INDIE RETAILER FOCUS The Cambridge Toy Shop
Store owner, Vivienne Watson, started out in the hospitality industry, opening the Cambridge Toy Shop nine years ago. Her business now boasts two floors of toys, as well as a free bicycle delivery system. Robert Hutchins discusses the indie’s plans for the future
Tell us about your store. The Cambridge Toy Shop is nine years old this month. It started as a much smaller store in a secondary location in Cambridge. We moved four years ago to Sussex Street, a much larger double fronted property and a more central location. We have two floors of
toys, catering for all ages. Upstairs we have areas for mainly under-fives with our pre-school section being our most popular area. Downstairs we have lots of toys for ages from four up to adult.
What is your background? I worked in training, brand development, marketing and purchasing for a large hospitality group. I left to have my family, but then decided not to go back to commuting to London. Now I just cycle across Midsummer Common to the toy shop every day. I work with a great team and love it.
What kind of toys do you stock? We have a huge selection with all the major brands, plus lots of traditional favourites and a great selection of pocket money toys. We use several distributors who keep us up to date with the latest crazes such as the Minions from Despicable Meand we are always bringing in new ranges. We have found recently that a number of suppliers are happy to send us new stock on a sale or return basis so that helps to keep the shop looking fresh without the risk.
What is you local town centre like? Sussex Street is owned by Sidney Sussex College and is a pedestrianised area with cafes and independent shops.
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Designed in the 1920s and 30s it is a neo-Georgian style street and is very pretty. We often have buskers outside, which creates a nice atmosphere. Like many towns, we have our fair share of chain stores and coffee shops, but we also have dozens of fantastic independent shops which in the past year have been showcased in a terrific new publication called Independent Cambridge. We have a strong tourist trade, lots of language students and hundreds of undergraduates and their visiting families.
What online operations do you have? We don’t sell on eBay or Amazon. We do have a website from which we offer a personal shopping service and we also sell our gift vouchers. We use lots of social media including Facebook, Twitter, and the Visit Cambridge, City Viewed and Sussex Street websites.
How do you promote to your local community?
With the closure of ModelZone, we will be setting up a whole new area for models and accessories. Vivienne Watson, Cambridge Toy Shop
We print around 10,000 leaflets every year and distribute them locally and to tourists and at major attractions and hotels. We advertise on the Park and Ride buses and run competitions with them, we also run a number of in- store competitions that we advertise on our website and in our newsletter which is emailed regularly to our customer database. We also run a bicycle toy delivery system. Our bike looks really fantastic and it is a very efficient service.
What’s selling well for you right now? Apart from the usual big names, we are doing very well with the B range from John Crane, our new range of professional juggling equipment, our Brookite Kites are popular and we have a lovely line of greeting cards and wrap.
What’s having the most impact on your business? Our core business comes from local regular customers who actively support independent shops in Cambridge, so July was a very good month for us with lots of activity for Independents’ Month. We have seen an
increase in tourists and language students this year, which has definitely lifted sales in August.
What’s next for you and your store? My two main focuses will be customer service and social media. However, with the closure of Modelzone, we will be setting up a whole new area for models and accessories and also bringing in a range of radio controlled vehicles. I would like to open another shop, but not immediately.
www.toynews-online.biz
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