Sugarcup Trading in Oak Park, IL, is a newly opened retail trading store with an innovative way of letting children shop for toys and clothes. Not only can visitors purchase new baby items, infant and kids’ clothing, and toys for boys and girls, but they can also trade in their own mint condition toys, clothing, and games in exchange for points that can be used to buy store merchandise.

How to trade retail at Sugarcup Trading company

This new retail trading store concept is the brainchild of Michelle Vanderlaan. Along with offering her customers a selection of toys and clothing items that fall into categories like hip, stylish, unique, homemade, organic, recycled, fair trade, eco-friendly, and straight up cool, Michelle also wanted to use the activity of retail trading to teach children about life skills and economic concepts such as responsibility and opportunity costs.

To participate in retail trading, children can bring in mint condition toys and clothing items that are currently listed on the trading roster. (Over time, the brands accepted by the store will evolve and change based on the needs of the trading community.) Currently accepted items include products from popular, high-quality, and often eco-friendly brands like:

• For toys: American Girl, Brio, Educo, HaPe, the Land of Nod, Leap Pad, LEGO, P’kolino, Plan Toys, Pottery Barn Kids, Quadrilla, and Sprig.
• For electronic games: Gameboy, Nintendo Dsi and DS Lite, Playstation 3, Xbox, and Wii.
• For kids' clothing: Abercrombie, Burberry Kids, Cakewalk, Catimini, Deux Par Deux, Diesel Kids, GAP, Juicy Couture, Mim Pi, Northface, Oililly, Ralph Lauren, 7 for Mankind, Timberland, and True Religion.

As part of the negotiation process, there is the possibility that a child could persuade the store to accept a good item from a brand not currently listed on the wall-sized Trading Bar chalkboard.

Once children have brought their items to the Trading Bar, the store experts evaluate each product and provide each boy or girl with an itemized summary of how many points Sugarcup Trading will offer in exchange for each item. Children can then make a decision about which trades to accept. Once trades are approved, the store uploads the points onto children’s special store trading cards. (Parents must open accounts for kids under the age of 13.)

Each item for sale in the store is labeled with both a price and a number of points. Children can then purchase items using either money or the points from their retail trading cards. The used merchandise that boys and girls trade to the store will be offered back to other customers for sale at prices that will most likely be set at about 50% of normal retail price.

This unique store concept teaches children in many ways:

• Knowing that they will be able to trade in their toys and clothes for points down the line will encourage boys and girls to take better care of their possessions. After all, damaged goods may not be accepted for trading or may be worth a lower amount of points.
• Seeing their old possessions go through the trading process to be used by new owners teaches kids how resources can be recycled and reused.
• When making trades, children must use their decision-making skills to determine things like whether it is a good idea to make a trade or not and whether they should spend, save, or donate the points they earn. (Sugarcup Trading is working on partnering with local charities with whom kids will be able to easily share their points.) Children also gain self-confidence from being given the authority and responsibility for making these economic decisions.

About Sugarcup Trading company

The name for Michelle's store comes from the idea of living in a community where one is able to borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor. By seeing their possessions passed on to new users and by finding treasures themselves in items discarded by other people, children may start to feel more connected to the people around them and begin to understand how everyone can share and reuse resources.

To bring her unique concept for a children's retail trading store to life in a physical space, Michelle used a kids’ advisory team of children ages 6 to 10 to figure out the best color scheme, logo, concept direction, décor, and inventory selection for her new shop. The boys and girls in her focus group rejected babyish and whimsical designs in favor of a more retro vintage and hip urban feel and style that should appeal to even 13 and 14-year-olds at the high end of the store’s target customer age range.

The look of the finished-out store space is definitely a mix of hip, urban, and vintage design choices that try to create the feel of a store in New York's SoHo district or a Paris Left Bank shop. Michelle brought in a special artist to paint the store logo and murals on the walls, and the paintings combined with the exposed ceiling ducts do conjure up the atmosphere of an urban gallery.

Counterbalancing that, the store is furnished with worn vintage furniture pieces like chests of drawers or wicker table and chair sets that are visually pleasing yet sturdy enough to stand up to being touched and bumped into by young visitors. Overall, Michelle wanted to make her store kid-friendly, a place where parents can sit, relax, and enjoy their coffee in the minimalist seating area in the front window while children freely explore the merchandise in the rest of the store.

As for the products carried by Sugarcup Trading so far, Michelle wants above all to sell items from people who have a story behind their merchandise. Along with clothing brands from overseas that are being carried in the United States for the first time at Sugarcup Trading, Michelle is also stocking interesting and unique items like some lovely organic pillows that were created by a local Chicago-based designer. In terms of toys, during our review visit we saw everything from baby feeding sets, great P'kolino toddler toys and art supplies, and Eco-Kids art supplies, to craft kits, puzzles, small novelty toys, candy, Ugly Dolls, and savings banks. And, of course, racks and displays of striking clothing items for babies, boys, and girls.

Sugarcup Trading store review

The merchandise carried at Sugarcup Trading store complements, rather than duplicates, the selection of children's products sold at other nearby local children's stores like Geppetto's Toy Box and The Magic Tree Bookstore. The lives of the people of Oak Park will definitely be richer for having had this store open in the newly revitalized North Marion Street area.

The retail trading store concept is a unique and interesting one that should inspire children to appreciate and care for their toys and clothing both while they own these things and when making decisions about what to do with them once children no longer need them. Everything about the system Sugarcup Trading has set up to help children make trades will appeal to kids, from the beautifully designed trading bar to the plastic card emblazoned with the hip Sugarcup Trading logo that participants in the program will be given to keep.

As more and more children trade in items, the store's stock of products for sale will grow. We visited Sugarcup Trading a few weeks after their grand opening and saw even then a nice selection of new toys, games, children's clothing, and other kids' items for sale. We can also attest from first-hand experience that the store is kid-friendly, for our adventurous three-year-old companion was able to wander around freely and without mishap while we spoke with Michelle.

Overall, this new Oak Park children's store is well worth a visit either to shop for unique and stylish children's clothing and toys or as a way of clearing out and giving a second life to old but good-quality kids' clothing and toys.

Visit Sugarcup Trading at 110 North Marion Street in Oak Park, IL.

For additional information about buying toys in Chicago, read more Chicago toy store reviews.

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