TWO business-minded brothers have swapped selling beds and mattresses and embraced their inner child and opened a new toy shop.
Enterprising brothers Paul and Michael Johnson have bounced back from Covid with a new toy shop to delight Teesside’s children and the young at heart.
They spent six months working on a plan after having to close their PM Beds and Furniture store in Stockton.
That business was launched in 2019 but was shut for much of the time because of the pandemic, and when it re-opened after the third lockdown the brothers discovered that their suppliers had either gone bust or hiked their prices.
40-year-old- Paul Johnson said: “We would have like to have kept it going, but we were literally going weeks without seeing any customers.
“We tried to eke it out as best we could, but we knew it wasn’t going to work.
“So we thought we would try something new and something that’s always been of massive interest to us.”
PM Toys and Collectables, which is now open at the Dundas Indoor Market in the centre of Middlesbrough, is a mixture of new and vintage.
It sells all the classic toys and games which generations of children have loved, and for grown-ups, it is offering collectable toys and figures which have a sentimental, ornamental or financial value.
Business is in the brothers’ blood. Their late father ran a string of shops across Teesside, including the Used Furniture and Appliance Warehouse in Stockton.
The whole of the indoor market, could easily fit into the family’s previous outlets but Paul and Michael have applied the same tried and trusted retail principles to their new venture.
Michael Johnson added: “It’s all about knowing your margins, identifying your customer base and picking the right location.
“Kids are always going to play with something tangible rather than being sat at a screen all the time, and at the same time parents will be buying the toys they liked when they were young for their children.
Paul Johnson added: “There aren’t many places you can go now and look at toys. We’ve tried to get a bit of everything for everybody.
“We think the classics are best. They don’t make toys like they used to.”