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Supply Chain Issues Resonate for Owners of Local Toy Store

With national retail experts predicting toy shortages and shipping delays this holiday season, many people might have already heeded widespread advice to shop early. For those that are just getting started, and with Christmas just weeks away, co-owner of Toys Ahoy! in Essex, Dee Ferris said it may also be necessary to “have a variety of requests from the kids if you can, because it may be hard to find that one thing that they’re dying to have.”

Ferris said that she first noticed major challenges to the store’s supply chain this summer.

“We would notice that we would get a fraction of what we had ordered,” said Ferris. “That was during the summer, really, then early in the fall, these companies would notify us that anything that was on backorder was being canceled.

“And then in addition to that, the major resources started to discontinue taking any additional orders. Some of them said that they won’t take orders again until next spring,” she continued.

These disruptions are in addition to the initial shock of having to close the store for nine weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic hit Connecticut in March 2020.

“We basically got on with people calling and we were putting puzzles in plastic bags outside the door and driving by people’s houses and dropping things at the front door,” said Allen Divoll, co-owner of Toys Ahoy! “But that was very important to us. We weren’t doing a lot of business, but we were still in business.”

The timing of the public health crisis coincided with a time when Ferris and Divoll started buying inventory in bulk.

“We would try and get out in front of things and…there are advantages to scale and pricing and in shipping and such,” said Divoll. “So, we said, ‘We’ve just got to hold on tight. We don’t know where this is going.’ So, for most of 2020, with only a few exceptions, we lived off of what we owned.”

With such uncertainty abounding in the early days of the pandemic, Ferris and Divoll refilled store shelves using a well-stocked inventory of toys in a basement storeroom.

“We finished that 2020 with our lowest inventory in our nearly 25 years of doing this,” said Divoll. “So then, as ‘21 began and we got into March and April and we began to get confidence—it was really before the Delta thing kicked in—we started going out with the orders.”

There weren’t any problems fulfilling those early orders, but the COVID-19 virus had lasting impacts for manufacturers in terms of staffing, materials, and shipping.

“Now at the same time we’ve been holding pat, the distributors and the manufacturers have been holding pat,” said Divoll. “So, the first wave of orders that went in from companies got filled because they had it.”

That was short-lived.

“They kicked the can up the road. So now they weren’t able to get it and then the transportation thing came in. That’s why the whole thing collapsed,” he continued.

With store shelves now fully stocked with an assortment of fidget gadgets, Jellycat stuffed animals, Bruder Trucks, Playmobil sets and Legos, as well as a collection of books and dress-up clothing, among other items, Divoll and Ferris said it’s hard to predict what will happen during the month of December.

“We have been busier in October and November than we anticipated, and I attribute this to the people hearing the ‘shop early’ mantra…So, we move the business out of December and into October [and] November and then the other thing is, will we run out, not literally, but figuratively, run out of items, I mean, and we don’t know,” said Divoll.

Divoll and Ferris have operated the store for the past 24 years. It has been in Essex Village for a total of 44 years.

They attribute the store’s longevity to two different customer segments. The first, said Divoll, is local, and they come from neighboring towns in addition to Essex.

“The radius is longer than you might think because there aren’t too many [toy] stores,” said Divoll. “So, we get them from across the river. We get them from Haddam. We get them from Killingworth and Clinton and even Madison. And we’re very thankful.”

“[T]hen the second part of our customer base, which in 2020 was almost nonexistent, is visitors to town,” he continued.

Many of these visitors come to take a ride on the Essex Steam Train and stay in The Griswold Inn, or they arrive by boat in the summer.

“We listen to our customers,” said Ferris. “If they request something, games, if they request a certain title in a book, we’ll try to find it, if it’s possible. Some of our best items have been suggestions from customers.”

Both coming from the retail industry, owning a toy store in Essex “was supposed to be a retirement job for us,” said Divoll.

“Who would have guessed 24 years later that we’re still here,” said Ferris with a laugh. “We’re still having fun. It’s a lot of work and a lot of hours, but we enjoy it.”