Katie Murray and Bill Colwill, owners

1380 Commercial St., Astoria

503-325-2996

Toys and games

By Cynthia Washicko

cwashicko@crbizjournal.com

How do you compete with online retailers?

I hate to say it, but I really ignore it. People certainly come in and probably do a price check — they should — like on our big items, our anchor lines are Playmobil and Leggo, they’re big, they’re available in the big world. People come in and I’m sure they price check, but so does my husband when he’s pricing them, so he makes them (similar in price to other stores). Most of the manufacturers these days, with those companies, have manufacturer, not just suggested retail prices, but they have a maximum (and) minimum, so even on Amazon they can’t go lower, otherwise they’ll lose their ability to buy (from those companies). Especially on the big-ticket items, we are definitely competitive. We might not be as competitive on, like, the $5 items but that’s OK. People get to try things and, really the whole thing, shop local — people are really into that around here. That and customer service, they’re king, really.

We’re very active in the downtown association. So they’re getting ready for Plaid Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and that’s going to be a big deal. And of course Small Business Saturday that American Express puts up. In general people are pretty savvy around here about that — even kids, probably because their parents tell them. There are plenty of people who are not, but they’re not our customers anyway so that’s OK.

What made you want to open a toy store?

I can remember sitting around the dining room table with one of my sisters, as an adult, I was an adult, and we talked about (opening a toy store) on a lark and I don’t think I was serious about it. That was in New York, where I grew up, and then when I came out here, it was probably still in my mind somehow. I had a regular nine to five job up in Washington and then I got burned on that. My husband, at the time he was in construction and his body wore out, so he had to change fields. I talked him into moving down here, which we knew about Astoria only because my brother Joe and his then wife owned Old Town Framing so we’d come down and visit and liked it, and knew they had no toy store. So we said, OK let’s do this. We sold our house up there, so we had some money, we were able to buy a house here — we didn’t have that much money, think my mom kicked in some to help us — and just went from there. We probably will never get rich, but we don’t have kids, so we don’t have to worry too much about stuff like that, if we die in debt we’re not going to be too worried.

How has business been this year?

To tell you the truth, this year, I can’t believe how sales have been crazy. I know, just because I constantly run out of the same stuff. (The busy season) started in February when Fort George had the Dark Arts Fest, that weekend. Even since then I can’t believe it. That weekend was like Christmas for us, it was incredible, there were that many people here. This past one it was the weekend and it was Art Walk night and it was just magical, the weather was great. It was like I was in a big city, walking around town, it was music on the streets, it was crazy. And ever since then it seems like we have been having pretty good days.

Has it slowed down now that the summer has ended?

A little bit, but there’s always that little, little lull but not as much as it has been in the past. It used to be we didn’t see a $1,000 day until November, but now it’s regular.

How do you find your toys?

That’s the fun part. We go to toy shows. I have gone to the New York toy show, which is the biggest one, but that is just overwhelming, it’s just too much. We go to smaller toy shows that their target is us. We’re members of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association, ASTRA, which is nationwide just comprised of just specialty, independent toy stores. So we’re on a good mailing list, we get lots of good catalogs from these tiny little companies that just have unusual things. They’re generous sending samples. This weekend the American Specialty Toy Association, they have an annual event called neighborhood toy store day, which is really a good kick for us to start the season. It’s just a day that we celebrate with, usually, a sale and little prizes for the kids and stuff. Because it’s earlier than Thanksgiving — Thanksgiving had been the kickoff, we’d have a sale and everybody came and then it started — now, with this event it starts a little earlier. It helps a lot, and that’s all because we’re a members of that group. The downtown association here, of course, is really helpful too.

Do you have a favorite toy?

In each category I have a favorite. In active play, like physical, active play, there’s this thing called Goodminton, it’s kind of like Badminton except that it’s for indoors. It’s very nice. I would say Playmobil, I play with those. We have a play table in the back and I like to fool around with that — the kids tear it apart and I put it back. Of course, I like dolls, but the dolls kind of died, they don’t sell that well. Some of them do, like these little Groovy Girls dolls and baby dolls for toddlers, but that’s a hard market, Barbie is hard to beat and we don’t carry Barbie.

We sell tons of games. Not necessarily thanks to me, I order them but I don’t know how to play most of them, but we have staff who do. Like Liz who’s in there, she’s a gamer and so is Ashley, who also works for us. Board games, card games for adults and kids. Sometimes I think somebody could open up — like Liz, she could probably do this — just a game shop.

We sell a million jigsaw puzzles. We probably sell $15,000 worth of jigsaw puzzles a year, easily. We only sell one line, Ravensburger, German made company. They’re probably the cream of the crop in jigsaw puzzles. That’s a big category for us.

How much of your business comes over the holidays?

I remember the first year we were in business one of our sales reps said, ‘Expect to do double what you did in the previous month, in a regular month,’ but actually we quadrupled it on that first year. We were blown away. Typically we do make a lot in that last quarter, it’s easily double. Probably a third (of the year’s business) in the last quarter.

What do you do to get ready for that rush?

Just keep ordering toys. We’re not as organized as we really should be. Some people have these beautiful charts that say ‘OK, order this.’ We just keep ordering until we say, ‘OK it’s time to stop we’ve got to pay the bills.’ Ten minutes ago a woman was in looking for more of something that we are going to run out of, like right now we ran out, she bought three and we needed more because she needs more. We kind of just make sure we order from companies who can ship fast, they’re on the West Coast versus being on the East Coast, because then we can get it in two days, that makes a big difference.

Have you seen trends in toys?

Definitely Leggo is on a role in the last couple of years. We had it years ago and we couldn’t sell it because people assumed our prices — and they were — were higher than the Fred Meyer, but then about three years ago people were demanding it. We’d say, ‘Well you can get it over there at Fred Meyer,’ and they’d say, ‘But we want to buy it from you.’ That’s the local mentality, it’s incredible. So we ordered it and it’s been really good for us. We try to be as competitive as we can with the big tickets, but we’re probably still higher. But people still are OK with it.

I wish they would get a little more sophisticated with the girls’ stuff. The girl themes are a little babyish, too simple. They don’t have enough big sets that are really complicated that are appealing to girls. We sell a lot of hula hoops — I make them. It’s simple really. I just go to City Lumber and get some irrigation tubing and get one of those pipe cutter things and get the connectors. I put water in them so they’re a little heavier, so they’re easier. Then I put it all together, you have to soften up the tubing. that started a few years ago when adults were looking for hula hoops and they couldn’t find them, and I couldn’t find them either, but I could find out how to make them so I did. Ever since then it’s one of our trademarks I think. Scrooged, in Astoria, we donate, we have a trade thing with them — we give them toys for advertising on their stage, so they made up a little song about our hula hoops.

How many hula hoops do you make in a year?

That’s a good question, hundreds. A couple of hundred.

What’s your favorite part?

Being in a little town like this you get involved. I’m involved in the downtown association so I get to know a lot of my colleagues, that’s great. We don’t have kids, so we’re not in that circle where everybody knows each other because their kids play together, but we get to know them because we’re selling to them. That’s nice. I don’t know if I’d like it as much in a big town.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced?

Staying within budget. We just somehow make it. Most years we’re like, ‘OK at the end of the year we’re paying the bills and we still have a little bit of money left, but sometimes we don’t.’

Do you have any interesting customer stories?

There’s probably so many. One of my favorite stories though, is, this little girl came in with her grandma and grandma wanted to buy her something — grandmas do that. She was probably ready to drop bucks. The little girl is looking in and looking around and then she said, ‘I want that, grandma,’ and it was these things called cat’s eye glasses that are made by one of our prank companies that just look like cat’s eyes. So she buys them and puts them on, and so she’s like, ‘When’s it going to happen?’ And her grandma and I look at each other and we realize she thought she was going to turn into a cat. That was pretty funny. So we gave her a refund and let her pick something else. It was pretty cute.

The other day this little girl came in and she had a firetruck in her arms. I thought she was buying it for herself, with, I think her mother, and she said, ‘Oh no, it’s a present for grandpa.’ But grandpa was obviously going to play with her.

It’s fun when you hear little kids who realize how important it is to shop local, because their parents have told them that, they show up with, ‘We want to buy this from you.’ Especially when we had that crash a few years ago, I noticed it a lot that kids were saving their money to shop local.

A couple of years ago, in the summertime I think, this young guy came in and he’s looking around and he’s talking and he comes up to the counter and he says, ‘You don’t remember me?’ He was heartbroken that I didn’t remember him. And I though, ‘Oh no, who is this guy? Probably a good customer from way back.’ Then he told me about his father and… his father used to come in regularly and take the boys shopping and mom was working or something I guess. One night (his father) came in, after wandering around the store very carefully looking at everything, he bought his kid a big dinosaur that retails for like $28 — expensive. Then they came back in the next day together and the little boy, who was about 5 then, this kid who is now an adult, he exchanged it for 28 little, $1 buffalo, he needed a herd of buffalo.

That happens a lot, actually. Sometimes I’ll recognize a voice and say, ‘Oh my god is that, whoever, and some of them are parents now of course, because we’ve been here like 20 years. It’s a good life, we like it.

Plans for the future?

Maybe working less, because now we can. We have great staff, we finally feel really comfortable about taking time off. This year we took our first two-week vacation together. We went to a big family thing back east, we had a family reunion, so that was nice. We’ll probably do more of that, because we feel good about everything.