FEATURED CONTENT “We still want to meet customers where they want to shop. Curbside, online, or by-phone are here to stay. ”
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Brian Miller Gepetto’s Toys
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San Diego, California In the midst of so many customers eager to buy, some retailers expressed struggles to get product stocked. As a cautionary measure, Rosenberg says she has been ordering “much greater quantities of the top sellers.” Meanwhile, Kienzle says she tries to buy early and plan carefully.
When shoppers couldn’t go inside the Toy Store in Lawrence, Kansas, owner Nick Guffey says the store treated the community to “over-the-top” window displays they could enjoy from the outside.
“We also did a a large ‘shop early, shop often’ push in 2020 to avoid the crush of December and the disappointment that we may not have had what [customers] had their heart set on,” Kienzle adds. Miller shares that Gepetto’s did not initially experience problems with product flow in 2020, a situation that is now starting to turn. “When the shut-down happened in March of 2020, we were sitting pretty with inventory going into our typically very strong spring season,” Miller explains. “That carried us for months and once we started ordering again, manufacturers seemed to have stock that got us through 2020.” But as of March 2021, sales are picking up, and getting product stocked is starting to pose a “a serious issue.” “We are able to stock the stores sufficiently, but it has become a very time-consuming challenge sourcing product, following up on orders, and basically shaking every toy tree we can find,” Miller says. Elvington believes that consumers are growing more accustomed to and informed about supply issues — be it at the toy store, the gas station, or the supermarket. As a result, he says, “most people are understanding and we’ve learned to adjust our ordering to account for many things being out of stock or on back-order.” Tarzia echoes this sentiment, noting that if Stamford Toys is sold
out of a product that a customer is seeking, “we always try to suggest alternatives that serve the same gift-giving purpose” Embracing the changes With COVID-19 vaccines now widely available, independent toy retailers are noticing an uptick of in-store shoppers. “Since everyone is getting vaccinated now, walk-in shopping has picked up tremendously,” Tarzia observes. “People are so happy to be out and about.” And though their physical doors are now reopened, many toy merchants say their new ways of doing business are not going anywhere. As Tarzia puts it, “COVID advanced retail five years into the future.” When it comes to day-to-day store safety protocols, Guffey says The Toy Store will continue to provide hand sanitizer at the front door and keep its plexiglass sneeze guards in place through the end of 2021. And in the bigger picture, the digital-forward shift toward omnichannel retail that toy stores made suddenly and early-on was not just a temporary fix. “While most customers have returned to in-person shopping, we still want to be able to meet customers where they want to shop,” Miller says. “Curbside, online, or by phone are here to stay.”
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