Turtle Pond Toys, Dundas, Ontario

Turtle Pond Toys is a Canadian, family owned and operated group of three toy stores. Ingrid started in the toy business in 1988 when together with girlfriends Lili and Inta they opened an independent toy store on the Danforth in Toronto. Ten years later in Dundas, just outside of Dundas, Ingrid's husband Jon, who owned and operated the Broadway Cinema in Hamilton, said, hmmm.... we need a store like that in Dundas, and Turtle Pond Toys was born. In 2001 we added a store in the Pen Centre in Ingrid's home town of St. Catharines, followed fairly soon by stores in Waterloo and Niagara Falls. The Dundas store is our largest in size and product offering. The Pen Centre store started out small and narrow, but fortunately we were able to expand in 2008 and now there is decent room for those big mall strollers to get through the aisles! In 2008 we ourselves moved from Dundas to the Niagara region, and being an hour further away from Waterloo, in 2013 we closed the Waterloo store. The Niagara Falls store is the smallest, but has a character all its own, with a big emphasis on plush and gifts for adults as well as a broad selection of children's toys. Turtle Pond offers quality toys, games, plush, books and novelties for ages zero to adult. Our focus is on quality, durability, safety and play value of our toys. We take care in selecting toys that are wholesome and promote good values in our children. However, that doesn't mean that we don't also carry items whose sole redeeming purpose may be to make you laugh! Turtle Pond Toys also has a good selection of low-priced novelties, so a child on an extremely limited budget can also find something for him or herself. Our brands include the full LEGO line (including LEGO Architecture), Ty plush, Playmobil, Schleich animals, Ravensburger puzzles, Corolle dolls, Melissa and Doug, Gund, Folkmanis, Calico Critters, Alex, Lamaze, Cloud B, Mayfair Games and many more. We work hard to make sure our pricing is competitive. And don't make the mistake of thinking we only cater to children. We carry lots for teen, adult, through to senior citizens, with an appealing selection of strategy games, gifts, puzzles and even super-cool socks. In the last year and a half, we have greatly expanded our strategy game section, so you will be able to find not only the "usual" strategy games such as Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride, but over a hundred titles, from Agricola to Zombie Dice. We are especially happy to carry eco-friendly lines. Sometimes it's a challenge to distinguish between the hype and reality, so we try to look behind the claims and pick the products and companies that truly live by their claims. In our stores, we aim to provide excellent customer service. Our staff takes pride in knowing our products and being able to help choose a toy or gift. We have a popular customer reward program called "Pond Points", where you can sign up to collect points when making purchases, and the points can be later redeemed for a discount. The big plus of our program is that there is no up front fee to be paid, and no card to carry. We also provide a loot bag service that customers really appreciate, and we will wrap your gifts for free in a craft bag with tissue paper and ribbon, very helpful when you're rushing off to a birthday party! And if you give us your email address, you will get 15% off regularly priced books every day! We communicate with our customers via email, Facebook, and our Turtle Pond Toys website www.turtlepondtoys.ca to deliver the latest information on our products and specials. We invite you to communicate with us via Facebook, the website, or by email to info@turtlepondtoys.ca. If you'd like to join our email list, drop us a note to info@turtlepondtoys.ca. We do NOT inundate you with near-daily emails... (typically it's been once a month) Online shopping is in plan ... we're still working on it! You can certainly call us or email us at anytime if you would like to order a product you saw on our site or know we carry, and we would be happy to arrange to ship the product to you. We are very happy to be in the communities that we are in. We see that parents and grandparents care what they buy for their kids. They come to Turtle Pond Toys to get away from the mass-marketed stuff, to find toys that will stimulate and engage their children, to support a local business, and lately more than ever, to find toys that are made by reputable companies with high standards of testing and control. Turtle Pond Toys supports the communities that we are in. We sponsor children's sports teams as well as donate to many local schools and children's charities. In Dundas we sponsor the Secret Garden Tour each year (because we love the Carnegie Gallery and we love gardens!). We have sponsored Cycle for Autism in the Niagara area. Right now, we've earmarked one dollar of each Kiss Naturals kit sold as a donation to Autism Canada. At Christmas time we have donated toys to local children's charities, including Community Care in St. Catharines, Knights of Columbus in Waterloo and The Good Shepherd in Hamilton. We thank you for shopping at Turtle Pond. We hope you always have a great experience and we always welcome your feedback and suggestions! Jon and Ingrid