Building Tollers Toys: Brand, Ecommerce & Growth Strategy

The Client

Tollers Toys is a UK-based ecommerce brand curating sustainable, screen-free, battery-free toys for children aged 0 to 5.

It is also a bit personal. Simon Childs, Childsey's MD, founded Tollers himself. A dad of three who had spent years searching for toys he could actually feel good about buying, he decided to build the alternative.

The brand is named after a 90-year-old rocking horse, loved by more than 30 children across four generations of the same family, and still being ridden today. It is everything a toy should be.

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The Brief

Simon had a clear vision, a strong product framework, and early proof of demand. Childsey's job was to build everything around it, from the ground up.

• Full brand identity and messaging framework
• Ecommerce store, built and configured from scratch
• Email marketing, loyalty programme, and post-purchase experience
• Content, SEO, and organic social presence
• Acquisition channels to drive scalable growth

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Our Approach

Brand

We built the full brand identity before anything else. This meant creating the visual identity from scratch, including the logo, typography, colour palette, and visual design across digital channels, alongside a messaging framework covering positioning, tone of voice, messaging pillars, and a clear reference guide for language across every touchpoint.

The positioning placed Tollers in a genuine gap: between large toy retailers who treat sustainability as an afterthought, and small artisan makers who lack the ecommerce capability to reach parents at scale. Honest, founder-led, and built to last.

Everything flows from one line: Because our kids deserve better.

Ecommerce

We built the Shopify store from the ground up. Every decision was made with the customer journey in mind.

• Homepage structured to lead with the brand's "why" before product
• Navigation and collection architecture designed around how parents shop, by age and play type
• Product pages built to convert, with brand-standard copy and transparent sourcing information
• Trust signals integrated across the store from day one

Alongside the store, we implemented a full email lifecycle through Klaviyo, covering welcome, post-purchase, back-in-stock, and winback flows. We also designed and launched Tollers Rewards via Smile.io, giving customers a genuine reason to come back, including the option to redeem points for a free gift toy.

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Marketing & Acquisition

With the store in place, we built the acquisition strategy in a structured sequence, starting with the channels that would deliver the best return at this stage of the brand's growth.

SEO and content

Developed in parallel, building domain authority through long-form blog content across defined pillars, each piece written to brand standards and optimised for search.

Organic social 

Built around the Tollers tone of voice from the outset, focusing on play experience and brand values rather than promotional content. This was supported by a TikTok influencer gifting programme targeting creators in the Baby and Maternity category.

Affiliate 

Launched via Awin, placing Tollers in front of audiences already guided by trusted parenting voices and cashback platforms. It gave the brand scalable reach without the upfront cost of paid social at scale.

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Results

Ecommerce

From the moment the store went live, it started converting. As each new acquisition channel has been added, momentum has grown. Seven months in, Tollers we are seeing really steady month-on-month growth across website traffic, sales, conversion rates and returning customer rates.

Social Media

TikTok has been the standout channel. A single organic video crossed 1 million views, with a further 15 videos each surpassing 1,000 views. For a brand less than a year old with no paid amplification behind its organic content, the traction is significant.

Facebook and Instagram have built a combined following of over 2,000 from a standing start, generating more than 335,000 content views and driving over 13,000 profile visits across both platforms.

Ongoing

The engagement continues. The next phase focuses on scaling affiliate and influencer activity, improving site conversion rate, expanding the SEO content programme, and introducing Google Shopping and Meta retargeting.