The case for classic

As toy-buying season begins, Finnegan’s bucks trends to find profits

By Jeanie Senior

The Portland Tribune, Nov 28, 2003, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Finnegan’s, the store that has cornered the toy market in downtown Portland, proves on a daily basis that being a successful retailer doesn’t depend on a corporate master plan.

“Sometimes, I look around and I’m just astounded,” says toy buyer and co-owner Karen Leppmann, surveying the crowded wonderland that is Finnegan’s Toys and Gifts.

Leppmann and her husband, Leo Tsou, might well be astonished: They’ve flourished in an industry where others have been struggling.

They founded Finnegan’s in downtown Portland some 25 years ago, stocking their first store with toys that were “the coolest of what we could find.”

Wisely, they also started small and made inexpensive mistakes. “And while we were doing that,” Leppmann says, “the toy industry changed É there were not so many interesting things being made in this country as there are now.”

Lucky them.

However, the shopping season that starts today is not looking particularly bright for many of the giant toy retailers.

Upmarket toy chain FAO Inc., which owns FAO Schwarz, warned earlier this month that it’s trying to find money to make it through the holidays. FAO, still in trouble after emerging from bankruptcy in January, has closed stores and battled with falling sales.

Toys “R” Us, once the leading toy retailer, also has been closing stores. It now trails Wal-Mart in total toy sales, with Target also taking an ever-heftier part of the market.

Another shift in the $21 billion U.S. industry is that toys are no longer just a gift for birthdays, Christmas or Hanukkah. Between 1990 and 2002, the percentage of toys purchased for holiday gifts fell from 51 percent to 38 percent, while the percentage bought for “no special occasion” climbed, according to a study by market researcher NPD Group.

The trend to buy fewer toys over the holidays hasn’t shown up at Finnegan’s, however. The sales staff there will increase on Dec. 12 from 30 employees to 50, and the store will stay open an hour later until Dec. 23.

Nationally, industry watchers say they haven’t seen a product Ñ such as a Cabbage Patch doll Ñ emerge to spur a buying frenzy. However, surveys indicate that some parents, watching their spending, may buy more traditional toys this year.

That bodes well for Finnegan’s: Much of its toy stock is not likely to be found in big-box chain stores. That is to say, there are no Barbies, no Transformers.

That appeals to Jay Bleich, a Portland resident who on Wednesday was busy examining a set of paint supplies with his 9-year-old daughter, Kelsey. He said he likes Finnegan’s because of its cozy environment and because it offers a more palatable selection.

“The products at Toys ‘R’ Us seem generic,” Bleich said. “These seem better made. They seem to have the good ones.”

Buyer relies on research, instinct

Leppmann says toy buying is now a year-round job, incorporating research, instinct, experience and occasionally good luck.

“You can be very thorough about it, and you can go to toy shows Ñ New York City in February, Los Angeles in March. There’s a giant one in Germany, so there’s a whole circuit you can do. But I don’t do it. You can do it without that if you’ve been going long enough, and you’re not too concerned about being first.”

She receives a flood of catalogs and follows with computer research. “I spend a lot of my time finding similar items for better prices,” she says.

At toy shows, “you can get carried away by the salesman’s enthusiasm,” she says. Once a product is in the store, however, that doesn’t count for much. “The item has to speak for itself. I am not going to stand there with it and say, This is so cool, you need to get this.’ ”

Leppmann says she also can guess wrong about a toy’s appeal Ñ or fail to gauge correctly when it might take people’s fancy. One example: small log construction kits, a toy once dominated by Lincoln Logs that now includes competitors Liberty Logs and Tumble Tree Timbers.

“They’re popular but not really as popular as I think they should be,” she says.

Leppmann calls Kapla “one of the coolest toys in the world.” It’s a French toy: a box of smooth, small wood planks used to build a fantastic variety of structures. “It’s the kind of thing that sells because someone hears of it,” she says.

Leppmann says she took to heart a comment that a sales representative made to her about 15 years ago:

“He said that most buyers for small toy stores are women, and most small toy stores have beautiful dolls, but they never have enough trucks, building supplies and puzzles. If you buy what you like, that’s where you’ll end up. So I made a big effort to even it up more.”

There’s one category of toys that won’t make it onto Finnegan’s shelves, at least not while Leppmann is the buyer: gross stuff.

The store has plenty of cheeseball favorites: Sea Monkeys and something called a Spy Motion Alarm Ñ“Guard against spies and intruders!” There’s also a kit to “build and erupt your own volcano!” and another called “Slime Science.”

But she says, shuddering, “I get catalogs that just turn your stomach, and I just can’t do it.”

Leppmann wants toys that will last, without being too expensive: “Children are only children for a while. They want to play with (a toy) and move on.”

The approach has proved to be successful.

In a rear aisle on Wednesday, Joyce Cobb of Vancouver, Wash., said she’s shopped at Finnegan’s for years Ñ drawn by the array of educational toys such as the map she’s holding.

“This place is full of hard-to-get items like this,” she said. “I’m shopping for my nieces and nephews, and I’d rather get them something like this than some plastic toy. É I come here for birthdays, holidays, everything.”

Fewer trips planned to discounters

In the NPD Group survey gauging consumers’ buying intentions over the holidays, 53 percent of the respondents indicated they intend to buy toys. The percentage intending to shop in discount stores such as Wal-Mart and Target dropped to 74 percent from the 79 percent of those surveyed last year. The number planning to shop at national chains fell to 44 percent from 51 percent last year.

The figures look promising for small toy retailers such as Finnegan’s, where shopping can include a dose of entertainment: It’s not unusual to find a parent desperately trying to persuade an engrossed child to leave behind the intricate Thomas the Tank Engine railroad layout.

As the shop evolved, Leppmann says, she had in the back of her mind a toy store she visited as a child in Munich, Germany. “It was stuffed, with nooks and crannies. É Even more than specific toys, I remember the feeling in there.”

She thinks that Finnegan’s recaptures some of that atmosphere with high ceilings, carpeted floors and a huge array of toys.

Industry watchers say children are growing more sophisticated at a younger age, which ups the stress on toy makers and toy retailers.

Even in a store that’s chockablock with toys intended to engage the imagination, “every now and then we hear a child say, ‘Let’s go, this is boring.’ I think that’s about the saddest thing I can imagine,” Leppmann says. “Children are getting less and less time in childhood. They’re rushing out of it.”

December 16, 2007

Go back in time and visit Finnegan's just for fun
SUMMARY: If the game doesn't require a joystick, the magical downtown toy store probably has it
Go back in time and visit

Finnegan's just for fun TOM HALLMAN JR. There are toy stores in the mall. And then there's Finnegan's Toys and Gifts. To step inside the downtown Portland store --a gem of a landmark in so many ways --is to be transported back to a simpler era. Young people may find this hard to believe, but there was once a time when a toy didn't need to be plugged in, downloaded or displayed on a monitor. Wander the aisles at Finnegan's, look at the shelves and find real toys. Parents rediscover the toys and games of their youth. They remember how fun it was to play "Battleship" --complete with improvised sound effects, of course. And as they linger in the past, it hits them just how limiting and isolating a joystick can be when it's attached to an electronic toy that comes with a 15-page owner's manual. What kids discover in Finnegan's is something precious. They get in touch with that elusive thing called imagination. Forget the fancy graphics featured on the computer games. Watch a kid sit on the floor at Finnegan's, play with a metal car and create a highway right there on the carpet. Finnegan's is in the heart of downtown Portland, next to the eastbound line of MAX, at 922 S.W. Yamhill St. Locally owned, it's the Pacific Northwest's largest independent toy store and has been in downtown Portland in three different locations for 30 years. "Finnegan was the childhood nickname of the woman who started the store," said Jordan Walden, the store's manager. "She and her brother read a book as kids, and one of the characters was a cat named Finnegan. That's what her brother called her." That explains the cat on the logo above the door that leads customers inside Finnegan's. "There are so many times I hear kids walk in that door and just say, 'Wow,' " said Walden, who has been with the company 15 years. "They are in awe of the store." On a recent weekday, the store was filled with customers, including a couple who drove to Portland with their three kids specifically to come to Finnegan's. The parents said they'd stumbled upon the store years earlier while walking through Portland. "We find that a lot," Walden said. "We have no TV toys or video games. There's a variety of toys here that set us apart, and people come back." Walden said the store's wide selection is what makes it special. "A lot of places have stuffed animals," Walden said. "But they're limited to bears. We have everything from bears to aardvarks to flying dinosaurs." The store also encourages people to play with the toys. "We're a very hands-on environment," Walden said. "In some stores you find things that are packaged and unplayable. We always want to have things out. We have a huge section for windup toys, and that's always a hot spot. There's always an employee there who will let anyone test a toy." The Christmas season, Walden said, is the store's busiest time of year. "We've lasted because we have things that set us apart," Walden said. "We are always looking to help our customers, and all of our employees specialize in toys." Tom Hallman Jr.: 503 221-8224; tomhallman@news.oregonian.com

Katie C. San Francisco, CA