Hamleys

Christmas lights at Hamleys' London store in 2004.

Hamleys is one of the world's largest toy shops. Its flagship store in Regent Street, London, is the world's largest toy store. Other major stores worldwide include Dublin, Dubai, Amman, Glasgow, Mumbai, Chennai and Riyadh.

The flagship store is considered one of London's major tourist attractions, and receives about five million visitors a year. It is often considered to be the London equivalent of FAO Schwarz in New York City.

Unlike many companies using possessive names, Hamleys intentionally forgoes the use of an apostrophe in its name.

History

Hamleys is named after William Hamley, who founded a toy shop called "Noah's Ark" at 231 High Holborn in London in 1760. A branch at 200 Regent Street was opened in 1881, and the Holborn branch was destroyed by fire in 1901 and was relocated from 231 to 86– 87 High Holborn.

In 1938, Queen Mary, the consort of King George V, gave Hamleys a royal warrant. During World War II, the Regent Street store was bombed five times. In 1955, Queen Elizabeth II gave the company a second royal warrant as a "toys and sports merchant".

UK stores

Regent Street

Hamleys moved its flagship store to its current address at 188–196 Regent Street in 1981, which is the largest toy shop in the world.

Hamleys flagship London store has seven floors covering 54,000 square feet (5,000 m²), all devoted to playthings, with different categories of toy on each floor. In the late 1990s, Hamleys opened a specific Spice Girls department, dedicating their aisles to everything from Spice Girls stationery to Spice Girls dolls. The ground floor is traditionally for soft toys (including Steiff), and decked out with a remarkably diverse array of stuffed animals, from regular teddy bears to more exotic plushes such as turtles and dolphins, even to enormous life-sized giraffes and elephants.

• 5th floor: Boys — Action figures, vehicles, and an open cafe.
• 4th floor: Hobbies — Model kits, remote-controlled vehicles, model railways, Scalextric, etc.
• 3rd floor: Girls — Dolls, Arts & Crafts, Hello Kitty, Dress up etc.
• 2nd floor: Preschool — Toys for young children.
• 1st floor: Games — Board games, science, jigsaws; also a Build-A-Bear Workshop and Sweet Shop.
• Ground floor: Soft toys — a wide variety of stuffed animals, and also a Marvin's Magic section.
• Basement: Interactive — Lego, construction toys, Red 5, novelties and GAME (retailer).

Other UK stores

In 1987 a second store was opened in New York City, however this was closed less than 12 months later. Hamleys had a store based in Sheffield towards the end of the late 1980s. Based in part of the old Robert Brothers Department Store that closed earlier in the 1980s, its address was 36–38 The Moor, Rockingham House. It closed after a few years due to high rates and lower than expected trade. Hamleys is also a holding company for several other toy companies in the United Kingdom. Most notably, Hamleys purchased The English Teddy Bear Company in 2004. Originally established by Dominic Richards, it failed to prove a success for Hamleys, and all eight stores were closed down within two years.

As a result of these large expansion failures under the previous management team, Hamleys most successful expansion efforts have been through running concession outlets at various UK airports. Hamleys run smaller stores in London Heathrow Airport (terminal 1), London Stansted Airport, London Gatwick Airport (north terminal) and Manchester Airport (terminal 2). There is also a small store at St Pancras railway station.

On 26 November 2009 Hamleys opened a store in Glasgow. The 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m²) outlet is part of a £100 million extension and redevelopment of the St Enoch Centre.

There was also an outlet store at Great Western Outlet Village in Swindon, offering a more limited range of products. This outlet store was closed by mid-February 2010.

Global stores

Hamleys' European footprint exists in Denmark (three small stores) and, since 23 October 2008, the Republic of Ireland, when it opened a 3,250-square-metre (35,000 sq ft) store in Pembroke Avenue, located adjacent to the Town Square in Dundrum, outside Dublin.

Hamleys opened its first store outside Europe in the Jordanian capital Amman on 18 June 2008. The three-storey store in Mecca Street is run by the group's franchisee Jordan Centre. A Dubai franchise opened on 4 November 2008.

The first store in Asia was opened in Mumbai (Bombay) on 9 April 2010. The 22,000-square-foot (2,000 m²) store is located in an upmarket shopping district in India's financial capital. A second store in India is located in the city of Chennai at the Express Avenue Mall. The 11,000 sq ft store has a London bus that customers can walk up through.

Hamleys most recent new store was opened in Riyadh on 26 January 2012. The 2,100 square-metre shop is located in the Panorama mall at Takhassusi Street's intersection with Prince Mohammed Road.

See also

• Gamley's

External links

• Hamleys web site