Had some new Children's Palace and Child World items to share. So lets take another look at my all-time favorite toy store.
New to my collection:
A Children's Palace & Child World Ertl toy truck, in the box
Close up of the trailer
An old Child World toy truck by Majorette, on the card
An old Children's Palace toy truck by Majorette
A double page CP/CW video game ad from Marvel's Robocop II adaptation
Peter Panda puffy stickers
Some CW/CP items graciously sent in by readers
From Bernard, a former Child World employee was nice enough to take pics of some of the memorabilia he had saved.
From Brandon, an excellent shot of the old style CP store sign.
From around the web: (i.e. photos are not mine, I'm just sharing what I've found)
A Peter Panda board game
An old store pic
Former store locations around the US
So, so, so close...
In my constant search to find a photo of the old Omaha Children's Palace location, I found this great old pic of the store prior, to CP. The spot was occupied by a Handy Dan (long defunct Hardware store chain)
A must read
Here's a excerpt from a reader of the original Children's Palace post
http://geektarded.blogspot.com/2007/06/lets-go-shopping-childrens-palace.html
"Dr. Geektarded, I had the pleasure of helping to open the store in Omaha. Unfortunately, this is the only time I have ever visited your fine city. I was involved with over 20 store openings.
I also remember when they filmed "The Color of Money". We were excited that Children's Palace (CP) would be in a major movie. I recall that CP was paid $25,000 for a day of shooting for the scenes. This equated to one days average sales for that location. The "customers" in the scenes were filled in by store personnel and their families. I still watch the movie on occasion.
Dr. you ask what happened to all of the clearance items? Well, we sold them! (obviously) But here is the rest of the story: The reason why CP had so many "old" items was their "pack-away system". We would store all boxed merchandise above the area in the actual aisles of the store. All pegged items (i.e matchbox, hot wheels, seasonal) would be boxed up and stored in the warehouse. Here is where the issue happened. As the store sold down items like Matchbox cars, we would get another few cases in on our truck so we would fill the shelves with this product. The overstock Matchbox cars in the pack-aways stayed in the warehouse, never seeing the light of day. This inefficient way of stock balancing was one of the many factors to the demise of CP. Ideally, today's retailers have eliminated the back stock all together as to not tie up these dollars. I recall meeting a Matchbox collector who asked to see any unopened cases in the warehouse. He was like a kid in a candy store as he looked through the 5+ year old cases.
During the closeout procedures, we had incremental markdowns that were sent down by corporate for 10 weeks. (i.e. 10% off, 20% off) It was in the last few days that we went from 70% off to 90% off retail prices. We continuously pulled the old pack-aways out of the back room as merchandise sold down. WOW.... all of these old items came out!!! Old Mego figures (like the Spiderman you have pictured. I bought a case of 6 for 50 cents each!)Michael Jackson dolls, Starting lineup, and so on... I bought several items... but I couldn't buy them all. I still have these items MOC. I only had one child then (age 1) and boxed them up. Now, I see these items on EBAY so I never let my kids play with them. (Shame on me)
The last hour of the last day, my liquidator consultant had me put up a sign that said "Everything you can fit in your cart - only $10". Needless to say, everything was gone within the hour. I took a video camera and video taped some of the mayhem on the last day. Fortunately, I had a job lined up and was paid nearly 3 months severance/remaining vacation pay if I stayed to the end."
--------------------------------------------------------
I'm was so happy to hear about this "pack-away system". That explains all the old stock and why the aisles were literally packed to the rafters. At the Omaha location, on the shelving above the new stock, was this Tetris like packing of old boxed vehicles, playsets, etc. Then, along the back of the store was more boxed toys and aisles of carded toys. And lastly, the front entrance of the store was filled with closeout items too. Huge displays of Masters of the Universe, Voltron, Gobots, Rock Lords and the like, years after they had run their course.
The store was probably 1/3 closeout items. It was honestly a crazy way of doing business, but all those old toys are some of my fondest memories of the chain.
New to my collection:
A Children's Palace & Child World Ertl toy truck, in the box
Close up of the trailer
An old Child World toy truck by Majorette, on the card
An old Children's Palace toy truck by Majorette
A double page CP/CW video game ad from Marvel's Robocop II adaptation
Peter Panda puffy stickers
Some CW/CP items graciously sent in by readers
From Bernard, a former Child World employee was nice enough to take pics of some of the memorabilia he had saved.
From Brandon, an excellent shot of the old style CP store sign.
From around the web: (i.e. photos are not mine, I'm just sharing what I've found)
A Peter Panda board game
An old store pic
Former store locations around the US
So, so, so close...
In my constant search to find a photo of the old Omaha Children's Palace location, I found this great old pic of the store prior, to CP. The spot was occupied by a Handy Dan (long defunct Hardware store chain)
A must read
Here's a excerpt from a reader of the original Children's Palace post
http://geektarded.blogspot.com/2007/06/lets-go-shopping-childrens-palace.html
"Dr. Geektarded, I had the pleasure of helping to open the store in Omaha. Unfortunately, this is the only time I have ever visited your fine city. I was involved with over 20 store openings.
I also remember when they filmed "The Color of Money". We were excited that Children's Palace (CP) would be in a major movie. I recall that CP was paid $25,000 for a day of shooting for the scenes. This equated to one days average sales for that location. The "customers" in the scenes were filled in by store personnel and their families. I still watch the movie on occasion.
Dr. you ask what happened to all of the clearance items? Well, we sold them! (obviously) But here is the rest of the story: The reason why CP had so many "old" items was their "pack-away system". We would store all boxed merchandise above the area in the actual aisles of the store. All pegged items (i.e matchbox, hot wheels, seasonal) would be boxed up and stored in the warehouse. Here is where the issue happened. As the store sold down items like Matchbox cars, we would get another few cases in on our truck so we would fill the shelves with this product. The overstock Matchbox cars in the pack-aways stayed in the warehouse, never seeing the light of day. This inefficient way of stock balancing was one of the many factors to the demise of CP. Ideally, today's retailers have eliminated the back stock all together as to not tie up these dollars. I recall meeting a Matchbox collector who asked to see any unopened cases in the warehouse. He was like a kid in a candy store as he looked through the 5+ year old cases.
During the closeout procedures, we had incremental markdowns that were sent down by corporate for 10 weeks. (i.e. 10% off, 20% off) It was in the last few days that we went from 70% off to 90% off retail prices. We continuously pulled the old pack-aways out of the back room as merchandise sold down. WOW.... all of these old items came out!!! Old Mego figures (like the Spiderman you have pictured. I bought a case of 6 for 50 cents each!)Michael Jackson dolls, Starting lineup, and so on... I bought several items... but I couldn't buy them all. I still have these items MOC. I only had one child then (age 1) and boxed them up. Now, I see these items on EBAY so I never let my kids play with them. (Shame on me)
The last hour of the last day, my liquidator consultant had me put up a sign that said "Everything you can fit in your cart - only $10". Needless to say, everything was gone within the hour. I took a video camera and video taped some of the mayhem on the last day. Fortunately, I had a job lined up and was paid nearly 3 months severance/remaining vacation pay if I stayed to the end."
--------------------------------------------------------
I'm was so happy to hear about this "pack-away system". That explains all the old stock and why the aisles were literally packed to the rafters. At the Omaha location, on the shelving above the new stock, was this Tetris like packing of old boxed vehicles, playsets, etc. Then, along the back of the store was more boxed toys and aisles of carded toys. And lastly, the front entrance of the store was filled with closeout items too. Huge displays of Masters of the Universe, Voltron, Gobots, Rock Lords and the like, years after they had run their course.
The store was probably 1/3 closeout items. It was honestly a crazy way of doing business, but all those old toys are some of my fondest memories of the chain.
