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Star Wars Science and Brain Wave Games

July 29, 2009

I cannot believe that it has been three months since my last blog entry. I have some cool announcements for you. First, Star Wars Science products have started shipping. We recently received the Jedi telescope, the Jedi projector and the optical command unit (aka binoculars). While these products are all very cool, it is the Star Wars Force Trainer and the Mind Flex games that I am waiting for. These games both use your brain waves to control a styrofoam ball in order to achieve an objective.
The Star Wars Force Trainer reminds me of the scene in A New Hope (Star Wars IV, the original Star Wars movie) where Luke and Ben Kenobi are on the Millenium Falcon and Ben is teaching Luke to use the Force. Luke ends up wearing a blast shield mask and using the Force to defend himself against the training ball. With The Force Trainer, the ball floats up and down and I am guessing that you need to hit certain positions to earn points.
Mind Flex is a little different and a little more Mattel-like in design. With MindFlex, you move the ball up and down through a circular obstacle course.
Both games look like a lot of fun and I can't wait to set up demo models in my store for me...uh...customers to try out.

New products galore

April 13, 2009

Easter 2009 brought in a great week of sales for Huggable Me. We've been advertising quite a bit and bringing in lots of great new products. Bella Sara products include the new Treasures trading cards, mini horses and plush. Cool new Yo Baby kick boards from Garage Co are in stock. Dr. Suess plush, Courduroy plush, Webkinz plush, Curious George plush, Webkinz Jr plus. And the plush list goes on and on. We love plush at Huggable Me. Automoblox are, hands-down, one of the most stylish products on the market. Once you play with an Automoblox car you will be hooked. We carry both the large and small cars. puzzibits and Zeebeez are also in stock now. Look for more exciting, breakthrough products throughout the year.

Thank you to all

January 14, 2009

Thank you to all of our customers who helped us have a wonderful holiday season. Now we are going to work hard to earn your business to ensure a healthy 2009. As the economy continues to slip we have been working hard to bring you the best prices and shipping rates that we can. January is a month of meetings with our shippers and our suppliers. Our goal is to keep prices and shipping rates the same or lower than 2008 prices and rates.

Can anyone hear me?

December 2, 2008

Can anyone hear me under all of these boxes? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Cyber Monday was very good to us this year. We received tons of orders and had lots of foot traffic in our Elk Grove store. Our crew is working around the clock to make sure that all of your online orders are shipped on time and correctly. We hope everyone has lots of fun opening all of these great gifts.

Bring on Cyber Monday

November 30, 2008

NRF created Cyber Monday to represent the first day back to work after the Thanksgiving holiday for many folks. Cyber Monday is the day when people search for those great gifts that they didn't buy on Black Friday. Based on our weekend orders, we just experienced Cyber-Weekend. A healthy order volume on Monday, December 1st would be a terrific way to kick off the December sales period...for Huggable Me and every other retailer in the country. Thank you in advance for all of your orders. All orders are very much appreciated and all orders, no matter how large or how small, are treated as the most important order we have ever received. Have fun shopping tomorrow!

Happy Thanksgiving

November 26, 2008

Everyone at Huggable Me wishes you and your family a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving!

Huggable Me is Helping Santa Claus

November 24, 2008

One of the great feelings that comes with owning a toy store is the feeling of helping families have a great Christmas by supplying them with quality, decent-priced toys. We've even shipped at least one order to North Pole, Alaska. Well, its back to the shipping department for me. There are presents to be shipped! We are here to help Santa deliver presents to nice little children across the world!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2008

November 20, 2008

Boy! We are busy this week! Due to the late Thanksgiving holiday where Thanksgiving Day is the 27th of November we are seeing a rush of customers who do not want to wait for Black Friday or Cyber Monday to do their Christmas shopping. While customers traditionally wait for these super shopping days they are being careful to make sure that all gifts ordered online arrive in time for Christmas. So my earlier prediction of early shoppers and low inventory levels in December will likely materialize. Let's wait and see. Shop early to avoid the holiday shopping stress. Happy Holidays!

Great, New Products at Huggable Me

November 18, 2008

With the Holidays almost upon us we have added a number of new product categories and products for you. We have rounded out our great baby and toy selection with the addition of clothing, strollers, carriers, car seats, high chairs and nursery furniture. My wife and I personally used Graco infant carriers (part of the Quattro system) and Britax car seats. We have also added a few cool, new products such as the One Laptop Per Child laptop computer that not only looks great but also gives a disadvantaged child the chance to use a computer as an educational tool. The other cool electronic products are the Wii, XBox 360 and Playstation 3 consoles. For the avid reader in your house we have the Amazon Kindle reading device.

Popular Toys for 2008

November 13, 2008

The most popular toys for 2008 are anything from Melissa and Doug, Webkinz, PlasmaCars, books and bath toys. Webkinz pets that are most popular continue to be the new releases and the recently retired. Melissa and Doug easels are very popular as is the brand new grocery store and lemonade stand. We were a little frightened when Melissa & Doug shipped their new fruit and vegetables to us. We quickly opened a sample box containing plastic fruit. What we found were extremely high quality fruit for use with the grocery store. The fruit looks real. It is vitually indestructible as are all other Melissa & Doug toys. I am now a proud supporter of Melissa and Doug's risky venture into plastic fruit. We will gladly refund your purchase if you find that you are unhappy with the quality of the fruit or vegetables although I am pretty sure that nobody will take me up on my offer. My son has spent many hours playing with the grocery store and selling me baskets of fruit and vegetables.

Advertisements on our blog page

November 12, 2008

We are running a new test using Google Adsense to display advertisements relevant to our blog content. You should not find advertisements on any of our ecommerce pages. We think that these advertisements will add value to readers of our blog. Our blog focuses on the retail environment, toys and retail software systems. Why not offer our readers a quick, easy way to get more information about these topics? As long as there is are no problems with the content that Google serves up and I can figure out the most effective way to filter our competitors ads then I think that Google ads will be here permanently.

Life in a Webkinz world

November 9, 2008

Webkinz are hot, hot, hot. I think we can all agree on that. Even my three year-old son plays in Webkinz world. We just named a Buffalo after him. Because Webkinz are so popular we have been doing some homework to find out what, if any, other sites can be compared to Webkinz. What we have found is that, while there are many sites offering virtual worlds and online games targeting 4-12 year olds (and their parents), very few sites can offer the combination of fun offered in both the virtual, online world as in the real world for the price. When you purchase a Webkinz pet (anywhere from $9 to $16) you get a really cute plush animal to play with and put next to your pillow on your bed and you get a one-year subscription to a really cool and fun virtual world. For some players, one pet is ample. For others, ten, twenty, thirty pets seems to do the trick. We like pbskids.org and noggin.com for pure online fun. But Webkinz is still the online king.

Retail Pro and other point of sale systems

November 8, 2008

At Huggable Me, we use Retail Pro 9 to run our brick and mortar store operations. It is a very flexible and powerful application that allows you to brand it with your own company's branding. We have not customized the out-of-the-box funtionality very much but we have branded Retail Pro with our Huggable Me logo and color scheme - along with images of our son on many of the application screens. If you're considering Retail Pro, I strongly urge you to leverage the services of one of the many Retail Pro business partners who can help configure Retail Pro to support your way of doing business. My only gripe is that the number of available pre-packaged integrations with third party applications is very limited. This will improve as the product and platform matures. Other point of sale and order management systems seem to be all over the place - hosted, non-hosted, transaction-fee based, membership-fee based, ugly, pretty, cutting edge in terms of technology and old, old school in terms of technology. I am following some of the more interesting order management systems that are offering abundant integrations from the get-go. This is a hobby of mine. I am a certified technology geek.

Scams Galore

October 23, 2008

Our store was scammed this past month. Do not let yourself get caught by this scam. Here are the details. Most modern stores have fire control systems such as alarms, emergency lighting and sprinkler systems. Unscrupulous "fire inspection" companies are taking advantage of small mom and pop retailers by strongly implying that they are with the local fire department and performing a regularly scheduled inspection. They present a clipboard to the first employee that they see in the store and ask for a signature. The technician (if you can actually call them that) does not provide any paperwork to the employee and then goes about the inspection process. I seriously doubt that the technician is inspecting anything. The technician is wearing a collared shirt with an emblem (very similar to a fire department emblem) and a pair of dark Dickies pants (similar to what firemen wear outside of their full fire dress).

A few weeks later a bill arrives in the mail for a few hundred dollars. The bill offers no physical address - only a P.O. box number. A call to the 800 number is answered by someone who defends the bills legitamacy until you bring up legal action after which they quickly blame the technician for falsely representing himself like it is something that occasionally happens. The person who answers the phone also admits that the service was completely unsolicited. A credit memo is entered into their system and I am told to disregard any future bills that I might receive from them.

A call to the local fire department reveals that this type of scam is on the rise. There is a fire department employee assigned to dealing with any scam where someone impersonates a peace officer. The fire department confirms that they never charge for routine inspections and that any fee based inspection is always initiated by either the landlord or the tenant. Any inspection not performed by the fire department is performed by a licensed and credible inspection company that is performing solicited work.

A call to the landlord of the shopping center reveals that many of their shopping centers are being hit by fake fire inspection companies. Always contact your landlord when this type of problem occurs because they also have dedicated resources and connections to local police departments to fight scammers. Reporting scams to your landlord and fire department is the proper thing to do because it helps to stop scammers and it raises the awareness of all small businesses and local law enforment agencies.

This scam is not only devastating to small business who pay the fake bill without knowing it is a scam but also to legitimate fire inspection companies whose image is being tarnished. Stop scammers and do your best to be aware so that you do not fall victim to them.

Holiday Work

October 11, 2008

There is not much to say this month other than we are now receiving holiday merchandise and getting our website ready to handle the increased order volume that we are expecting. The push now is to make sure that all of the product images are available and product descriptions are published. Search engine optimization efforts seem to be paying off as we are experiencing increased page rankings. Happy holidays from Huggable Me!

Competing with big box retailers

September 27, 2008

Let me first say that I have a lot of respect for both large retailers and for the manufacturers that supply both large and small retailers. I also have a lot of respect for the customers of our great country. Some interesting developments have occurred over the last couple of years that are actually landmark events in the world of retail. Landmark might be a bit of an exaggeration but that is purely based on your perspective.

Last week my family received a small catalog from Toys "R" Us. It was tastefully laid out and it showcased their private label Imaginarium brand of toys. It also showcased toy manufacturers that have traditionally focused on positioning themselves as specialty toy vendors. The list of manufacturers includes Manhattan Toy Company (makers of Automoblox), Schylling Toys (maker of retro, tin toys among many other things), Schleich, Green Toys and Corolle Dolls. As the owner of a small toy store I was first mortified that so many of the "specialty" toys are now available at Toys "R" Us. Why should I be suprised as these toys have been available at Target for quite some time all the while representing no significant threat to my business. I have also read that Walmart is doing their best to compete with Target's more upscale image (again, it is all based on your perspective) by offering specialty toys and clothing traditionally found only in childrens' boutiques. While the more diverse selection now available at large retailers is good for shoppers who want the one-stop shopping experience provided by Target and Walmart, this should be a scary thing for boutiques who have differentiated themselves from large retailers based solely on the product lines that they carry. These boutiques traditionally apply high markups to the products that they sell and cannot or are unwilling to compete on price.

Another development that happened last year is the lifting of restictions on price-fixing. The Supreme Court ruled that the establishment of minimum pricing can be justified when it is important to a manufacturer that their products not be discounted from the retail price that they specify. This does hurt shoppers because every store who carries that brand will be required to sell it for the same price. Because of minimum pricing rules from manufacturer ABC, Huggable Me sells widget A for $10 and the discounter Walmart also sells widget A for $10. You, as a shopper, are unable to find a bargain at your favorite store whether it be Huggable Me or Walmart.

Now that pricing of specialty toys is more or less consistent across small to large retailers customers turn to differentiators such as selection and service. As an example, Toys "R" Us carries a small selection of Melissa & Doug toys. My store, Huggable Me, carries over 500 Melissa & Doug products. Limited Too carries a good selection of the brand new Webkinz pets. My store, Huggable Me, carries well over 100 Webkinz products including a full selection of Webkinz and Lil'Kinz pets. These are just a couple of examples of expansive selections that you will find at Huggable Me. Other small retailers have similar examples concerning other brands.

My conclusion to all of these developments is this; With large retailers now carrying specialty toys and actively marketing them I believe that it can only help small retailers. More shoppers will know about these toys and more shoppers will be looking for these toys. The specialty toy manufacturers will sell more product due to the larger retailer-base. And I am predicting that specialty retailers such as Huggable Me will benefit from increased sales from those customers who may receive catalogs and advertisements from large retailers but would rather shop at a small retailer where they receive outstanding customer service, knowledgeable sales staff, gift wrap services as well as an intimate and relaxed shopping experience all while knowing that they are getting the same great prices to be found at large discounters.

Webkinz Club has been launched

September 14, 2008

As of Saturday the 13th, the Webkinz Club at Huggable Me is running at full capacity for our in-store customers! For each big Webkinz pet you purchase at full price you will receive one Webkinz Club card. Collect Webkinz Club cards and redeem them for free Webkinz merchandise. You only need to collect two cards to receive a free bookmark and only twelve cards for a free big Webkinz pet. You can even give your cards to a friend as a birthday present if you like.

And soon our online customers can also partipate in the Webkinz Club. Each online purchase of a big Webkinz pet at full price earns you one Webkinz Club card. Your Webkinz Club card will be included with your order along with instructions for redeeming the cards for free Webkinz merchandise.

Updated return policy

August 30th, 2008

I was performing a content review of our website this morning and noticed that our return policy was not correctly stated. It stated that we only accept returns up to 14 days after you receive your online order. We have updated the return policy to correctly state that we accept returns up to 30 days after you receive your online order. Returns received after 30 days but before 45 days of receiving your online order will be refunded as a store credit.

Back to school again...and again...and again...

August 30th, 2008

August and September are back to school months. Each week we have parents coming in to our store getting ready for their childrens' return to school. When I was in school, we had a single back to school week where everyone went back to school at the same time. Now we have a back to school season where each school (public, charter and private) has their own start date due to year-round schedules and other reasons. Back to school start dates coupled with last minute vacations and really odd weather patterns make this time of year an interesting time for retailers. Our 2008 sales are way up over our 2007 sales - which is awesome and will ensure that we are around for many years to come to server our wonderful customers - but it sure makes predicting daily and weekly sales into a challenge best left to statisticians. I should pull out my dusty Statistics for Engineers textbook from college and look for some guidance. But, is it really important to predict sales to that level of granularity? Not really. If we meet our numbers for the month then we are very happy. And our increase in sales has led to a decrease in our prices. We like to share our success with our customers - who have been instrumental in helping us achieve this success. Thank you.

Getting ready for the holidays

August 21, 2008

We have been preparing for the holidays since February of this year. Our Christmas shopping season begins in October. That is one entire month before the shopping rush that begins the day after Thanksgiving. I am a retailer but I am also a consumer and a parent. Based on the ups and downs of shipping costs that we have experienced this year I strongly urge you to take advantage of free shipping offers that you come across. Shop early to avoid orders that ship too close to Christmas and arrive the day after. You will find more bargains during the summer months than you will at Christmas time. It is a simple case of supply and demand. We offer free shipping for almost all orders over $75. We expect to continue this offer indefinitely as we work with our shippers to reduce costs so that we can continue to provide great products at great prices. Like I said, we are consumers and parents so we are looking for the same deals that everyone else is looking for. In addition, we expect Webkinz to be in short supply this Christmas. Other toys might also be in short supply as a result of increased transit times between China and the USA. Plan ahead and happy shopping to all during this wonderful 2008 year. We are here to help. 1-877-686-1266.

An underwater paradise

August 16, 2008

Thursday was an exciting day for us. We adopted our first underwater webkinz - the Fantail Goldfish. Using what little Kinzcash I had, I purchased as many underwater themed objects as I could afford. Luckily, I found that a few of my other objects work in the underwater room, too. Then for the big test...my goldfish went on an adventure through the rest of my Webkinz' house. Fanny, my goldfish, put on her helmet so that she could breathe. She met my other Webkinz pets and they all got along...swimmingly. For all of you with the new Manatee or Fantail Goldfish - enjoy your new underwater rooms. On a side note, if you happen to have more than 10 rooms before you register your underwater pets you will not get a free underwater room but you do have the opportunity to purchase an underwater room for 1000 Kinzcash.

Lucky Day 08-08-08

August 8, 2008

Is today really a lucky day? We think so. My grandmother turned 80 today and is in good health so we feel fortunate that our family has been able to enjoy her company for these many years.

Webkinz Club Loyalty Program is Almost Here

August 8, 2008

I just got off the phone with the company who is producing our Webkinz loyalty program cards. Based on their estimate we should have our cards by early next week. What does this mean to you? We will absolutely offer this program to our in-store customers. And those customers who have signed up for our Webkinz-only mailing list will receive special Club offers. We would also like to extend our loyalty program to our online customers as well. Sign up for our mailing list to get the scoop on the loyaly program details.

Green toys are on their way to Huggable Me

August 8, 2008

As a company, we have been focused on going "green". We were recently introduced to a new line of green toys by one of our favorite sales reps. This line offers tea sets, potting kits and play tableware sets made from recycled milk jugs. In addition to being green, we really liked the quality and feel of the product. How else have we set about going green? I'm glad that you asked. We have enrolled in our local energy company's Greenergy program. The energy costs a bit more than energy from non-renewable sources such as coal but it is worth it. We also recycle the majority of shipping boxes that we receive. Instead of throwing them in the dumpster we save the boxes that are in good condition to re-use as we ship merchandise out to our online customers. The boxes that are not reusable are placed into the recycle-only dumpster in our shopping center. Although we have noticed that 2008 has brought a sharp increase in the number of local cardboard scavengers who are extracting the cardboard from the dumpster as fast as it gets put in.

Upcoming future Webkinz

August 4, 2008

Here's the list of future Webkinz: Floppy Pig, Eagle, Chipmunk, Bottlenose Dolphin, Sheep, Lil'Kinz Chickadee, Lil'Kinz Seal. Release dates are not known at this time. The only thing we know for sure is that we've ordered as many of these future pets as we could to make sure that as many of our customers get the pets that they want at our regular price.

New August Webkinz pets are on the way

August 4, 2008

The much anticipated August release of Webkinz pets are on their way into our store. The pets are: Caramel Lion, American Albino, Skunk, Fantail Goldfish, Manatee, Cocoa Dinosaur, Silverback Gorilla, Deer, Lil'Kinz Gecko, Lil'Kinz Lioness and the Lil'Kinz Bluejay. For those of you on the waiting lists you have nothing to worry about. We will call you as soon as your pets arrive. There seems to be a delay with the Series 3 trading cards. As usual, we will offer the new releases to our in-store customers first before offering them online. Sign up for our Webkinz Club email list for exclusive in-store Webkinz offers and releases.

Conversion of online shopper researching into online and in store sales

August 2, 2008

As the retail industry keeps tabs on the changes in consumer behavior, merchants are finding that it is not easy to keep up. Content is king and your online content has to complement your in-store product selection. Many customers are now performing the majority of their product research online. The online stores that offer the best content will see more of the research customers becoming either online or in-store customers. Of course, there is the situation where your content may be the best but your prices and availability do not meet customer expectations. These stores will lose price conscience customers over time as lower priced competitors are deemed to deliver the same quality product with a similar level of customer service.

Are Melissa and Doug Real

July 29,2008

Yes. Sometimes our in-store customers are surprised to find this out. Melissa and Doug are real people and they are the owners of Melissa and Doug, LLC. They have been in business for over 20 years and have built their business around phenomenal customer service and great products that they their own children play with. We have carried Melissa and Doug's educational toys since we first opened our store.

Amazon Unbox Video

July 27, 2008

You can now quickly see a great selection of family movies and television shows by using our Unbox Viewer. Our Unbox Viewer filters only includes family programming that is available for instant downloading or renting from amazon.com's Unbox Video program. You can even see some free previews for a large number of movies and tv shows. My son has fun with it and I don't have to worry about him accidentally viewing an inappropriate preview. Check it out now

Working With Search Engines

July 27, 2008

Have you ever submitted a URL to various search engines? Well, I have been learning about all of the search engine alternatives. Google and Yahoo are the obvious ones. But we have found that there are customers who use Alexa, MSN, Lycos, Dogpile, AOL and Ask.com. Yes, Lycos is still around believe it or not. Remember iwon.com? They are a gaming site now. They used to be a search engine where there was a $10,000 daily winner. I never won a prize on iwon.com which is why I am now partial to Yahoo! search. It seems to give me the results I am looking for. Anyway, I have been submitting the huggableme.com website to all of the search engines so that our customers can quickly and easily find us. Our webstore has been used by many out-of-towners who want to give a gift to a relative or friend who lives in Elk Grove. Sort of like a 1-800-Flowers for children's products. Optimizing a website for search engines is a mysterious science.

To increase the importance of Huggable Me webstores on the internet I have decided to share some of my efforts with the webmasters of the world. How do I increase my Alexa ranking? The first piece of advice is always along the lines of don't cheat and try to artificially increase your ranking on any ranking engine. Alexa likes to see lots of traffic flowing through their browser toolbar plugin. This is a little difficult when their toolbar is not yet compatible with Vista and most people I know are running Vista these days. The second piece of advice is to install the Alexa toolbar and set your browser's home page to your blog or the most important information page on your website. I don't have time to advertise Huggable Me on various social networks so I'm going to focus on plain, old, quality content whenever possible. Seems to make sense to me. Let's see if it works.

Get Ready for The Webkinz Club at Huggable Me

July 27, 2008

We are finalizing the details of our Webkinz Club program. The Webkinz Club program is a rewards program for our Webkinz customers. Expect an announcement sometime in August. While you're waiting for the new Webkinz Club, continue to check out the weekly Webkinz specials on our website. We update our weekly specials every Sunday. You'll find them all here: www.huggableme.com.

New Webkinz for August 2008

July 26, 2008

We will receive the Goldfish and Manatee in August. In store customers should sign up on our waiting list if they have not already. We expect these animals to be gone quickly. Once they are gone it is unknown if we’ll be able to reorder them from Ganz. These new members of the Webkinz world come with an underwater room that looks like it will be a lot of fun. Per the various Webkinz fan sources, underwater animals and land animals will be able to visit each other’s rooms by way of bubble masks. Fish will wear a bubble mask while on land and other animals will wear a bubble mask when underwater.

KCRA A-List

July 26, 2008

We have been ranked as one of the Top 5 children’s stores in the greater Sacramento area for two years running now. We made the top 5 in both 2007 and 2008. For those of you who voted for us…thank you. For those of you who didn’t know about the KCRA A-List…you can vote for us in 2009. As always, we offer a 10% discount to those customers who bring in a printout of their voting receipt. Military personnel, parents of twins and educators receive a 10% discount year-round at Huggable Me.

Welcome to my blog

July 22, 2008

Let’s see if I can figure out how to make this blog interesting and keep it up to date. My first topic is the newly relocated store. We closed for three days and somehow succeeded in moving a 2,000 square foot store full of merchandise and display fixtures into our new space. We were going for improved visibility and signage opportunities. While our store was doing well in its old space, hidden behind two support walls with a minimal amount of glass on the store front, we felt that we could do even better if customers could drive by and discover us more easily. It has now been two weeks since we relocated and we have already met many new faces. The reaction to our new space from our repeat customers has been phenomenal and we really appreciate all of the comments (and even the suggestions) that they offer.

Signing off for now.

-Adam