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Date: 1/11/2022
LUDLOW/WESTFIELD – With locations in Ludlow and Westfield, PLAYNOW! Toy and Game owner Raymond Vigneault discussed holiday success for the local toy store.
Vigneault said the second location in Ludlow opened shortly after the Westfield location in 2020.
“We have been here for 13 months, we opened on Nov. 7 of 2020, five months after we opened our Westfield location,” he said.
He added his prior partnership with Big Y led to the second location.
“We opened in Big Y Plaza in Westfield and then they said they had a spot in Ludlow, somebody was going to move in but because of the pandemic they canceled their lease, and we took the opportunity to jump into a great location,” he said.
Despite some early uncertainty, Vigneault said the season ended up being a successful one.
“This holiday season was excellent, one of the big things is all the product that was probably not going to arrive because of the supply constraints showed up the last three weeks of Christmas so the product came in and we are now well in stock for January and February, which we did not expect,” he said. “Everything showed up and it really made life a lot easier, and we had the product the customers were looking for.”
With that unexpected shipment, Vigneault said the store should have enough stock to last through Easter.
This season Vigneault said there was a rise in popularity for more classic toys.
“Paw Patrol sold really well, Barbie, Hot Wheels, a lot of the classic, retro toys are back in style, Spirograph, Lite Brite and Slinkies,” he said.
Overall, Vigneault said sales were similar between Ludlow and Westfield but were a “solid increase” over the previous year.
This year Vigneault said COVID-19 had a minimal impact on holiday sales at both locations.
“It did not seem to affect it at all, I think people now understand the protocols and we had no issues. I would say about half of our customers came in with masks on and half did not,” he said. “Westfield has a mask mandate, so that would be the only difference between the two.”
With the holidays in the rearview mirror, Vigneault said he was still prepping for a busy couple of weeks post-Christmas.
“This week is usually a busy week between gift cards and Christmas money, we definitely have an increase in sales the last week of December and the first week of January,” he said.
PLAYNOW! Ludlow is located at 433 Center St. while the Westfield location is at 5 East Silver St.