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Comment by linkregister | Hacker News Reader

No way. The high-quality wooden hand-crafted toys at good mom & pop toy stores are not available on Amazon. Discoverability of good intellectually stimulating toys is similarly poor on Amazon.

You also overestimate the delta between the Amazon price (if the product is carried by Amazon) and that of the brick & mortar price. Often the brick & mortar price is identical after shipping costs.

The competitive advantage of a good mom & pop toy store is a specialized, curated selection of unique merchandise.

Perhaps Etsy can compete in this category, but I am in doubt that Amazon is there yet.

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> Often the brick & mortar price is identical after shipping costs. The competitive advantage of a good mom & pop toy store is a specialized, curated selection of unique merchandise.

I think their main advantage is not the curation but the availability. You can plan a trip to the toy shop, agree to a budget, go and play with toys, choose something in budget, and go home with a toy. This is a way better parent-child bonding experience than scrolling through pages of licensed junk together & then waiting 2-3 days.

Re curation: most good toy stores have the same sort of stuff. Most 'boutique' 'niche' ones have expensive crap for idiots with money. Protip: your kids will play with toys until they break, don't buy that miniature replica Miele vacuum cleaner toy for $200 unless you don't mind throwing it away in 3 months.

Museum shops seem to follow the 'specialized, curated selection of unique merchandise' of children's toys.

Museum shops are an excellent place to buy toys.

Wooden hand crafted toys are kind of a boutique, luxury market, though, not a representative case.

Yes but thats a very small example of the market.

When we are looking at the generic market, nowadays people go to a store, look at something and then go on their phone to see if they'll find it cheaper anywhere else, as local stores tend to overprice stuff to make up their marginal costs.

I dare you to try telling a 3-year-old who's winding up a tantrum because they want the airsoft pistol from the other aisle that they have to wait 3 days for the sensible age-appropriate & mentally-stimulating toy to arrive.

If trips to a toy store lead to tantrums, that sounds like an argument /against/ shopping there, not an argument /for/ shopping there.

My argument is against online price-matching being a suitable way of shopping for parents with young children, not against visiting toy stores. I see I wasn't clear that: taking your attention off your children to focus on your phone in an area with a high number of distracting items will likely lead to a situation where you need to reassert parental control.

Did you know? The 2-year-old will tantrum regardless where you are, and buying online means you don't have a quick out on hand (either getting the toy almost immediately after calming down and ensuring enough separation between the tantrum and getting the toy, or some stopgap alternative toy that's a tenth of the price).

You are obviously not a parent; you do not avoid trips to the toy store indefinitely.

You raise a good point. Availability is a huge advantage, especially for last-minute gift purchases. I haven't seen the good toys that I'm looking for on Amazon; I have seen them on Etsy.

On a tangential matter, I disagree with avoiding opportunities for teaching children delayed gratification in such a high impact way.

Think about it this way: every time you rightfully don't give your child something they want due to their bad behavior, you're giving them an effective lesson and improving their future life.

It's cruel to intentionally create situations that trigger a child; it should happen organically. It doesn't take long for children to adapt to understanding they won't get their way and start adopting appropriate self control.

Especially with modern research showing the damaging effects of corporal punishment, parents should take opportunities when they arise to discipline their children in a way that is meaningful to the child: withholding a toy they desire or another form of leverage.

I would be interested in seeing the research about the negative effects of corporal punishment if you have a link.

> On a tangential matter, I disagree with avoiding opportunities for teaching children delayed gratification in such a high impact way.

My comment on 2-3 days? That’s too long for a child to make the connection between behaviour and outcome. I love delayed gratification and would ask that we wait to play with the new toy until after we get home, eat, tidy up, etc. I hope that they make the link between waiting, being praised for doing a good job with something else, then playing.

"No way. The high-quality wooden hand-crafted toys at good mom & pop toy stores are not available on Amazon. "

If they have any kind of success and are visible - the chinese will have copies flooding the market within weeks. Small shops play a game to sell - but don't become too big.

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