Web Sales Solution

Don Hays is either co-owner, partner or president—or perhaps more accurately, all three—of Specialty Toys Network, the e-commerce enabled website construction firm created specifically to help independent toy stores build their online businesses. “I think I’m technically president of the corporation, but that sounds funny to me,” Hays says of his new-found status at the top of a company he never intended to head. But that’s the way things have gone at Specialty Toys Network (STN), a grass roots effort that finds itself a much bigger deal than originally planned.

“ASTRA had asked for volunteers for a website project,” Hays says of STN’s beginnings back during Toy Fair 2005. “My wife and I had owned a store [Hopscotch Toys & Games in McMinnville, Ore.] for just over two years and I though I could volunteer because I had some 'geek’ technology experience. We’d already done our store’s website and STN’s parent company, Gearbox Studios, had been doing interactive development, multimedia video and audio, for a long time so I thought, well … ”

A year and a half later, STN officially launched in time for this past summer’s ASTRA Marketplace & Academy tradeshow and conference. As of last month, the network’s membership was already closing in on 40 independent retailers. More, Hays says, are joining as word of STN’s service spreads. “Reaction has been great. We got hit harder by the marketplace than we thought. At Marketplace, our main goal was to communicate with the manufacturers about what we were doing, but we ended up with not much time for that because we got so much interest from toy stores. It was a huge success for us because of that.”

In the time between STN’s conception and its official debut, Hays says there was a lengthy process of figuring out “what tools every toy store would want, and then trying to figure out and line up the support they’d need.” In its current form, the system is “designed and geared towards someone being able to manage their site on their own,” Hays explains. “We give [retailers] all the tools they need, but we’re also here if they feel like there’s something special they want done. One of the cool things is, because we’re a group of retailers, you can develop something for one person but then everyone can share in the benefit from it.”

STN’s next steps include getting more manufacturers to provide detailed product information for its database; and setting up a system whereby STN sites can offer products typically too large for a small store to stock and have them drop shipped directly to their consumers.