Indie Opinion - Diary of a Toy Shop by Hazel McCarthy, owner of Toy Corner in Galway

Diary of a toy shop

Hazel McCarthy, owner of Toy Corner in Galway, explains how she is preparing for the Golden Quarter - and a very special delivery!

Ialmost can’t believe that the days are closing in on us again and we’re officially entering the long-awaited Q4! I feel positive and excited about the months to come, as the intention and desire to shop locally is still strong. My focus is on making sure that anyone who decides to try to shop local for Christmas is not disappointed when they come to my shop, and that it doesn’t feel like they’ve made any compromises.

While I won’t have the range that a larger shop might have, my aim when buying is to draw clear lines between what I do stock and what I don’t, and to make sure that what I do stock is comprehensive.

Christmas Club

A great advantage we have this year is offering a Christmas Club. Allowing people to secure stock early, without having to pay for it in full, seems like a real selling point in an environment where there are stock shortages and price rises for both retailers and consumers. It’s definitely a perfect moment to invest in promoting this offering as a USP.

With only one part-time staff member, I’ve been up to my eyes taking deliveries and finding places to store and display everything. I was anxious that having boxes and stock taking up floor space before it made its way onto the shelves would take away from the customers’ experience, but they actually love seeing the volume of new product coming in. I think it serves as a calling card for a place they should return to the next time they need something, whether that be for a birthday or Christmas.

While I’ve got the bulk of my A/W Allowing people to secure stock “ early, without having to pay for it in full, seems like a real selling point in an environment where there are stock shortages and price rises for both retailers and consumers“

stock of LEGO, Hasbro, Ravensburger, Spin Master, Banaghan [County Tipperary-based distributor for Orchard, Headu, Irish Fairy Door Company, Bruder, Siku, Kids Globe and Hasbro], Peterkin, Melissa & Doug and Schleich now, there’s still a lot more to come (from John Adams, Mattel, Keel, TY, Epoch, and Brainstorm to name a few) so I think the spare rooms in my house will probably get utilised too as I’m not sure that late ‘top-up’ orders will be a viable option this year, as prices continue to rise and there are increased carriage-paid levels with so many companies.

Special delivery!

I’m planning on having 95% of my Christmas stock in by the end of October. This is not just for business purposes, as I’m expecting the biggest delivery of all just after Christmas. No, not the January 2022 LEGO launch: it's my first baby! My husband and I are delighted to be welcoming our child in early January, so I’m using the energy I have right now to get ahead for the end of the year when it might not be as easy for me to climb ladders and hop in and out of my windows!

While I think I will be still busy instore with deliveries arriving throughout October, my admin time will be less taken up with orders, and I’ll be using that time instead to finally establish a POS system. This will mean no more manually writing down each item of each sale, manually adjusting inventory levels on the website, manually recording what VAT I owe, manually administrating the Christmas Club, and so much more besides.

It will be a real game-changer and will provide some much-needed stability for the business in terms of data and efficiency. I can’t believe I’ve waited so long to implement a system. But with so many ups and downs, and openings and closings over the past 18 months, the time I probably would have invested in this a year ago was spent building my online store from scratch. I love being organised, but there’s nothing like opening my own store through a pandemic to help me learn when to abandon carefully laid plans!

Video star

In other areas, I’m still working on finalising my internal bilingual signage, and getting better signage in the village at strategic locations to highlight the direction to my shop. I want to create a few videos for Q4 for social media and be personally present in them. Social media is all about videos now, especially if they have a personal touch. Last year I released one just asking customers to ‘try us first’, which got a great response. It’s really hard to be in front of the camera (I always try to avoid it) but the reality is that every time I’ve done it, it’s been totally worth it for the engagement it gets, and I definitely need to prioritise doing more.

Another major project for the final quarter is adding to the Toy Corner team. Ideally another two part-time staff members would really provide the kind of flexibility required to cover extended opening hours into Q4, and increased footfall.

All in all, there’s lots to accomplish but it makes it easier to do that work when things are feeling positive, and the world is opening again and returning to normality - with an added appreciation of shopping local and the benefit of an online platform too.