Puzzle pandemonium: Local stores selling more jigsaws, games during pandemic

Since the COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered people inside, some St. John's shops are adapting their stock to meet new demands from customers looking for items to help pass the time.

"As it turns out, we happen to have a lot of things at Posie Row that are really good for being shut in your house. We didn't know that before, but it's suddenly a new category of products that we're thinking about," said store manager Jane Manuel.

"There have been a few rushes of products that have really helped to sustain us in this time."

The No. 1 request from customers during the pandemic? Puzzles.

"We're now all wishing that we had stock in [puzzle company] Ravensburger," Manuel joked.

"It's been really wild."

She said puzzles have always been a decent seller at the downtown store but she's never seen demand quite like this.

"We had jigsaw puzzles in the store when all this started that we sell all year-round, and they sold out really quickly," she said.

"Then we received another order, and we actually had to bring in extra staff people, and one person manned [our Facebook account], and one person got on Instagram, and we just went crazy selling them until they were sold out."

Manuel said the puzzles were gone within a couple of hours.

Other current popular items at the store are board games, educational kids' games, and activity books, art supplies and plants.

"It's always a big thing for us or it has been for the last few years, but that popularity has sustained since this [pandemic] has been going on," she said.

"I think people are really liking something that's alive."

Manuel said people are also requesting paint-by-number sets, which she's working on getting into the store.

Comic store changing tack

Timemasters, a comic book and collectibles store on Torbay Road, was in a different bind due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We'd [usually] get this large shipment on Thursdays of comics and collectibles, toys, and graphic novels. We don't get that because that distributor shut down now," said David Stephens, who has worked at Timemasters for the past four years.

"We've sort of switched tack towards things that we have been selling, but we're now pushing a little harder."

Stephens said there's demand for unpainted miniatures for role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, and Pathfinder.

"Board games of course are big especially two-player games. We've been selling a lot of stuff like [card game] Exploding Kittens, and things that you can easily pick up and play," he said.

There's also a big demand for puzzles that are expected to be in stock soon as well as Bandai's Gundam model kits.

Stephens said it's been a bit of a learning curve, figuring out how to operate during COVID-19.

At the start of the pandemic, Timemasters which has been a brick-and-mortar store for almost 30 years created a web store.

They're offering delivery to St. John's, Mount Pearl, and Paradise, provincewide shippingand curbside pickup.

The store has also reduced its hours to three days a week.

"Our sales [are] about on par. They're not too much less than what we'd expect on [a] typical day," Stephens said.

"We're trying to be safe and just doing what we can to pay our overhead to make sure the rent is paid the same sort of situation that a lot of local businesses are in right now."

'Local love'

Manuel said sales have also gone down since Posie Row closed its doors to the public in mid-March, and had to lay off most of its staff.

Posie Row doesn't have a web store, so they have had to turn to social media to sell their wares. Manuel said they're also doing curbside pickup, and delivery in St. John's and surrounding areas.

"We've also been changing and adapting daily, it seems, to new circumstances," she said.

"So that's been kind of interesting and exciting at the same time."

Compared to before, Manuel said there's an enormous amount of extra labour involved in making a single sale.

But even if it's not directly reflected in the store's bottom line, she said it's worth it.

"I'm really feeling that expression of local love," Manuel said.

"We've had people reach out to us and say 'I want to buy something from you, because I want to support my local economy. We can't say no to that. We want to be there for those people, and because they want to be there for us."

Manuel said she enjoys doing the deliveries, because even though they're contact-free, she's communicating more with customers.

"I'm having conversations with people who are asking how my family is, how my health is, wishing me well, to stay safe, everybody is being kind and patient. And it's been a heartwarming experience in a lot of ways," she said.

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