Jansson-Boyd, professor of shopper psychology at Anglia Ruskin College, informed CNBC by electronic mail.

“Unexpectedly, the little gadgets are standing symbols. Not having one could due to this fact make individuals really feel inferior, a sense individuals don’t love and such emotions can drive individuals to purchase one,” she stated. “With many collectors’ gadgets, they’re pushed by social values, so as soon as they’re trending on TikTok, it’s virtually inevitable that the TikTok customers will need one, no matter that could be.”

Jansson-Boyd harassed that consumers will usually be “dictated by their purse strings” and nonetheless in the reduction of on small luxurious purchases within the face of financial hardships — however the person worth connected to a collectible can play its half.

“Such worth incorporates features similar to emotions of happiness, belonginess to a gaggle and social interplay with different collectors. In some instances, the worth may also be by way of how what they acquire represents who they’re or who they need to be,” she stated.  

However being fashionable comes with its personal dangers.

“What occurs if you grow to be much less trendy?  … can you continue to afford the lease?” De Mello questioned.

Duck World’s place in London’s rental and retail world has been met with some questions, together with over the legitimacy of the enterprise.

“[I was surprised by] the variety of occasions, even once we hear it in passing, that individuals would put up on Twitter, ‘Are they cash laundering?'” Fedotova stated, categorically denying the allegations. “It is humorous that persons are so fast to accuse.”

Skepticism of small companies popping up on Britain’s excessive road has mounted through the years after some U.S.-style “sweet outlets” have been linked to illicit activities. 

Native authorities have been cracking down on such institutions, notably on and round London’s high-traffic Oxford Road — a lower than 20-minute stroll away from Duck World’s flagship retailer in Charing Cross.

“Candy success for @Citywestminster: the variety of U.S. sweet shops on Oxford Road has dropped to the bottom ever determine of 16 from a pandemic excessive of 40. Seizures of unsafe items plus relentless pursuit of unpaid enterprise charges is making life powerful for unscrupulous merchants,” Westminster Metropolis Councilor Adam Hug said July 11.

Duck World, although, is a reputable enterprise. It posted a small profit within the 12 months to the tip of March, 2024, and Britain’s Community Rail — landlord of the chain’s Liverpool Road and London Bridge station shops — informed CNBC by electronic mail that “the Duck World models have been a preferred and vibrant addition to our pop-up line up.”

Regardless of skepticism over Duck World’s origins, a tricky retail setting and a rise in shoplifting, Fedotova struck an optimistic tone: “Crime’s excessive, taxes are excessive, the wages are excessive, however geese persist.”