South Jersey Business Trends

By TONY MARQUIS | Business Trends
The toy industry – like all retail businesses – has had a rough time in this recession. KB Toys didn’t make it to December. In May, troubled high-end toy company FAO Schwartz was bought by Toys R Us – which had a rough holiday season of its own.
But at the Happy Hippo, a little toyshop with locations in Haddonfield and Moorestown, the recession doesn’t feel as sad.
Maryellen DeMille doesn’t think in fiscal or calendar years, like the rest of us do.
The manager of the Happy Hippo has been with the company for 29 Christmases, as long as the business has been in Haddonfield. The original Moorestown store has been around for 33 Christmases.
The holiday season – like most retailers – is the Happy Hippo’s most important time of the year, where it’s make or break for the company’s bottom line. But most of the time, the Happy Hippo makes it. And this past Christmas was no different, DeMille said.
“I think the biggest change we saw was people looking more for like quality for their money; something that is going to last longer; something that’s not going to break in two days,” DeMille said.
For the past 30 years, the Happy Hippo has focused on quality and the old toy standbys like the Slinky, Silly Putty, wooden blocks and yo-yos. Fads come and go and make brief stops at the Happy Hippo, but the contents, stacked high on a few rows, rarely change.
“I think toys are toys and kids, you can give them a 69-cent bottle of bubbles or a $300 dollhouse,” DeMille said. “A 4-year-old kid – the dollar amount doesn’t matter to them. It’s all about the play value – what they enjoy and what they like.”
While competitors are updating their shiny stores and trying to cram the latest Elmo into their shelves, the Happy Hippo has stayed the same and made money in the process.
But don’t mistake a love for nostalgia as an inability to accept change. The company has made shrewd business moves over the years.
About 10 years ago, the Happy Hippo decided to stay open on Sundays, and it paid off. It’s one of the Happy Hippo’s best sales days, DeMille said.
The Happy Hippo used to sell swing sets, but those items were readily available at home improvement stores and they took up too much of the Happy Hippo’s valued shelf space.
The Happy Hippo also listens to its customers and stocks its shelves accordingly.
“The last few years, we get a lot of people looking for toys they had when they were younger,” DeMille said.
The Happy Hippo tries to stay loyal to those customers who have stayed loyal to it.
“I know have like people who shopped here for their kids are now shopping here for their grandchildren,” DeMille said.
Whatever the reason, the Happy Hippo has been around for three decades, during which, DeMille has seen dozens of businesses open and close.
“Haddonfield seems to have a bigger turnaround, for a while it did pretty good, then all of a sudden it seemed like massive turnaround in stores,” DeMille said.
The Happy Hippo just seems to be a perfect fit for two South Jersey towns.
“They’ve got good customer service, they pack a lot of fun, diverse, exciting toys and games for kids in there,” said Lisa Hurd, a retail coordinator for Partnership for Haddonfield, which markets the business district. “They just have a very well-chosen selection of merchandise.”
DeMille attends the New York Toy Show every year, but beyond that, she’s not out researching her rivals. Though the patents are decades old, the toys at the Happy Hippo aren’t clearance items or cheap by any means.
“I think people are looking to get their money’s worth out of a product,” DeMille said. “Toys don’t change a whole lot. There’s not a big, giant change in the toy industry. Every once in a while you’ll come up across something that everybody wants but it’s short-lived and usually for the holidays.
“Then it’s back to the basics.”

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