Countdown to Christmas: Tales from the Toy Shop
Regular Mums & Dads readers will have read our column in the last edition about how our Didsbury Toy Shop has weathered the storm of Covid thanks to the support of our local community, our customers, and online sales through Down Your High Street and on our own website.
So, Covid storm weathered and plain sailing going forwards… well, so we hoped… but as I’m sure you are aware the latest ‘crisis’ to hit retail as well as many other UK businesses is, of course, the issue of stock shortages due to Chinese ports being closed, shipping containers being in short supply and a shortage of HGV drivers. The media has been telling us that Christmas will be cancelled as there will be no toys and no turkeys.
Well, I’d like to reassure my customers that Christmas will not be cancelled. Yes, there will be products that will be difficult to get hold of, some of the ‘must have’ toys as well as things with computer chips will be in short supply – but that happens every year – and there will be plenty of other toys available.
Being a small retailer means I don’t have to map out, plan and order months in advance so I can react quickly to potential problems – such as the anticipated stock shortages. This Autumn I’ve merrily thrown caution to the wind and gone on a wild spending spree to ensure that Giddy Goat Toys is well stocked for our customers. Our shelves, storage rooms and my spare bedroom are jam packed with stock and I have placed forward orders with lots of suppliers to ensure we get a steady stream of new stock in right through to mid-December. We’ll also have our usual selection of toys for all ages – from this year’s must have toys such as the Little Live Pets Gotta Go Turdle, to Lego, Board Games, Jigsaw Puzzles, wooden doll houses, garages and kitchens, Playmobil, Sylvanian Families and Science Kits, plus of course loads of fun stocking fillers and a range of Advent Calendars to count down to the big day. So, don’t panic, just pop down to our Didsbury shop or, if you prefer shopping online, you can do so at Giddy goat toys web site and you can even use Clearpay or Klarna and spread the cost of shopping across three or four interest free instalments.
In other news, team Giddy Goat was delighted to discover that we had been selected to be one of the 2021 Small Biz 100 businesses. This is part of American Express’s Small Business Saturday campaign, which encourages consumers to shop local, with them running cash back promotions to their customers in the run up to Small Business Saturday on the first Saturday of December. In the 100 days leading up to this they champion a different business each day, promoting them on social media and in the press and encouraging networking between the different businesses. Our ‘day’ is Thursday 2nd December and we’ll be doing some special offers and promotions then, so follow us on social media to keep up to date with our news and offers.
We were also pleased to find that we have been nominated for the award of Best Independent UK Toy Retailer by Progressive Pre-School Magazine which was a lovely surprise, and so we feel that despite everything, 2021 has been a very positive year for us.
Of course we’re only here thanks to the support and patronage of our customers. I’d like to take the opportunity to say a big thank you to everyone who has supported us since we first opened our doors in September 2012, whether you’ve visited our shop, used our click & collect service, bought online or even just liked or shared a social media post from ourselves or a fellow Didsbury business – it all helps keep us small independent shops going which in turn makes our local high streets interesting places for shopping, dining and hanging out.
And this year you might find that it’s the smaller shops that have the best stocked shelves as we’ve been able to react quickly and stock up for you.
So here’s to a fun filled, family centred Christmas 2021 and all the very best to everyone for 2022.
Amanda and the Giddy Goat team xxxx
