Specialty Toy Stores Boast "Excellent" Xmas

Eighteen of 32 Stores Did Better Than Last Year

By Alison Marek
January 2007

How were sales at specialty toy stores this Christmas?

"Phenomenal!" raved Stan Giliberto, owner of Over the Rainbow in Glastonbury, Conn. "Walmart would kill for my numbers. The industry looked for 5% growth; we surpassed that several times over."

Seventeen other retailers agreed that sales were up from last year, while 9 said they were flat. Three lamented that their sales were down and two had no answer.

Even though she had a good Christmas, Karen Williams-Fox, owner of Woodbury Mountain Toys in Monteplier, Vt., noted that "freight ate into profits."

Mary Walsh, owner of the Magical Child in Greenfield, Mass., said her sales were "slightly down; my whole year was slightly off for the whole year. First time I’ve seen this decrease."

But overall, the mood was cheery. Even Teri Soelter, owner of Teri's Toybox in Edmonds, Wash., didn't let flat sales get her down. "We had floods. We've had snow and ice. We also had a blackout right before Christmas. ... Sales were actually on par with last year, which is amazingly good for what we were faced with!"

According to these retailers, then, 2007 should be off to a great start.