THERE’S no need to travel when helping Santa with gifts this year.
This is because local residents Sally and Rob Brown have launched a new children’s toy store in Wokingham town centre.
Blueberry Toys opened its doors to the public last Tuesday, and according to Sally, they’ve had a whirlwind first week.
“The store has been absolutely manic,” Sally says.
“It’s been really well received overall, and we’ve had a lot of quite positive feedback so far.”
The couple set up Blueberry Toys to try and fill a gap in Wokingham’s market.
“We have a five-year-old son and whenever we’ve bought toys for him, we realised there’s nothing in Wokingham,” Sally explains.
“So, we decided to set up a toy shop ourselves.
“This is a completely new venture for us and it’s all really exciting.”
Blueberry Toys sells all manner of unique children’s gifts, and specialises in sustainable and wooden pieces.
Rather than selling plastic toys, the owners wanted to offer slightly more unusual trinkets from independent suppliers.
“We didn’t want to compete with the big toy stores,” Sally explains.
“Instead, we wanted to offer gifts from suppliers who are less well-known, and we’ve got quite a lot of sustainable products too.
“This was important to us when setting up the store because we’re so used to getting big, plastic toys and not knowing what to do with them when our child doesn’t need them any more,” she adds.
“It’s quite nice for people to have something which they can dispose of responsibly.”
Alongside their sustainable crafting and construction toys, the owners have also invested in a range of educational pieces, to help parents through lockdown.
“We’ve got quite a lot of home learning toys because I think as we head towards another lockdown, people want a bit more of that,” says Sally.
As of today, Blueberry Toys has closed its doors until Wednesday, December 2, to comply with national lockdown measures, but Sally says the pandemic won’t be getting them down, especially as they have plans to keep trading online.
“It’s disappointing that we have to close because the majority of toy sales do happen in the run-up to Christmas, but we plan to have a grand reopening in December – we’re here for the long term.
“There’s an amazing community amongst businesses in Wokingham and we’re all supporting each other through it,” Sally says.
The owners are now in the process of setting up a website and are considering running a click and collect service throughout lockdown to make sure people can still get their holiday gifts.
“We are looking to go online,” Sally explains, “but it’s all a bit up in the air at the moment.
“All in all, we’re really looking forward to opening up again in December, just in time for Christmas.”
Blueberry Toys can be found on Denmark Street in Wokingham town centre.
