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OPINION
Being different pays dividends John Ryan pays a visit to Camp, a US toy retailer that bills itself as ‘a totally unique shop/ play hybrid experience’, and asks if this is a feasible model for a UK audience
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ummer camps are a distinctly North American phenomenon. The idea is simple: kids are shipped off by parents under siege, as a result of the long school holiday period, to places with recreational and sporting facilities where there are lakes, trees and suchlike and made to do outdoorsy things. Some like it, apparently, but whether this is the case or not, this is something that looms large in the memories of many adults as they look back at their childhood in this part of the world. With this in mind, Ben Kaufman, the former CMO of US digital media company BuzzFeed, set up Camp in 2018. Camp pays a large nod, in theory at least, to the summer camp, and consists of shops (there are nine Camp locations with the majority in New York, which is where the company is based) selling kidswear, toys and games. The clue that things may be a little different, however, can be found online where Camp describes itself as ‘A Family Experience Company’. Practically, these are places that are divided into two parts. Looking in at the entrance, the visitor is confronted by a standard store in which excited children are running around, watched by their dutiful parents. Props play a large part in this area of the ‘store’, with the Columbus Circle and Hudson Yards (both in New York) branches both featuring vintage pickup trucks that children can climb into and pretend they are heading off to a midwestern corn field. The merchandise is arranged around these props and to an extent this looks like a standard retail unit, albeit the midshop elements are rather more interesting than might normally be the case. The real point about Camp lies beyond all of this. Parents forking out a fistful of dollars can gain access to a workshop for themselves and their children. Here, there are summer camp-like activities, ranging from ‘Cookie Decorating’ to a ‘Slime Bootcamp’. It’s not cheap with prices ranging from $30-$40 per child, depending on the activity involved (all of which can be pre-booked and last for 30-45 minutes). ‘Accompanying Adults’ are free and in spite of the requirement to dig deep, a weekend Camp activity visit seems to be a crowded affair. You’d be hard-pushed not to admire what’s been done, and standing close to the door of the Hudson Yards branch, parents were being more or less marched in by their offspring. There is, of course, only a passing resemblance to Summer Camp, as the great outdoors is in pretty limited supply in Manhattan and other urban locations, but it does deliver exactly what is advertised: an experience. Camp is a youthful company and appears to be expanding
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at pace in high-profile locations where well-heeled types are almost the norm. The question is, what lesson can be learned from what has been done? The activity area in a Camp store is far bigger than the ‘shop’ part and is normally accessed through a door – shoppers can’t see what’s going on in the workshops. This then is a kids experience theme park that happens to have a shop attached, a little like a museum in this respect. But perhaps what needs to be asked is how much space you would be prepared to devote to a paid-for experience, rather than selling toys. Selling space in toy shops tends to be at something of a premium, and setting aside a large part of it on the promise of parents prepared to pay for activities for their loved ones might look like something of a gamble. There is also the matter of staff who are prepared to ‘play’ and to make things interesting for children. This is probably a rather different mindset from the relatively straightforward matter of selling toys, even when demonstrations are involved. Yet we are regularly informed that adults and children alike respond to experience and that the way forward is to provide environments in which this can be a reality. In the battle for shoppers, Camp perhaps shows that being different does pay dividends, but it would be interesting to know the revenue split between the workshops and the space that functions as a shop. It is also worth noting the Camp website which, as might be expected given that the founder is a former chief marketing officer, is a well-crafted affair. A quick skim through www.camp.com reveals the fact that not only can you peruse the activities on offer in each branch, but that the range of toys is, of course, much greater than can be found in the stores. This being a proposition that is based on North American wholesome ideals, there is only a small amount of electronic stock for sale on the website, and gaming is notable by its absence – which will probably be a major selling point for parents. But would it work on this side of the Pond? Allowing for the fact that retail space is rather more freely available than might have been the case a couple of years ago, the answer would seem to be almost certainly. Children are the same on both sides of the Atlantic and the eternal problem of how to keep them busy during the summer holidays (and at lots of other points during the year) remains largely unresolved. A retail Summer Camp in Birmingham’s Bullring or London’s Westfield? Could be.
Perhaps what needs to be asked is how much space you would be prepared to devote to a paid-for experience, rather than selling toys?
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John Ryan is Stores Editor of business magazine Retail Week. He has worked for the title for more than a decade covering store design, visual merchandising and what makes things sell instore. In a previous life, he was a buyer.
