Bureau toy buyers aim for holiday hits

For the Christmas Bureau toy buyers, the shopping season began in July, the list ran 17,000 children long, and the buyers did not know whether all the toys they ordered were actually shipped until they unpacked the boxes on Tuesday.

Last week, toy buyers Judy Theis and Janelle Kortlever huddled over the long lists of toys they ordered months ago. They were in an unheated warehouse where the boxes of toys are stored as they arrive from the manufacturers.

Pirate ships? Check. Acoustic guitars? Check. Pony ride-ons? Check, check, check.

Some of the toys were missing. A cell phone rang. It was a toy company representative. They would not be shipping the toys that were ordered. Did Theis and Kortlever want several hundred of a substitute toy?

“At this point, we’re really down to ordering the last-minute replacements,” said Kortlever.

The process began when most people hadn’t even made a list for Christmas, much less checked it twice. Theis, Kortlever and four volunteers on the toy committee pored over more than 40 catalogs, assembling long lists and paring them down to the toys that fit in the Christmas Bureau’s budget.

“We try to hold the cost per toy under $15 and the average ran $7 or $8. We try hard to get the best value for the money,” said Kortlever. The Christmas Bureau pays wholesale for the toys since they are ordered in bulk directly from the toy companies.

But costs aren’t the only consideration. Toys must be bought that are appropriate for age groups and gender: babies, preschool, elementary school, middle school and teenagers.

When it comes to deciding how many toys to buy for each age group, Theis said they use last year’s numbers as a guide.

“We ordered 4,800 toys for grade school kids this year,” Theis said. They ordered 3,000 toys for middle school children, and 1,500 to 2,500 for each of the other age groups.

They added a new section this year called family games, which includes primarily board games such as Monopoly, cribbage and the Disney Memory Game. “Board games are really popular,” said Theis.

How do they know which toys to buy? “We ask our grandkids,” Theis said.

Popular toys, she said, seem to be those that were favorites in the past: Lego, Lincoln Logs and basic dolls.

This is the second year that Theis and Kortlever volunteered to oversee the toy buying for the bureau. Last year they kept an eye on the toys that parents got excited about, and those that stayed on the shelves until the last day.

“The sleds, toboggans and snowboards were all gone the first day last year,” said Kortlever. Last year they ordered 400; this year they increased the order to 790.

“With the snow likely to stay around this year, they’ll likely be going really fast this year, too,” said Theis.

The toy buyers favor big, showy toys, simply because this may be the only toy some children get for Christmas, they said.

“At the same time we have to remember that the parents that come to the bureau don’t necessarily have a big home with a lot of room for huge toys,” said Kortlever. “And we avoid toys with a lot of little parts.”

The toys were moved to the Spokane County Fair & Expo Center Tuesday in five semi-truck loads, and the boxes were sorted and stacked by age group in a warehouse there. Today, volunteers will inventory the toys that require batteries to operate and bureau organizer Karen Orlando will buy the various sizes of batteries needed.

“Last year we bought 3,680 batteries, and that ran $1,700,” she said.

A volunteer will stay busy the first few days the bureau is open just inserting batteries in toys.

“We want to make sure the toys will work when the children open their gifts on Christmas morning,” Orlando said.