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Sunday, September 9, 2001



art
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Elaine Higa, one of the principal owners of Toy-rrific
in Kapolei Shopping Center, is surrounded by her
toys and video games.



Staying atop toy trends
means talking to kids

FROM TOTS TO TOYS


Rob Perez / rperez@starbulletin.com

When Pan American World Airways folded in 1991, Elaine Higa lost her job and had to rethink what she wanted to do with her career.

She eventually decided it was time for a change.

And what a change it was.

Instead of leveraging her more than two decades in the travel business, Higa opened a toy store in Kapolei in 1993.

Today, Higa oversees a three-store Oahu chain under the name Toy-rrific. It's a family-run business, with daughter Vanessa Higa and family friend Chris Nishioka helping run the show.

"I wanted a new challenge," Higa recalled of her midcareer change, "and this is a good challenge."

The idea of getting into the toy business came about partly because Higa started handling the travel arrangements of someone who already owned a chain of stores.

Once she took the plunge, Higa quickly learned that as a small independent player in the industry, she had to be quick to react to the latest trends.

She had to get the latest games first. She had to provide top service. She had to know what her little customers wanted.

Otherwise, Higa said, she couldn't compete with the big boys in the industry.

"You gotta talk to the kids constantly," she said.

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That's especially true because Higa's two children are no longer kids. Vanessa and brother Erick are both in their 20s -- well past the Pokemon and Digimon years of adolescence. (Erick is working and attending Purdue University in Indiana.)

Toy-rrific, with stores in Kapolei, Mililani and Central Honolulu, stocks its shelves primarily with collectible toys and related merchandise and a wide assortment of video games.

The latter helps bring repeat customers to the stores, especially those looking for the latest games and merchandise.

Nishioka said many video-game players will spend all their spare money -- and then some -- on the newest items. "It's like a drug (addiction)," he said.

Although Higa opened her first store in the early stages of what became a nearly decade-long economic funk in Hawaii, Nishioka said the toy business seems to be immune from the ups and downs of economic cycles.

"It's funny," he said. "We don't really find ourselves affected by the economy."

To help weather slow periods in toy sales, however, Toy-rrific started selling cellular phones and service about two years ago.

"It kind of balances the business," Nishioka said.

But the phones, for the most part, are secondary to the toys. The toys drive the business.

That's why Higa is hoping for some hot sellers by the time the key Christmas season arrives. She says there hasn't been a really hot fad since the Pokemon craze of a few years ago.

If one develops, Vanessa Higa expects the hot sellers to show up on Toy-rrific shelves, thanks to her mother's astute buying decisions.

"She's really good at picking up what the trend is going to be," Vanessa said.

Although Higa left the travel business nearly a decade ago, her family still has a hand in it. Higa's husband, Cyrus, owns a travel agency.


Asian- and Pacific Islander-owned businesses

Hawaii has the largest percentage of businesses owned by Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States, according to the latest Economic Census. Many of those firms are small businesses, evident by the fact that although they comprise 54 percent of all businesses in Hawaii, they accounted for about 26 percent of the state’s total sales and receipts. All Hawaii firms totaled $55.4 billion in sales and receipts, of which $14.5 billion was generated by firms owned by Asians and Pacific Islanders
Area All firms Owned by
Asians and
Pacific Islanders
Percentage
United States 20,821,900 913,000 4.4 %
California 2,565,734 316,048 12 %
New York 1,509,829 123,258 8 %
Hawaii 93,981 50,634 54 %

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 1997 Economic Census, released 2001
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