![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/0_AN_DL_02-12-25_Temubusiness.jpg\")
Mark Crowhurst with his collection(Image: SWNJtoys)<\/p>\nThe local family toy shop was seeing trade plummet. ‘It’s the saviour of our business.’Mark Crowhurst with his collection(Image: SWNJtoys)<\/p>\n
A family-run Cornish toy business has found an unlikely saviour in the form of Chinese retail app Temu.<\/p>\n
Mark Crowhurst launched ‘Mcslots’ 12 years ago from Saltash,<\/a> selling action figures and model cars with help from his wife and daughters.<\/p>\n The 59-year-old sells nearly 4,000 different products across his website https:\/\/mcslots.co.uk\/<\/a> and various online retailers.<\/p>\n However, sales have declined on every platform over the past year, largely due to the cost-of-living crisis.<\/p>\n In April, he uploaded a small selection of his toys to Temu, an online marketplace based in China with 13 million monthly users in the UK alone.<\/p>\n Mark says that within 48 hours of listing his products, he began receiving orders, and within months, his daily orders had increased by more than 40 per cent.<\/p>\n Temu is generally perceived as a threat to traditional UK retailers due to its rock-bottom prices.<\/p>\n But Mark said: “Temu is the saviour of our business. Without it, we would have had a tough summer.\u201d<\/p>\n Mark, who began his toy-selling career while working retail at ASDA<\/a>, sells toys to collectors worldwide from his business HQ in Saltash.<\/p>\n But demand dropped in 2024, with toy sales in the UK declining by 3.7 per cent compared to the past year.<\/p>\n Of the toys sold, nearly half were priced under \u00a315.<\/p>\n One of McSlots’ best-selling toys – a recreation of the Ghostbusters’ Ectomobile – sold more on Temu in six weeks than it did across all other platforms in 2024.<\/p>\n McSlots\u2019 initial Temu store listings carried less than 10 per cent of the company\u2019s catalogue.<\/p>\n Encouraged by the performance, Mark said he\u2019s working to list the rest of his product catalogue on the platform as orders continue to roll in.<\/p>\n Mark now projects a 33 per cent increase in revenue from last year, and added: “I can’t wait for Christmas<\/a>.”<\/p>\n Want the latest Cornwall breaking news and top stories first? Click here to join CornwallLive on WhatsApp<\/a> and we’ll send breaking news and top stories directly to your phone. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don\u2019t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you\u2019re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The local family toy shop was seeing trade plummet. ‘It’s the saviour of our business.’Mark Crowhurst with his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303632,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,121830,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-303631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-saltash","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}