Games, Playthings and Plush

Which Toys (From page 165)

whether it’s pretend-play or racing cars, but anything do-it-yourself allows more STEM-type fine motor skill kinds of activities, plus there’s more creativity, special planning and awareness involved.”

Duel and Steiner described displays in the store as being arranged both by age and theme. According to Steiner “It depends what the item is. When you come to a kid’s store, the age-range selection helps tremendously, so that comes first; the second type of display, like with like items in one category, that comes next.”

Heading north to Anchorage, Alaska, Classic Toys’ Sales Associate Vickie Lenon has worked at the store for 17 years and has a strong sense of what toys sell best and why. Recently purchased by owners Ben and Brittney Jarrett, who are already planning visits to trade shows to find new items, the store offers a wide range of items displayed at demonstration tables and thematically throughout the 3,000-square-foot store.

Lenon said, “We have a baby wall which is ages 0 to 3 years, because those toys for that small a child are quite different than anything else. Everything else is divided by type of toy. We have a building themed area, a truck area, a game section, art and music, and

Lego, which has its own section, among others.”

Top sellers? According to Lenon, “Magnets are big for us right now, all sorts of magnetic discovery toys that encourage learning and experimentation. We do well with Smart Max and Magnatiles, which are great building materials. I always recommend both of those.”

Shane Powers , owner of Toy Quest in Fairbanks, Alaska, described his bestsellers as those focusing on education. “Home school has attracted a lot of buyers to the education area due to pandemic closures. We’ve had a real renewed interest in educational items, and a big time increase in toys that can occupy kids for a long period of time while their parents are working from home. Everything changed because of that.” By category, science-based toys do best; in terms of games, he explained that “board games changed from partytype games to longer lasting games like Monopoly and Risk.”

The store itself tends to avoid “super trendy toys,” Powers attested. “Part of the reason for that is we are simply so far out on the supply chain, that by the time we catch up, the trend could be over. So, we stick to more classic toys than anything else.”

Continued on page 168