Toys at Public Lands Partner Stores: Supply Chain Issues

By Genie Davis

Whether facing supply chain issues or offering items that are locally produced, public lands partner stores offer toys, books, and accessories for children as an integral part of their gift shops.

At the Shenandoah National Park Association, in Luray, Va., Executive Director Greta Miller said that the shop’s top-selling children’s toys range from board books to games to miniblocks. “The mini block sets come together to create a bear, a butterfly, a squirrel, and other animals like that. They’re for ages 7 and up and are extremely popular for us; they’re fun to play, inexpensive mini puzzles,” she said.

According to Miller, “The plush items we have had a lot of luck with over the years, especially with finger puppets, but since the pandemic, we’ve had a lot of difficulty getting them and keeping them in stock. They come from an overseas supplier, so it can be impossible to get them in.” The solution? “We just keep a nice variety of other items that kids can buy, like those mini blocks. We just have to accept that we may not be able to be fully stocked right now on some items,” she explained. “It’s the same thing with our plush animals. Right now, we are only selling the black bear. So, we simply try to wait until things become more available again by offering a great variety of toys. That way, if we are out of one thing, the kids can just buy something else.”

The store did bring in something new for this summer season, an item that did very well for the store. “We brought in a little backpack for kids to wear that has a plush bear on it. We did a minimum order because we had never done anything like that before,” she reported. “It went very quickly. We will look for a couple of different plush animal-style backpacks for next year.”

Miller noted that she also frequently looks for new forest animal board books for little children. “We do well with almost anything that has a black bear on it.”

The Shenandoah National Park Association has two locations, one in an historic building is approximately 500-square-feet; the main store is 1,000-square-feet in size.

Located in Sacramento, Calif., Chris