A real-life toy story: How one family’s experience has turned into a fun business

With three kids under the age of seven, Moussa Horanieh and Maria Arango know a thing or two about keeping little ones busy.

Part of it, according to Arango, is having a variety of toys to choose from.

“We need toys. As parents, we really need to get them entertained,” Arango said of her children.

“We don’t want to put them always in front of the TV. We want them to do something that is going to help them also in their development.”

Horanieh and Arango, however, noted that toys can be expensive and quickly realized kids can be fickle sometimes.

“Kids love a toy, for a period of time, but then they just lose interest in them,” said Arango, who runs an online store for used toys in the Montreal region.

Finding new toys and what to do with the old ones is something the family put a lot of thought into.

“We just learned a lot about toys,” Arango said. “We learned, first of all, that they’re non-recyclable. The plastic ones, they’re done with, like, a mix of plastics or plastics that we cannot just put them in the recycling bin.”

The pair turned to places like Marketplace and Kijiji to buy new toys or pass on the ones their kids had outgrown.

But finding what you need can be hit and miss, time-consuming and not always the best experience.

“We realized that we needed something more sustainable, more communal, more affordable,” Arango said.

That’s when the couple came up with the idea for Rekidding — their online business.

People wanting to offload some toys can get in touch through the Rekidding website.

“We ask them for pictures. They send them to us. We assess and we make an offer, and we pick them up usually within the week,” Arango explained.

After that, the toys are cleaned and put into storage.

When an order is placed, the toys are cleaned and checked again.

“We make sure that it’s safe. If we wouldn’t give it to our kids, we wouldn’t sell it to our clients,” Arango said.

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There’s a delivery fee at checkout, but people can also pick up their purchases in Montreal’s Griffintown neighbourhood too, if they prefer.

The business is local in scope,  Horanieh stressed.

“So it’s within the Greater Montreal,” he said. “So our mission is to circulate those toys within that.”

But he insists there is still room for growth.

“So grow it in the sense of getting more brands, more quantity, but also more brands cater to other ages,” he said.

Horanieh also believes in promoting what he calls “re-commerce.”

“It’s not only good for the planet, it’s practical and it’s economical. So there’s a lot of good reasons to have this kind of business,” he said.

Arango agreed, adding it was also good for the community.