Felix Tena, founder of Imaginarium toy shop, after finishing his degree in Business Administration in USA, returned to Spain where founded “Publijuego” in 1980. It was a small company devoted to manufacturing and selling educational toys. However, due to Mr. Tena made a deal with some Italian colleagues, who only wanted to take advance of his company in order to distribute their own products, the company failed.
Nevertheless, in November 1992, after doing a wide market study, where he found a lot of niches in the toys world, he opened the first “Imaginarium” little shop in Zaragoza. Currently it is a manufacturer, purchaser, seller and retailer toy business that sells a wide range of quality and carefully selected toys to children at the best price, almost all over the world. We can find shops in Portugal, Italia, Ireland, France, Deutschland, Osterreich, Hong Kong, Andorra, Suisse, Ellada, Holland, Ukraine, Russia , Romania, Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Peru, Honduras, Colombia, Panama, República Dominicana, Venezuela, etc and they wait that can open stores in China in 2013.
Speaking about sales figures, in May 2012, they informed the company closed its financial year with an increase of 6% in sales (about 138 millions of euros).
IMAGINARIUM MARKETING
The success of IMAGINARIUM was partly Tena’s vision, partly a smart marketing strategy. With regard to his vision, Tena realized Spanish toy industry was becoming rather boring offering similar products. It was 1990, the videogame era. Thereby, he run the risk of creating a different collection of toys that would transmit or contribute something new for children: imagination, relations, games to play with their parents, far from fads and cartoon characters; games in which children were active participants rather than mere spectators and which they would really enjoy playing.
Seeing the success of it, in September 1993, he opened four new stores in Spain: La Vaguada and