THE INDEPENDENT
OPINION
Diary of a toy shop Guest columnist Hazel McCarthy, owner of Toy Corner in Galway, shares her long-awaited reopening journey
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hen I opened Toy Corner in November 2019, I was cautious and prepared myself for the possibility that I may not survive more than six months. Little did I know that not only would I be closed within six months, but I would continue to open and close like a yo-yo! I went from adamantly declaring I would never have an online shop to building my own ecommerce website completely from scratch. My first sale on my website was on 24 March 2020 and since then I’ve shifted my business from being 100% online to running the shop and website in tandem and back again. Online was slow this March and April which was disappointing, but I think (and hope) that customers are just waiting until shops reopen here, and the slowdown is because none of us expected that we would be closed this long. As I write this, news has finally
I love the idea of creating experiences and space for memorymaking
About Toy Corner…
Hazel says: “Toy Corner is a 600sq foot store that sits in the wonderful village of Moycullen at the gateway to Connemara in Galway. In one direction, there is the vast and rugged expanse of Connemara, where Gaeilge is the first language of many, and in the other is Galway City, which is artistic, fastgrowing and cosmopolitan.
"As Toy Corner sits in the Connemara Gaeltacht (Irish speaking) region, it’s important to represent and advocate for the Irish language in the business. I’m a fair bit away from being able to say ‘Tá Gaeilge agam’ (I speak Irish), ‘ach, táim ag foghlaim’ (but, I’m learning)!” 18
come through in Ireland that click & collect will return from 10 May and I can reopen on 17 May - for the first time in 2021.
Learning curve 2020 was a steep learning curve. But I’m fortunate to have many years of experience (I grew up working in my mum’s shop Hopkins Toymaster in Wicklow Town) which I could rely on for product knowledge. Brexit has been a huge additional challenge on top of the Covid-19 pandemic, but I bought like mad while I was closed and had time to chase down deliveries - and didn’t have to panic when two months’ worth of scheduled deliveries landed in on top of each other. I have the additional logistical challenge of almost no storage space but luckily my helpful Grandpa is always working on new storage solutions for me… If you haven’t figured it out by now, this really is an article by an independent! Thanks to furious buying and lots of late nights, my shop will be fully stocked by the time I reopen and I can make a fabulous impression on all my customers. I can’t wait to show it off - and take a breather from buying and merchandising! I was delighted to have my hard work recognised in the 2020 Retailer of the Year Awards organised by the BTHA. I worked so hard last year - most of it behind closed doors and completely alone - so in that context, the recognition means even more. I did think I would have grown my team by now but hopefully in the second half of this year I will be able to say I have a colleague, and it will help give me time to focus on some of the other ideas that I write down in the middle of the night - there must be some gold in there somewhere!
Staying motivated I’ve found that Instagram is a wonderful place to stay motivated. Of course it’s difficult to always create new content,
and find time to prioritise that, but looking at other toy shops that I follow on the platform - the fabulous remerchandising they’ve done, and the new initiatives they’ve introduced - has been inspiring. It’s also been a great way to connect with other independents while in-person conversation remains off the table. Shout out to Jollys toy shop at Thrapston in Northamptonshire for taking the time to advise me on a loyalty card scheme, which I’m looking forward to introducing, and to my alma mater Hopkins Toymaster for inspiring my Tap To Tidy series, now living on my Instagram highlights as Sparkle Feed. [Tap to Tidy is an Instagram trend in which users post a photo of a messy room or cupboard, followed by an image of the same space tidied up.] I post a ‘before’ photo, and then an ‘after’ photo: Instagram users only need to tap to tidy my shop! I store the ‘afters’ on one of my highlights on Instagram, so all the photos of the shop looking sparkling are together. Not only did that generate new content for me, but it also kept me motivated and accountable to keep going with remerchandising my shop. We don’t talk about it enough, but it has been really hard working in isolation. I returned to retail because I love talking to people, connecting with them, and helping them find the right product. I think that need is probably what inspired the creation of my Boredom Busting Box. Each box is filled to the value of ¤50 with items tailored to the interests and age(s) of the recipient(s). They are time consuming to create but they are so rewarding and mean so much to everyone. I love the idea of creating experiences and space for memory-making more than anything else, and the Boredom Busting Box feeds into that too - it’s like a little bit of the essence of Toy Corner gets opened up in homes around the country whenever one leaves the shop. Maybe 2020 has driven me a bit mad, but I chose to believe it’s just a little bit of magic.
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