The ‘Just Touch While I Look’ Tactic

Children used to be warned not to touch during a trip to the toy store. Nowadays, many stores are encouraging youngsters to play with the merchandise.

The idea of designing stores for children and allowing them to handle the inventory is so simple that it’s a wonder no one capitalized on it before. What child could pass up the chance to play in a toy store? Sure beats the shops with the glaring clerks and You Break It, You Buy It signs.

Not surprisingly, the hands-on approach is catching fire.

At Imaginarium, the educational toy store at MainPlace/Santa Ana, tykes enter through their own tiny door and head for scattered play stations where imaginations are let loose. Animal footprints lead explorers through the toys and books, past the 10-foot-tall Hugh Mongus, a dinosaur that looms over books and games about prehistoric beasts.

“You can see right away from the children’s door that the store is designed for children,” says Jim Flanagan, president of the company based in Walnut Creek, Contra Costa County.

“It’s really a treat to watch toddlers go through the door. They muster up their courage, let go of their mother’s hand, go through the door . . . and to see the reunion inside, it’s like they’ve been separated for 30 years.”

Each store--seven in Northern California and five in Southern California--is organized into categories: a music and drama section with a theater and puppets, an art and hobby center with paints, paper supplies, clay and drawing books, a science area with astronomy and dinosaur objects and “The Diner,” a counter with stools where kids can “cook” and serve dinners.

The nature section features bug, butterfly, bird and gardening kits; a rock and shell section has collecting kits, books about minerals and an assortment of mobiles. A monitor is stationed for parents and children to preview videotapes.

The merchandise is all nonviolent and educational. With 5,000 toys on display, your patience will run out long before your child’s imagination does.

Flanagan says the stores are designed on two levels: one for children, one for parents.

“It’s important the child sees the toys at his or her level (because it helps them relate to the merchandise),” he says. “We believe that by letting the kids play with something, it indicates to the parent that the child will play with it at home. It’s a marketing technique that focuses more on the toy than the packaging.”

It’s not the easiest way to run a toy store, Flanagan adds: “Lots of things get broken or lost, and it’s expensive to maintain, but it’s something we believe in.”

The company, which expects to ring up $12 million in retail sales this year, is opening two new stores this fall (another in Northern California and Topanga Canyon) and plans another dozen openings throughout the state in 1989, with three scheduled for the county.

The first Imaginarium stores opened in the spring of 1986 (they were formally called C.S. Brod’s Toys & Adventures), then another growing California chain, Gymboree, jumped into the hands-on game. Featuring rocking toys, musical instruments and videos, Gymboree (which has three stores in the county) keeps the kids busy while parents shop for clothes.

Following the lead of Imaginarium and Gymboree, many other stores have added toys, books and other diversions to occupy kids while the parents shop.

Two new stores at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa--Laura Ashley’s Mother & Child store and the new Gymboree shop--have toys for kids to play with. And two stores at South Coast Plaza’s Crystal Court have entertainment for children: A Pea in the Pod, a maternity shop, has a basket full of toys, and Cherubs has a children’s video corner. Forever Children, a 900-square-foot shop in Laguna Hills that sells clothes and toys, sets out an assortment of enticements: Brio train sets, coloring books, a little wooden bike and table and chairs.

“It seems to be something new in Laguna Hills,” manager and buyer Claudette Albert says. “At first the parents kept telling the children, ‘don’t touch.’ And we said ‘It’s OK, we set those out for them.’ We find the children ruin less things on the shelves when you let them play with things. And it’s a lot easier for the mothers to shop.”

Even some department stores have gotten in on the action. The Nordstrom children’s shoe department at South Coast Plaza has a small table with chairs and coloring books to distract fidgety siblings while brother or sister are fitted.

The hands-on approach seems to be working for adults, as well. At the Crystal Court, B.N. Genius encourages shoppers to try out games and gizmos for sale, much as another adult toy store, the Sharper Image (stores at Fashion Island and MainPlace), has done for years.

If this trend keeps up, toy buying may become a thing of the past. Just take the kids shopping.