Toy Tidy News
Toy Tidy - History - How we began
20th July 2007
At the time I had 2 young children Edward 2 and Emily 6.
In my career I had worked for big FMCG companies and achieved my MBA from Henley Management College. I took voluntary redundancy to be with the children more from a senior post which had meant long hours and European travel. Never one to sit still and with the Sainsbury's food bill to pay each week I looked locally for part time work and gained some short term part time contracts which gave me the opportunity to became Chair of Governors at the children’s school - but this still wasn’t as challenging or used enough of my skills. So...
With support from my husband John and the children I combined my skills of sourcing suppliers and my frustration as a working mother in my battle to keep the house tidy while ensuring the children had easy access to their toys and belongings. In my research I found there was no shop where you could find a good choice of storage solutions in one place and therefore founded The Toy Tidy Company Ltd. A mail order catalogue was the simplest way of providing the best possible selection of basic items or ... so I thought.
I ran stalls at local craft and school fairs with a range of small items hooks, bags, tins and boxes to gain market research into what parents required and children liked. Since then our range has changed considerable with the focus now being on furniture -toy boxes, toy storage units, bookcases, play tables, desks, seating and baskets etc. Our products are selected with children’s self help in mind to minimise the “Mummy where is my……” factor . Our furniture encourages children to find what they are looking for, for themselves which will hopefully foster a sense of independence in their play and their lives.
Many storage units offer a choice of clear trays or shelves where children can have a place for things to put them away and can see them easily.
In 2003 we started with a tiny brochure and found we, couldn’t put all our range in it so we launched our first web site. Only 4 years ago buying on the Internet was still a new phenomenon and not everyone had a computer at home. In 2004 we then invested on a major marketing campaign with adverts in all the key parenting magazines Junior Practical Parenting and Nursery World to spread the word about Toy Tidy. Next we produced a larger catalogue to fit all our new furniture items in. 30, 000 were printed over the year and we mailed them all by hand from our sitting room. More people got to hear about us and the feed back was good - great catalogue, great products but disappointingly our sales just did not recoup our costs for all this direct mailing. It was crunch time did we continue or not?
By 2005 the Internet was developing and Google was established as a powerful search engine. This was our next strategy for developing Toy Tidy. It was cheaper and potentially wider than any direct mail campaign. The evolution of AdWords on Google was our spring board. It has taken time to understand its complexities and understanding that the controls are all mine in how much to spend and when to show our advertising presence. For example - we only ship to the UK and everyone with small children are reading bed time stories between 6 and 7pm at night so advertising without limitations linked to such specifications is wasted money.
2006 saw the consolidation of our product range to only furniture and the challenge of sourcing more new suppliers began. We now work with some fantastic people. Many of whom are family firms like us, who make their own ranges of products – not found on the high street. We have grown our businesses together- sharing ideas, problems and finding the best solution for us both. They care about what they produce and together we offer a superb and flexible service to our customers. We have many items in our ranges that can be personalised and offer a choice of size and colour as we understand every parent’s or carer’s needs are different. Our carefully selected range of quality toy boxes, furniture and accessories will withstand the test of time - they are made for children. As children grow and flourish they continue to use and enjoy their toy boxes and toy storage and if they do not take them with them when they leave home they continue to be useful and a nice piece of furniture in the home.
Technology has progressed and more people have Internet access in one form or another. In 2007 we re launched our web site “Toy Tidy- organising your family”. Organic listing was key to the re launch of the site to keep operational costs down and giving us the best opportunity for being seen by parents and carers looking for a storage solution. It uses Google Analytics - a free tool and allows for very detailed analysis and understanding of what works for the web site and what doesn’t, enabling continuous improvement to be developed.
We still have along way to go before we are in Johnny Boden’s league but the Internet has offered my self and family a fantastic opportunity. I continue to work many long hours, learn so many new skills, meet and talk to many great people and experience the outcome of making mistakes but it has provided me “Quality Time” with my family my previous jobs would never have allowed me.
Helen Coppen
Managing Director
The Toy Tidy Company Ltd.
www.toytidy.com