At Gifted Originals, we like to think we’re different to the other major toy retailers and stockists. Offering a consistently good service to our customers, we know value for money and a personal service means a lot. Maybe this, along with our excellent products is why we’re expanding when many other independent toy shops are struggling – a bittersweet fact for Gifted Originals.
In a recent article in the Independent, Martin Hickman wrote about his worry regarding the increasing decline of independent toy shops: ‘This summer the explosion of colour and shapes at a toyshop in the town of Arboga, near Stockholm, Sweden, reminded a forty-something holidaymaker of his childhood. While some toys had been updated, they were essentially the same; the children’s delight were the same too. What has changed is that in Britain, fewer and fewer 21st-century small eyes and hands experience an emporium devoted to their enjoyment and imagination. Independent toy shops are in decline.’
Yes, supermarkets and department stores may well stock toys, sometimes selling them at incredibly cheap prices that we can’t always compete with, but for Hickman, ‘the value of toy shops can’t be weighed in pounds or pence alone, though. They offer some tangible and intangible benefits. Tangibly, they have a wider range than a supermarket aisle or corner of a department store and tend to stock fewer electronics and more traditional playthings.’
The bottom line is, just like fishmongers, grocers, butchers and other specialist retailers, toy shop owners have a real passion in what they sell. This fact alone won’t save the humble toy shop, but along with Gifted Originals’s desire to offer value for money and quality, we’re certainly doing our bit for toy shops on a whole.
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