RETAIL INTERVIEW IMAGINE THAT TOYS
‘It’s all about the game face’ Gwen Ottenberg, owner of Imagine That Toys in Kansas, gives a fascinating perspective on the Stateside toy scene What’s your background? Before owning my store, I was the gift shop buyer for a children’s museum. Even in high school I knew I didn’t want a corporate job, so I had jobs that were fun. I worked in the games department of an amusement park as well as in a family fun centre. My husband actually convinced me that we could open a toy store and do it successfully. We also figured that if we did it when we were young and we messed up, we had lots of time to fix it! We opened in 2007, just before my 25th birthday. It was very interesting to see how people treated me as a new owner because of my age. Many thought we purchased the business from someone else or were working for our parents. When they knew it was ours, they were shocked.
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This year has been more challenging than ever before. All parts of the toy ecosystem are stressed
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Tell us about your business. Imagine That Toys has about 5,000sq ft of selling space and is located in Wichita [the largest city in the US state of Kansas]. My goal is always to get the right toy in the right hands at the right time. This mindset involves talking with customers to find out where the person they’re buying for is at, so they can have the best play experience possible.
Are you a member of any trade associations? I’m a member of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association known as ASTRA [a non-profit association that provides education, networking, product sourcing and discounts, and consumer public relations to grow the US specialty toy industry]. I’m also a member of The Good Toy Group [a member-owned co-operative venture of 100-plus independentlyowned toy stores in more than 175 locations across the US, which produces a holiday catalogue each year in addition to three seasonal catalogues]. I sit on the product selection team for The Good Toy Group, deciding which products to feature in the catalogues that we print.
What do you offer that other toy shops don't? I’m in business for the long haul. I want to sell customers something that will be played with, and I want them to come back in the future. If I don’t think a toy is right, we will tell the customer and not try to just make the sale for that day. We work to develop relationships with our customers, so in the end the child wins! In our services, we offer free gift wrap, wish lists, and shipping all over the world.
How do you attract new customers and maintain the interest of existing ones? We have a very strong presence on social media, especially Facebook and Instagram. We showcase new toys and fun items as well as provide some humour. Our best advertising is normally word of mouth - we jokingly ask customers: ‘Please don’t keep us a secret'. When a customer talks about you and says how thrilled they are with the toy or game that they purchased, that’s better than any advertising could ever pay for. We try to engage our customers, and when they think toys, we want them to think of us.
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