A boy in the shop was drawn to this dragon and while that is not unusual, how it happened piqued my attention.
Mum can I have this dragon please? He casked. It’s like a teddy bear, said his mum. No, it’s a d r a g o n (yes he said it slowly, emphasising the difference).
To the boy, the dragon is not a plush item, not a teddy bear. It made me look at plush differently as they appear different to different shoppers.
It reminded me of the value of listening to customers on the shop floor and seeing what we sell through the eyes of our customers.
Whereas the mum sees the dragon as another soft toy, the kid sees a character to play into his childhood fantasies.