North Star Trading Post — Local services in Toledo

I visited North Star Trading Post, between noon and 12:27pm, today. I told my kid that she could pick something out that was under $15 and I’d buy it for her. She couldn’t find many items that were under $15! Not every parent, grandparent or aunt and uncle have a lot of money. It was too bad that there aren’t more diverse offerings in the store. Also, some kids struggle with numbers. If there were different colored price stickers for items in different price ranges, that would be nice! For example: $9.99 and less could have green (go) stickers and $10 to $19.99 could have yellow (slow down) stickers. $20 and up could have red (stop) stickers. I’ve observed that Lowe’s Home Improvement groups items by price around Christmas. They have signs that say things like, gifts $25 and under here. This Zoo store often grouped things by animal and not by price. This was annoying. Over time I forget where different stuffed animals and toys come from. So… I like to buy stuffed animals that say Toledo zoo or Detroit zoo or New York City. Very few of the stuffed animals say Toledo zoo. After a year, my kid won’t remember where the stuffed animal came from. That’s too bad. Parents were having a bad day, today. Only one...

We visited on a Monday in mid-April 2025.

I think it's a miss opportunity but they should open this store before they open the front gates. Everyone is just standing around anyways and all my kids wanted to do something and I'm sure they would make more money by having it open before the rest of the zoo.

This store is huge and there are food and snacks items in there as well. While being huge be aware they do not have ALL the merch that is available in other stores within the zoo. We saw something back at the small aquarium shop but they had a long line and some difficulties with the register so we said we would just purchase it on the way out at the big store BUT they didn't have it and we weren't going to walk all the way back to the aquarium store to get it.

Overall a great shop with...

Had cool items but they weren't to my liking as I thought...