Head for the Hills
Meredith Schwartz -- Gifts and Dec, 10/22/2010 6:46:07 AM
Pamela Pier started her toy store Dinosaur Hill in New York City's East Village in March 1983, with approximately $600 in inventory. "The East Village was a very different place at that time, filled with artists and creative people who moved into the vacuum left when [...] the working class headed out of the city," she explained.
Since then, the store and the neighborhood have grown up together. Dinosaur Hill and a longtime local favorite restaurant have each expanded about 2.5 times, to take up the space once occupied by five businesses.
And with increased space has come increased categories. "I've been lucky to be able to feature a lot of original, handcrafted toys and clothes, and have recently expanded the clothing area," Pier told Playthings. (The clothing is mostly made from natural and recycled fibers, and batiked, silk-screened or handmade by New Yorkers.)
Other changes are driven by demographics: "Since last year saw one of the highest birth rates ever in this country, the infant category is growing again," says Pier. "I'm adding more birth through 5-year-old's toys."
Too Big For Toys?
Pier is also adding more ‘lifestyle' gifts for older kids. Dinosaur Hill is moving beyond toys because "The ages of children playing handson with toys seems to be shortening," she has observed over her quarter century in the business. "The ‘Electronic Babysitter' (TV) is morphing into early computer use. The involvement with toys in this dimension is ever shorter. Kids tend to move out of the toy category at ever earlier ages."
Pier considers this trend to have a disturbing impact, and not just on the survival of independent toy stores. "I am disturbed by this phenomenon because I think that in many ways, involvement in the here and now is changing. [Many parents] believe that videos and CDs that promote brilliance are important, and in that way promote children as passive receptors. This may be evidenced in obesity and non involvement in the day to day," says Pier. She hasn't given in, however: "I am still interested in providing toys that demand involvement, stimulate the imagination and are aesthetically pleasing."
Safe and Sorry
Dinosaur Hill specializes in toys that demand involvement. Pier expanded her clothing offering, including hats for little ones.
One new challenge to providing such toys, unfortunately, has been the recent efforts to ensure toy safety. "The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, while well meaning has caused a lot of small, home-based toy makers to go out of business," Pier explains. "I have had to stop carrying many of the more interesting things I used to carry, which were handmade by small artisans and brought in by small companies, in order to comply with the new rules and regulations. Many of the more interesting European toy companies have stopped shipping to the U.S."
Ironically, she says, the Act drives specialty stores to buy from manufacturers who can afford to have testing done on a large scale, even though these are often also the ones who brought dangerous toys into the country in the first place.
Money Matters
Testing has also added to the price of a toy at a time when shoppers have had to become more price-sensitive. And Dinosaur Hill has seen the impact of the same wider market forces that have depressed all consumer products retailers. "Because business has cycled from being down to being flat, (staying the same is the new doing well) and everything else has gone up (rent, taxes, cost of goods, shipping) [...] I am losing sleep because I often pay late," Pier told Playthings. "I hate the domino effect caused by less business and less income, and that in turn affects the vendors."
Promoting Play
Dinosaur Hill is not exactly T-Rex sized; its 550-sq.-ft. footprint does not allow for many in-store activities, especially once you fit in Pier herself, her four part-time employees (rising to six or seven during the holidays) and the customers.
However, Pier makes the most of what she's got with one- or twoperson shows, whether it's a children's book author doing a reading, a speech and Q and A on the store's namesake beasts, puppet shows or game demonstrations.
Besides events, the store gives out "birthday bucks" - and not just to kids. "We even have an 85-year-old grandfather on the list!" says Pier.
The store has migrated the bucks to email. But further online promotion is a work in progress. "We have a rather decrepit Web page, but are planning to put up a walk-around video by mid- October. I'm more and more aware that people ‘pre shop' by going to our Web page before they come to the store," says Pier, who admits, "I started a blog but have not kept it up."
Pier has no plans to implement a formal shopping cart, but that doesn't mean she doesn't sell from her website. "Because we have a broad range of items, but not big quantities, I have never tried to have a cyber store. People call to order what they see online."
Pier’s quest for better displays and more items makes the most of vertical space. (left) Dinosaur Hill’s window frontage take up what was once 2.5 stores.
For the future, Pier plans to do more social media, more outreach and maybe more in store activities as well. "I think I need to order larger quantities of goods that I know are good sellers," she adds, as well as the continuous process of tweaking the store to improve displays and add more items. "My plans for the future are to keep doing the best that I can as long as I can. Until they take me out of here in a box."
The Takeaway
Advice from Dinosaur Hill on how not to go extinct:
• If she had it to do over, Pier "would be much, much better capitalized. I would take more business courses."
• "Use your best instincts in choosing your inventory. I find that when I purchase something because ‘I ought to have that,' it often bombs."
• The best information comes when customers repeatedly request an item.
• Join ASTRA (American Specialty Toy Retailers Association) and go to its events. "I purely wish I had started going to the ASTRA gatherings many years ago," says Pier. "In addition to the fun I would have had, I would be a much better informed shopkeeper."
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