Oskar's Wooden Ark Through the Years

April 24th, 2023, by Simon & Thuy Till

We can't believe it has only been five years, but it's true...

Time flies when you're having fun, and it feels like yesterday when we opened the doors of our online shop. We can't believe how far we have come over the last five years, and none of this would have been possible without you, our customers and our community.

We have some exciting offers and promotions in store, starting with a storewide 5-day Birthday Sale! Join our Wooden Ark Family on Facebook and be sure to stay tuned to our socials for more surprises as the weekend unfolds.

We are incredibly grateful for your loyalty, support, honest feedback and reviews, and for helping us grow. With your help, we can now support not only our family but also the families of our outstanding team members.

What better time to wander down memory lane as we celebrate this milestone? Join us as we reminisce about the early days when Oskar's Wooden Ark was nothing more than a dream to where the business is today... our very own fairytale!

The Idea

I’ve always loved handmade wooden toys for their natural origins and distinctive features. Born in the 80s in Germany, my passion for traditional toys was ingrained (no pun intended) in me from a young age, thanks to my parents. As a devoted kindergarten teacher, my mama always had a love for small and charming wooden toys. Throughout our younger years, she always ensured my younger brother, Jannik and I, had access to these artisanal toys so that we could naturally explore the endless realm of independent and open-ended play. This obsession grew with me into adulthood and laid the initial foundations of our life and family business, Oskar’s Wooden Ark.

Simon, with his Ostheimer Wooden Toys collection - circa 1988

Outgoing orders awaiting collection outside of our granny flat

2015—2017

Fast forward to 2015, I met my future wife and amazing business partner, Thuy. After visiting her boisterous family in Australia, the dream of moving to the land down under to start a family and open an online toy shop began taking shape. My Australian Visa was approved ten months later, and we were excited to begin the next chapter of our lives in Adelaide, South Australia.

Our first home in Australia was a granny flat behind my brother-in-law‘s house that was about 30m2. There was a combined bed and living room and a tiny bathroom. The perfect abode for myself and Thuy... but not for long!

In July 2017, we welcomed our son Oskar into the world. As parents, we wanted to provide him with the same toys that made my childhood magical. Six Waldorf-inspired principles that we incorporated into our parenting style and that every family can adopt are:

• Childhood isn’t meant to be a race
• Become a storyteller
• Connect with nature every day
• Teach your kids to play
• Establish routines
• Make room for art

It was the arrival of Oskar that convinced Thuy and me to take the opportunity to introduce children in Australia to the world of wooden toys and open-ended play. We were confident that the unique and distinctive natural wooden toys combined with the open-ended play philosophy would outlive digitalisation and are a must for every family.

2018

Early 2018 saw the arrival of our first shipment, consisting of Grimm’s and Ostheimer. It was then that Oskar’s Wooden Ark Toy Shop was a reality. Still living in the granny flat, we used one of the four corners to hold an old desk as a makeshift packing table and a couple of shelves for stock.

On April 30th 2018, after five months of preparing and setting up, hundreds of hours of work and countless late nights, the Oskar’s Wooden Ark online shop opened for its first day of business. I was excited and nervous about what may or may not happen and was blown away by the 36 orders we received on our opening day!

We would often use the backyard to organise our incoming stock and orders

We tried to utilise every bit of space in our double garage

During the first couple of years, we invested what we had to grow the business. Being a one-man band and Thuy tending to baby Oskar, we worked hard but were limited on what we could do in our tiny space with a sleeping baby and another one on the way! We needed more space for our growing family and the business, so we rented our first house together, turning the double garage into our small warehouse.

In July 2018, we welcomed our second child, daughter Klara, into our wonderful world.

After many months of operating Oskar's Wooden Ark out of our double garage (can you believe we shipped over 7,000 orders from there), finding space to store our ever-growing stock was slowly becoming a challenge in our small home. With our social media accounts growing and the attention around wooden toys increasing, we faced another issue... time. With Thuy looking after Oskar and Klara, there were just never enough hours in a day to be able to keep our customer service at the level we wanted, so we hired our first employee, David, an old high school friend of Thuy’s, who is still with us to this day!

Our first employee, David, who is still with us today

2020

In January 2020, we raised over 12,000 AUD during our bushfire appeal. Fortunately, we were still able to ship orders during the pandemic and could meet the increase of orders from our customers who were looking at ways of keeping their children occupied at home in seemingly endless isolation. We had an extension to the warehouse to provide more room for stock, but our days in Windsor Gardens were numbered...

David packing orders during the Covid-19 pandemic

2022

In June 2022, Oskar’s Wooden Ark was recognised as one of South Australia's fastest-growing businesses of the year, presented with the 8th spot. Thuy had the privilege of attending the annual Fast Movers Award ceremony and breakfast at Adelaide Oval to accept our award in person, along with the 24 other winners. It was a tremendous honour and utterly heartwarming for her to meet many other successful and inspiring business owners.

Thuy accepting the Fast Movers Award

Our Adelaide team during our 2022 Warehouse Open Day (from left to right: Ngoc, Thuy, Erin, Simon, John, David & Tony)

2023

Today, April 2023, Oskar’s Wooden Ark employs fourteen staff members over three continents and has shipped over 90,000 orders to families across Australia. Our mission is to inspire parents and children to PLAY, LEARN, EXPLORE, CREATE, and make memories together by providing magical products, fun play ideas, excellent customer service and a welcoming, supportive community. That is why we can come to work each day and create magic!