When you start a business, any business, you have high ideals and aspirations. In the case of a shop, yours is going to be quite unlike any of your competitors' shops. You've seen them all, of course, during your market research and you've spotted all the errors they've made, from the glaring, such as a grocer's apostrophe (Tiny Tims Top Toy's) to the subtle (a pink section in the middle of the Lego shelves?). You've studied floor plans, the psychology of checkout location, the practicality of your proposed traffic flow around the shop; you've used 3-D simulation packages on your laptop to fine-tune the layout and product placement and you've done numerous on-screen walks through your shop. Perfect.
And then you open.
We opened on a miserable August morning in 2006, following a night of torrential rain, to find we'd had a minor flood. Did it bother us that we had to spend most of the day in the company of workmen, with part of our beautiful shop dismantled? Maybe, but we maintained our well-rehearsed smiles and carried on.
Trish and I both come from the school of thought that maintains that the customer is always right. We didn't know whether it would be easy or difficult to uphold that view but, up to now, I'm sure there hasn't been a single instance where we've quibbled over an exchange, a replacement, or a refund, if that's what the customer wants.
Occasionally, this policy crops up in conversation with friends and sooner or later, someone points out to us what mugs we are, what our legal position is, how we're always going to be walked over, how customers are going to take advantage of us. The fact is, they don't. Maybe we're just lucky in having great customers, but the number of times people have "tried it on" is so small as to be almost insignificant. There have been one or two, of course, such as the lady who asked us if we could replace a faulty module from a kit she'd bought from us, which we did, of course. When we gave it back to her, she put it back into its box that she'd kept in her carrier bag - a box that was an older package, whose design had changed before we opened. Just don't start bringing in your old '70's and '80's toys for replacement!
Now and then, a customer comes in to the shop, or phones us, looking for something we don't have - maybe something we don't even stock. We might not quite be moved to tears, but if the story's a good one, we've committed ourselves to finding the item for the customer at the recommended price and then spent time on Google, Amazon, Ebay, or specialist online retailers, only to end up paying more than we charge the customer. A rubbish business model, but it makes us, and the occasional customer, very happy.
These days, it's becoming more of a problem for small shops to compete, both on the high street and online. Why would you spend time going into town, finding somewhere to park and paying an extortionate parking fee, when you can go to Toys'R'Us at a retail park, with easy, free parking? Moreover, why would you even set foot outside your door, when you can do it all online? All I can say is that a lot of people like to see and feel what they're buying and going to the shops is still the best way to do that.
For those who prefer to buy online, why would they want to buy from anyone other than the likes of Amazon, or Toys'R'Us? I think that, for a straightforward purchase, or for an item that will be easy to return, then the national stores will make the sale nine times out of ten.
The difference comes when something is not quite right, or you want to ask a question, or you want to moan at somebody. Have you ever tried asking to speak to Mr Amazon, or Mrs Tesco? Well, you can speak to Mr or Mrs Little Shop of Knowledge - Trish or Terry - just by phoning and we'll sort out your problem there and then. Until we become the Mega Shop of Knowledge Corporation International, we plan to keep it that way.
When we had the idea of opening a shop, it wasn't to be just a toy shop. No, ours would be an educational toy shop - we had no interest in filling the shelves with the popular licenced toy brands that Woolies sold. We've stuck pretty well to that ideal; we may have stretched our definition of educational here and there, but we've resisted the temptation to cash in on the demise of Woolworth by becoming a mini-Woolies clone.
On the other hand, nor are we an educational supplies shop. We based our ideas on the work of an American educationalist, professor Howard Gardner, whose book, "Frames of Mind" introduces his theory of Multiple Intelligences, which I'll look at in another article.
Going back to the original question, then - would we buy from our shop if we didn't own it? The answer is "Yes, provided it was run by someone who had the same ideals as ourselves and who had the same approach to their customers, otherwise, no, we wouldn't."
