Retail Interview - Armadillo Toys

Armadillo Toys is in celebratory mood: the business celebrates its 18th anniversary this year and last month owner Lisa Clay was crowned the Ultimate Superhero in the Retailer of the Year awards, organised by the BTHA. Clare Turner finds out more

Tell us about Armadillo Toys.

I started the business in 2003. It’s in Chapel Allerton, which is a busy and vibrant suburb of north-east Leeds in West Yorkshire. The shop is small, but not tiny. I try to make it a bit pretty and special inside.

How would you describe your range?

I look for products that have got a good ‘play value’. I define that as something that a child would pick up and play with, and then play with again and again - not something that is a ‘wow’ when you open the box and then put away and never touched again. That can encompass anything from books to pocket money items. I hope most of the products I stock will be kept and passed on to the next child or a different person in the family. That’s the aim: I want high-quality toys that are good value for money and stand the test of time. I hate the word ‘traditional’ because you instantly have images of what traditional is and I don’t only stock wooden toys, for example. I stock a huge range. But I’m not brand-led or TV marketing-led. I go on my ‘likes’. I do have bigger brands, of course, but I don’t stock all of them by any means. I can’t compete with the multiples on price anyway, so I don’t try to. I have to be different, so I sell more niche brands. Every single product I have in the shop I believe in and back it and stand by it. Whether it’s 20p or £100, I think it’s worth what the customer is paying for.

What are your key brands?

I like the Fairtrade company Lanka Kade, which I’ve stocked from day one - Orchard Toys followed a few months later. Then there’s The Puppet Company, Janod, Schleich, Playmobil, Melissa & Doug, and I recently brought in Djeco.

With no trade fairs, how are you sourcing products?

I’ve got plenty of Zoom calls and virtual showrooms lined up. Some suppliers have sent catalogues - either paper or by email - and I’m looking through those. I’ve got other meetings booked as well. It will be far harder this year to choose products and I think the reps and agents are going to be very important to toy companies, to get products seen and out there. When they’re allowed to come into shops, they can bring samples, but while they’re not able to… a lot have been in touch already and I think they’re going to be working extremely hard. The trade shows are very hard for them anyway - they’re hard for everybody because they’re very tiring days. But we retailers just walk in and come to them. It’s a lot harder the other way round.

How did you feel when you heard the news that you are the Ultimate Superhero Award winner?

Really humbled and proud that an independent shop can stand above the multiples and be seen. For that reason, I’m very happy about it - not just for myself, but for all the independents up and down the country. We’re all fighting the same battle against the larger stores and the online giants and we’re trying our hardest. I’m passionate about independent shops. When I was younger, you would go shopping in a town or city and see different shops and it would be exciting and interesting. Now, every town or city has another branch of the same retailer and you don’t have that feeling of going somewhere unique and special. We need to make sure we protect independents because they are all precious, and we need to appreciate them more. And being an independent business is hard; we don’t have all the advantages that multiples and chains have, so we have to try harder. So that’s what I’m proudest of: that I’ve managed to be seen above all the rest. I’m fighting the fight for everybody, let’s just say that!

What do you think set you apart from the competition?

The BTHA said you worked every single day throughout lockdown and delivered toys to customers yourself as well as sorting postal orders and arranging for collection. I’m sure independent toy shops did that up and down the country. We all did what we could to survive and keep going. There was a lot of FaceTime and WhatsApp calls with customers too, which I don’t think you’d get from the larger stores. For example, one customer rang and said: ‘I’ve got to buy a present for a one-year-old and I don’t know what they like’. So, I did a one-to-one call and took the customer round the shop, showing different toys. That was very time-consuming, but we had to do it because it was another stream of getting sales. I’m sure other indies were doing the same.

The BTHA also noted that you created your own character, Sally the social distancing Spinosaurus, to make safety restrictions in the shop child-friendly and fun Yes, Sally is unique to me. In the first lockdown, there were so many rules and people were really scared. It was such an alien landscape for us all, and I was as wary of customers coming into the shop as they were. So I created Sally the social distancing Spinosaurus to make children more comfortable and relaxed when they visited, because it was obviously all so different: the layout had changed, there was a one-way system, and we had to limit numbers. I chose a dinosaur because they’re universal, and I wanted to make it female because if I called it Vicious Velociraptor or something like that, it might alienate girls. I set up a sanitising station with bottles of ‘Sally’s Special Sanitiser’ and a notice that read ‘Sally says please use our hand sanitiser as you enter the shop’ so the little ones weren’t scared to use the gel. We’re all used to using it now, but in the initial stages it was something quite different. Sally went on social media and was advertised on the sandwich board outside and I put socially distanced dinosaur footprints around the shop for children to follow, because unless they’re holding their parents’ hands, they do meander a bit. I just tried to make it a more friendly environment.

How is lockdown affecting your business?

We are trading online, but the majority of sales are to customers in our area, because we are very well supported locally. Some of the orders are collections, some are deliveries, and quite often locals are buying something to post to friends and families who are further away. I’ve been through quite a journey with my website, from initially not having one (because they didn’t exist in 2003 when I first opened) to doing very well with it until the bigger companies really got their acts together. Then it all got wiped out and I stopped selling online for a few years. But during the first lockdown, I brought the website back again. So now we get some orders but not a huge amount. By no means am I an online business: I’m a shop, and the money that comes in through the website is so insignificant compared with what we get through the door. In the second lockdown, it was crazy busy with online orders because it was the run-up to Christmas. Local customers were contacting me for deliveries, and I was working like a mad woman to fulfil all the orders. It was doing really well. But we’re in a different situation now. Everybody has already bought their presents and been through two lots of homeschooling. They all know what they’re doing, so they’re not looking to us for educational products or for toys to keep their children occupied, because they did that at Christmas. So this side of Christmas, it’s fallen off a cliff basically! But I’m optimistic. When we open again, we will be fine. There will be a huge bounce-back and I’m looking forward to that.

What’s your biggest challenge right now?

I’m trying to improve the website and I’m working on our social media presence. Obviously, I’m doing online sales as well. And customers are still contacting me through Facebook. So all that is still going on - just not to the same extent as before Christmas.