…book, that is. FYI, if u r using these social media sites, we r 2. Here’s how.

Lately when we get a big shipment or an impressively cool new item, I tweet on twitter and post on facebook to this effect. Plus, we try to have a short-term – 1 or 2 day – sale on the items mentioned. It may be a dollar amount off, or a percentage…it just depends. (For example, today, April 27, 2010, I posted that we received a small stable full of horses and accessories from Breyer – and that it will be 20% off through the 29th. So giddyup, equestriophiles.)

BTW, I’m not sure that’s a word either…Okay, I just googled it, and the only reference is from somebody who claims to have just made that word up. We did, however, choose to spell it the same. FWTW.

So, if you want to follow us on twitter or find us on facebook, I’m trying to add these ephemeral bargains to make it worth your while. And if we have something happening in the store – think art or music classes, or the book reading we’re hosting this Saturday 5/1 at 11am – you’ll find posts about these, too.

I know. We’re supposed to be mean, lean business machines of efficiency – especially in these soft economic times. And yet, we have traveled the path less recommended and so far have been rewarded for it. No layoffs, no pay cuts for staff, no reduction in inventory. The result? Our best year ever in 2009. Go figure.

Well, I’ll try. I think these little independent businesses that hang their shingles in neighborhood business districts (hopefully you still have these where you live) benefit tremendously from altruism in their operations. If you support your local community, its schools and community and religious centers, you’ll get “The Love” back – as long as you also provide value in your products and services.

This may be especially true here in Portland, where there is an established “Buy Local” campaign, but I suspect it holds true in other areas as well.

Last year, Thinker Toys supported over 90 auctions, nonprofit causes and events, nearly all of which were local in nature. And I can’t help but think the stability of our biz is due in part to the goodwill that generated. Maybe it’s a spin on the Field of Dreams mantra: if you give, they will come.

Another thing we’ve been very invested in for years is our local business association. Joan in particular spends hundreds of hours each year with this sometimes cumbersome organization and the planning, meetings and team-building it takes. There’s no way it “pencils out” as a rational time expenditure. And there will always be a bunch of “free riders” who neither spend the relative pittance it takes to become members nor invest their time enhancing their local business district. But you might be surprised how many customers keep some track – in some recess of their brain – of which businesses are actively involved in improving the local area. And that’s where they shop, when they can.

Something else we do is try to find products we’re out of or don’t carry at other area stores (aka our “competitors”). Portland is blessed with a wealth of good, locally-owned toy and book stores, and we’re happy to call any of them to try to help somebody locate what they’re looking for. And sometimes that means telling them the only place they’re likely to find a particular item is at one of the charming big box stores, not-surprisingly located almost universally outside the steep tax obligations of Portland and Multnomah County.  (More on that later?)

And so … I encourage those of you who run similar retail operations to consider donating your time and your products to support your local community, as I think this altruism is ultimately, well, in your best interests, too. And if you’re deciding where to shop…well, I’ll let you anticipate my thoughts here.

I’ll let you in on what’s probably not a little secret – at least we’ve never tried to make it one. Guess what? We usually charge more for the same item than you would pay at a national chain store. But my real reason for this post isn’t really to state this obvious fact. It’s instead to try to explain why, and to demonstrate it is often not that much more.

Let’s say you buy a LEGO Bionicle at a big box retailer for $19.99. We probably sell the same thing for $21.99. But you leave the store with it wrapped without any extra charge, complete with ribbons and our distinctive gold sticker – which we like to think of as a kind of seal of excellence. Anyway, further dissecting this, if you use our Frequent Buyer Card, which gives you in-store credit for the average of 12 purchases, then you should mathematically receive a credit for $1.83, making the premium to you for shopping at our local store a whopping 17 cents!

(In full-disclosure mode: the example provided is an actual one that reflects our normal pricing for a $19.99 SRP LEGO item. Your results may vary, as they say. It is not my point to suggest that this “premium” for shopping with us will always be this painless. But we do try to make your decision to shop at our store as affordable as possible, while still justifying the shelf space of the product.)

From another angle, it’s either “volume or margin” – an observation offered to me by the pharmacist who was closing his venerable Westmoreland Rexall Drug store in about 1997. (Obviously, the proliferation of volume-driven stores was central to the closure of this decades-old neighborhood icon which had been a regular part of my own childhood.) If a box store can make a $5  profit on the sale of an item – and sell two of these at 1500 stores, their profit is $15,000; your local shop may sell this for more, make $6 or $7 per item – yet have a gross profit of only $12 or $14.

So the sad truth is we can’t always compete on price with a large chain enterprise with hundreds of retail stores, a fleet of marketing employees housed on an entire floor of an office in, say, Minneapolis, and an online presence that is nothing short of intimidating. We just don’t do that kind of volume, as much as some of you clearly do your best to boost our sales. So we try to add value: superior products selection, informed customer service, play areas that represent a significant loss of income opportunity for the space they occupy, free gift-wrap and a loyalty program are some of the ways we try to do this.

We just hope you can spring for that extra 17 cents.

I remember the first time I tried, at about age five, to navigate the perilous roads near St. Clare School on my maiden voyage on a two-wheel bicycle. This was an old-school gearless coaster-brake bike, and quite a bit larger than it might have been. Anyway, I pushed off and tried to get my feet to synch with the pedals they barely reached, all while this entire system began to pitch and teeter toward its irreversible date with gravity. Sure enough, I quickly wiped out (after a few fleeting seconds of miraculous gliding) and in the process tore a badge of courage in my fairly new white denim pants. My parents saw this instead as a barrel of bucks bleeding out of the thin family budget; the construct of torn jeans as a fashion statement was still years away.

Which brings us to the present. About a dozen years ago in our now-shuttered Westmoreland store (a brief flirtation with delusions of empire put to rest) a customer told me that best way to teach a kid to learn to ride a “two-wheeler” was to remove the pedals from a suitably fit frame – the idea being to allow the neophyte rider to learn to balance the cycle, yet still retain the ability to plop her feet down when the inevitable need to avoid the type of experience described above arises. As it inevitably does.

Well, many of us would rather not deal with the minor mechanical nuisance of taking the pedals off (and later putting them back on) a perfectly serviceable bike. Enter the “balance bike.” Several years ago Skuut (I believe the pioneer in this, though I’m willing to be corrected) began manufacturing a pedal-free wooden-frame bicycle for kids ages approximately 2-5, the idea being to provide the same sort of security that could be achieved by removing the pedals from an existing bike. Others have joined the fray, including Prince Lionheart, Kettler, Kickboard USA and probably others. The Prince Lionheart frame is made of wood, the latter two metal – but they all basically do the same thing: let a young kid learn to ride a two-wheeler quickly and pretty safely. They all use rubber tires that are inflated with a “Schrader” valve, such as you find on mountain bikes and car tires. Thus far we have carried the Skuut and Prince Lionheart and have had excellent customer feedback on both.

To see a product description video of the Skuut, click here. To see a video of a three year-old kid riding one, click here. We sell the Skuut for $97.99 (before your Frequent Buyer Discount) and at this blogging (can I say that?) we have a dozen in stock. The days are getting longer and your little one longs to ride like the Big Boys.

Okay, let’s give this little thing a spin – our first submission into the blogosphere. So a few thoughts on that virtual space (apparently it’s a sphere, virtually speaking of course).

I’m interested in the difference between content and process. (That was a big issue back when I was a science teacher – teaching content versus teaching lab skills. Maybe it still is. Unlike the concerns I’m going to raise here, I fell pretty clearly into the process corner, always striving to get students to generate and interpret data so that they could use it to learn the content.) But I digress.

I watch my kids “multi-tasking” seamlessly between various low- and high-tech devices. They can read a book, surf the web and field both cell phone calls and text messages. I admire their agility. Yet I wonder about their signal-to-noise ratio, as well as the quality and depth of ideas that can take place with so much “noise” going on all about. (This concept of noise is taken from the electronic measurement of Signal-to-Noise Ratio, a rough measurement of a device’s ability to use (e.g., amplify) the meaningful information and exclude the riff-raff; good stereo amplifiers, for example, have a high S/N ration – more music, less hiss and pop and other background stuff you don’t want to hear.

(The astrophysicist Freeman Dyson apparently had such a high Signal-to-Noise Ratio that people could walk into his office while he was working on problems and literally drop things on his desk and he wouldn’t notice.)

On the other hand, I suspect today’s kids are usefully re-programming their brains to cope with the fast-moving world of the future. They’ll almost certainly need to do several things at once. Hopefully they’ll do them well – especially the things that matter. And it seems without question some of the things that will matter – and do matter already – involve learning how to use ever-changing processes to deliver content. I just hope there’s some content worth delivering.

So, in this maiden voyage into blogging, I  attempt to make the point that we should ensure we keep the signal strong and don’t substitute too much technological know-how for the great ideas that comprise culture. You can play World of Warcraft all you want, but it doesn’t teach you about Sparta, or 1930’s Germany, or give you any insight into the global turf-wars that are breaking-out all over the planet today.

Or maybe this is just sour-grapes  from a middle-aged guy who has trouble keeping track of his passwords. Anyway, I promise to be less philosophical – and more focused on what it’s like being a toy-peddler – in the future. Thanks to the handful of you who actually read this.