Latest / Small Business Success with Fexingo: Local Companies, Main Street Stories, and Community Commerce / How a Local Toy Shop Beat Amazon with a Play Lab
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a toy store in Portland, Oregon, that's been around since 2009, and last year its owners did something that sounds almost counterintuitive — they gave away a third of their floor space to a hands-on play area and called it the Play Lab. Luna: Give away floor space? In a retail world where every square foot counts, that seems like a risky bet. Lucas: You'd think so, but the numbers tell a different story. The owner, a former preschool teacher named Sarah, told me that since the Play Lab opened, foot traffic is up 40 percent, and the average transaction value has jumped about 30 percent. Parents come in, kids play for twenty minutes, and they leave with a toy — often something they hadn't planned to buy. Luna: So it's not just about the play area itself, but what it does to the shopping experience. It slows people down. Lucas: Exactly. And it gives the store a reason to exist that Amazon can't replicate. You can't test a toy online. You can't see how a toddler's eyes light up when they press a button and it makes a sound. That's the kind of experience that builds loyalty. Luna: But how does that work in practice? I imagine there are safety rules, and it must take up a lot of the store's space. Lucas: Sarah cleared a corner near the front window, about 400 square feet, and put down those soft foam mats you see in preschools. She added a low table with building blocks, a small wooden train set, and a few popular toys that are meant to be touched. The rule is simple: everything in the lab is a demo item, and if a kid falls in love with it, you buy a fresh one from the shelf. Luna: And that solves the returns problem too, right? Because kids have already tested it, parents know it's not going to be a dud. Lucas: That's exactly right. Sarah told me that returns have dropped by about 15 percent since the Play Lab opened. When a toy has already been opened and played with at the store, there's less chance of disappointment at home. It's a kind of reverse showrooming — instead of browse in the store and buy online, they're playing in the store and buying in the store. Luna: That's a great phrase, reverse showrooming. It flips the usual fear of Amazon on its head. Lucas: And the cost of setting it up was minimal. The foam mats were a few hundred bucks, the demo toys come from her own inventory, and she painted a colorful mural on the wall herself over a weekend. The only real ongoing cost is keeping the demo toys clean and occasionally replacing them when they get worn out. Luna: So it's not a huge capital investment, but it has to pay off in other ways. Have they seen a change in community engagement? Lucas: Huge. The Play Lab has become a gathering spot. Parents know that if they come in on a rainy Tuesday morning, there's a place for their toddler to burn off energy. Sarah has started hosting a weekly story time there, and she's got a waiting list for birthday parties. Luna: Birthday parties? That's a whole other revenue stream. Lucas: She charges a flat fee for two hours, includes a gift bag, and parents can add a toy from the store. It's become maybe 10 percent of her annual revenue. And it all started because she gave away space to let kids play. Luna: That's the kind of creative thinking that makes me want to support small businesses. And speaking of support, a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these episodes coming — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Lucas: Yeah, it's the small stuff that keeps this show ad-free. And if you've ever learned a trick from an episode like this one, that's a big part of why we do it. Luna: Alright, back to the toys. So what's the long-term play here? Is the Play Lab a permanent feature or just a foot-traffic hack? Lucas: It's permanent. Sarah sees it as the core of her identity, not a gimmick. She's even thinking about adding a small repair station where parents can bring in broken toys and learn to fix them. That would keep even more toys out of landfills and deepen the sense of community. Luna: A repair station for toys — that's a differentiator that Amazon definitely can't match. It turns the store into a resource, not just a shop. Lucas: And the beauty of it is that the Play Lab doesn't require a lot of staff. Sarah has two part-time employees, and one of them is usually stationed near the lab to supervise and restock. The rest of the time, parents watch their own kids. It's actually lower maintenance than you'd think. Luna: So what's the one lesson for other small retailers? If they can't do a full play lab, is there a smaller version of this idea? Lucas: I think the lesson is: find what you can offer that the internet can't. For a clothing store, that might be a tailor on site. For a hardware store, it's the staff who can actually show you how to fix a leaky faucet. Sarah's version was a Play Lab, but the principle is the same — make your space worth leaving the house for. Luna: And make it so a rainy Tuesday becomes a reason to visit, not a reason to stay home and browse on your phone. Lucas: Exactly. Rainy Tuesday, or sunny Saturday — the Play Lab is a pull factor. It's the kind of thing that builds a habit. And habits are what keep small businesses alive. Luna: I love that this started with a preschool teacher who understood what kids need, and that translated into a business model. Lucas: Right. She wasn't trying to out-Amazon Amazon. She was doubling down on the thing that makes physical retail special: human connection, serendipity, and the joy of seeing a kid's face light up. Luna: That's a pretty good place to end. Thanks for listening to another episode of Small Business Success with Fexingo. Lucas: We'll catch you next time with another story of a local company doing something smart.