How to Run a Toy Store

Toy store management comes down to recognizing that while parents pay for the product, their kids are the decision makers within the realm of the store. This means children are a toy store's primary customer, and keeping them happy is the name of the game.

Instructions

1. Manage your toy store by hiring wisely. It's not enough to have honest, knowledgeable sales staff. They must also enjoy working around children. Conduct staff interviews on the sales floor during business hours, and watch closely how the applicants behave with children.

2. Offer up one of everything. To increase sales, you must have samples for your clientele to try, particularly with the hot, new products advertised on television. Keeping floor samples available for actual play can increase your sales dramatically, compensating for the loss of any samples. Keep samples turning on heavily trafficked, high-end items. Sell floor models at a slight discount, but within your profit margin, and rollover with a replacement. Using this method, you can minimize loss by selling pricey items before breakage occurs.

3. Keep shrinkage to a minimum. An effective toy store management technique is to instruct employees to play alongside the clientele, directing them to new products and add-on sales. By mingling within the store rather than lounging behind the counter, you can decrease loss from retail theft and breakage.

4. Stand behind your employees. The customer is not always right. In fact, the customer can be ridiculously out of line. Keep your clientele happy, but not at the cost of your sales force. If a customer (or customer's parent) is out of line, address the situation yourself. Diffuse it if possible, but not at your employee's expense. Correction of employees must only occur when the staff member is unquestionably in the wrong, and never on the sales floor in front of customers.

5. Keep it neat, but not too neat. Run the toy store as if it were a child's room. It should be organized, fun and inviting, with lots of activities available. It should not have a prim appearance that makes clientele reluctant to touch anything. Go for a "happily tousled" appearance.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember to keep all product at a child's level. Upper shelves are for overstock only.