What are your trusted local toys stores? Not Walmart or target or online (obviously,) but mom and pop shops or comic stores. Around my area (Cincinnati, Ohio) we have several like The Toy Deodorant, Transfans2's Shop'n'Look, House of Plastik, O'Smileys Dolls and Toys, and a ton of others. Just curious to see what you all have around you. Pictures would be awesome too!
Farther north, yes. Around Mission Viejo. Actually, there is one ma and pop toy store up there at the mall. Oddly enough it's called Optimus Toys, yet last I went in there it had no Transformers, ironically.
Same here in the capitol region of Pennsylvania. My comic shop will order out of a catalog for me but only if he can order singles or I want a full case. I really wanted to open up a shop several years ago but it was a non-starter. Starting out, rent was just way too high for the amount of inventory that I could work with. An SBA loan will cover about a year's rent and an equal amount in inventory. You cannot pay $50K in rent on $50K in inventory, let alone keep up with a mortgage or feed yourself. So I thought I'd just do local shows for awhile to build up a buffer. A few years in, the Hasbro-Walmart BFF embargo struck. The supply chain just fell apart. Everything was shorted, or ruined, or delayed until it was unsellable. What little I could move, people acted like charging MSRP was stealing bread from the mouth of an orphan. When I finally decided to shut down, I was limping along on imports and the bottom fell out on that too (SHF inflation, Weijang/TakasaTony, brand mediocritization, etc). Selling online, too, has gotten ugly between eBay's throttling and Amazon's rigged claims process. Then there's the never-ending postal price hikes to coddle the Chinese that're already undercutting everybody with KOs. And now thanks to some assholes in South Dakota, we have sales tax to deal with too. The only way it could've been worse was if I'd taken out that loan in 2011. As this nightmare played out, I came to realize why over a dozen nationally-recognized toy stores had closed in the last two decades and the Toys R Us announcement was not shocking in the least.
If central Wisconsin has anything (around Wausau), I don't know of it. I wish we did. Best places I can think of are about 100 miles away, and I don't drive. And Wausau has never had a toys r us either.
We've got Josh's Toys and Games in some malls. No Transformers and no more Lego. It's more like a Learning Express. We've got Newbury Comics that has some toys, but it is more of a variety shop. There are a few great shops in Connecticut. Really the mom & pop toy stores are dead.
That's a shame honestly. I've lucked out here in Ohio. Between the toy shows and the stores out the wazoo, it's not hard to find what you're looking for.
Over in Staten Island NY, there is nothing. Even did a quick search in maps to see maybe I just didn't know of one. Nope. Nothing other than target, 5below, GameStop, and Walgreens.
Sometimes. I do like the thrill of finding something in person though. We have 1 Wal-Mart, 1 target, 3 Walgreens, and 2 shopkos. That is the big bot areas for me.
You have no idea. The distribution problems that kicked into high gear with Prime Wars were absolutely surreal in that context. Whatever you do, don't _ever_ open an account with Entertainment Earth.
I'm just a bit north of you @Shackstoys and the Dayton area actually has quite a few more than I ever realized! Though I can't go to them much, because I always find something to buy...