Bright Idea is Child’s Play

The strategies used in modern retailing do not leave too much scope any more for clever operators to find a competitive edge.

But entrepreneurs Anne Doyle and Michelle Barraclough think they can provide one – by helping them to create child friendly premises.

The pair have spent the past four years developing their conept of a chilren’s play panel with a colourful collection of fixed play attachments to keep yhoung children occupied safely while parents browse or make purchases.

It was designed to help retailers capture a valuable market – parents who are ready and willing to spend but constrained by the challenges of shopping with young children in tow.

Their peninsula-based Child Friendly Solutions company was set up to commercialise the concept, which Doyle devised after she started seeking out shops that provided something to occupy her own children.

But, whereas most simply provided the typical box of toys in the corner, she decided to develop something to overcome the obvious safety, hygiene or trip-and-slip risks.

Barraclough, a former marketing consultant from Narrabeen who came on board to help her friend commercialise the Play Panel product, said it benefits for everyone.

“It is better from the child’s point of view and for the parents, but also for the retailers because they keep those customers in the store longer, they face less of an insurance risk and it has been designed to free up valuable commercial retail space because the panels can be free-standing or mounted on a wall or a column,” she said.

They are now successfully marketing the Play Panels for a broad range of commercial applications such as doctors’ surgeries, banks, car dealerships and airport departure lounges.

In the seven months their product has been on the market, Child Friendly Solutions has already built up an impressive client list. It includes companies like Westpac and St George banks, which are presently trialling it, NIB Health Insurance, Best & Less and some Westfield shopping centres are now putting them into parents’ rooms.

Closer to home they have been adopted by Wicked Candles in Manly and NIB at Warringah Mall.