School’s out and summer’s in! Looking for a place to visit on your summer road trip? Why not June’s Store of the Month, Toys for Thought, in Lakewood, New Jersey. Raphael nominated this fabulous store because he was so charmed by their big purple house, and they carry all our games! I had the wonderful pleasure of talking to the store owner, Harold Herskowitz about this amazing toy store.

Toys for Thought had very humble beginnings. 17 years ago, before it was the 3-story, 14,000-square-foot masterpiece it was today, it was a terribly rundown shack on 3^rd Street. “You think I’m joking, but it was literally a crack house,” Harold told me. Harold and his team wanted to make this shack something better that the whole community would enjoy. So they set out to renovate the building. Early renditions of Toys for Thought painted the building pale yellow and green to keep with a historic theme. However, as time went on, the team decided to dress it in the purple that colors the palace today.

Most of the store’s visitors don’t just look for games, but they also come to see the store itself. Harold explained that he wants the store to be an incredible place for everyone who visits. The store is carpeted to make everyone feel at home, and game demos decorate the game section. Of course, the staff is more than willing to help you find what you need in a hurry. If anyone comes in needing a quick gift for a birthday or celebration, the staff is always ready to scour their mansion for the perfect toy.

Harold’s favorite part about owning a toy store is seeing the new toys that come out. He especially loves games, selling as many as 1,000 games in the store. In our conversation, Harold emphasizes that he doesn’t just sell what’s popular. He sells games that he enjoys playing. “If there’s a reason I like it, then there’s a reason someone will buy it.” He loves all the Blue Orange Games and buys all the games from every line. Harold said that Blue Orange is an experienced distributor and with that experience we “understand what a store needs.” His favorite games are Gobblet and Dr. Eureka, and Fastrack, Dr. Microbe, Tumble Tree, and Flying Kiwis have been great sellers in the store.

While the massive 3-story toy store is an amusing struggle to maintain, the biggest challenges Toys for Thought faces is the ever-growing online sales industry. Toys for Thought prides itself on being a store where visitors come to experience the joys of toys and childhood. However, with Amazon and other online distributors becoming more popular, it’s a struggle for smaller toy stores to stay ahead of the curve, even though they offer hands-on opportunities to experience the toys and games. Harold tries to stay ahead by emphasizing the valuable experience his store has to offer with their star customer service and opportunities to demo the toys they sell.

Toys for Thought has grown alongside us, and it has been a joy working with them across this journey of nearly two decades. We proudly award them June’s Store of the Month. Please visit this fabled purple palace at \ 310 3rd Street in Lakewood, New Jersey or visit them online here. Congratulations again!

The end of the school year is just around the corner. Time to grab your favorite summer games from your local toy store! Speaking of stores it’s time to announce our May Store of the Month (albeit a bit belated). Give a hand for Moon Marbles in Bonner Springs, Kansas! Bastian nominated the store because of their awesome skills with making marbles in the shop factory. I had the pleasure of interviewing Lynda Sproules, co-founder with Bruce Breslow, about their fantastic store.

Moon Marble Company was established in 1997 out a need for gaming marbles. The store started as a woodworking business. Bruce and Lynda enjoyed making toys out of wood scraps, but they quickly realized that there wasn’t a huge supply of marbles to choose from. They found one business based in West Virginia that sold interesting marbles with different designs and bought 85,000 marbles! People soon started visiting their business to marbles, and thus the Moon Marble Company was born.

Since they began their journey into the marble market, Moon Marbles has won multiple awards from other organizations: Best of the Road by Rand McNally in 2004, 8 Wonders of Kansas Commerce by Travel Kansas in 2010, Unique Travel Gem – Travel Treasures by AAA in 2001, Organization of the Year by Wyandotte CVB in 2004, Retailer Hall of Fame by AMCI in 2006, and Best Place to Revisit Your Childhood by The Pitch in 2002. It is quite the talk of the town!

Bruce even taught himself how to make marbles, and he frequently shows visitors how he makes marbles. He folds heated glass rods into a ball together using a flame torch and a graphite mold. You can even see a panel-by-panel demonstration on how he makes the alien swirl here! Moon Marble Company even showcases marbles from artists in the US and England.

Moon Marble Company is a brilliant store dedicated to showing their customers a hypnotic world of marble magic. We are proud to continue working with them, and we wish them many more successful years of dazzling their customers with marble creation and fun games. Visit Moon Marble Company at 600 East Front Street in Bonner Springs, Kansas or you can visit them online here. Congratulations again, to the Moon Marble Company crew!

Congratulations to our April Store of the Month, Kite Connection in Huntington Beach, CA! This has indeed been a long overdue award, since Kite Connection has supported Blue Orange for many years. Our sales rep, Xavier, calls them one of Blue Orange’s “best specialty store customers”. In my conversation with the store owner Dave, I had the excellent chance to learn more about how strongly Kite Connection encourages fun and play when selling their kites and toys.

Dave’s passion for kites started when he and his friend’s older brother would fly sports kites together. He even started selling kites out of his parents’ house when he was just sixteen. By 1991 he secured a kite stand on the beach after working for a kite manufacturer. While selling kites, Dave got in touch with Kite Lot and Store of the Month Winner Rehoboth Toy & Kite Company. They encouraged him to branch into the toy industry, and it wasn’t before long that he met Blue Orange Games at Toy Fair and started buying our games. His best-selling Blue Orange Games are Ring It! and Gobblet Gobblers. He’s also a personal fan of one of our older games Trigger.

The Kite Connection

Theyre flyin!

Dave’s biggest piece of advice to budding store owners is stay proactive, “hands on,” and let kids play with the toys and games. He thinks it’s best to encourage customers to play and understand the toys they want to buy. One of the biggest challenges in selling games, however, is finding energetic and passionate employees to interact the customers. He always finds he gets the best employees when he “pays them what they deserve” and rewards them for their work. He also believes it’s important to create a fun working environment to facilitate employee-customer engagement.

Dave’s favorite part about running Kite Connection is seeing the kids and the parents in the community have fun with the kites, toys, and games he sells. Like many stores Blue Orange partners with, Kite Connection has such a huge presence in its community. Dave shows off his kites in school assemblies and he’s been doing this for so long, customers have told him that they met their spouses at these assemblies.

Congratulations to Kite Connection for your fantastic work in promoting our games. We are so thrilled to work with you and we can’t wait to see what you do in the future. Check out Kite Connection at 61 Main St, Huntington Beach in California. If you can’t visit them in person, check out their website here.