The world’s largest online penguin paraphernalia retailer — Brooklyn’s own “Penguin Place” — is so ruffled by a Hollywood-inspired explosion in competition, that he’s re-tooling his Web site.
“I went from being the only penguin store online to one of a few,” said Eric Bennett, referring to the impact that the two hit movies, “March of the Penguins” and “Happy Feet,” had on his business. “The pie got bigger, and it got sliced up. My sales stayed the same.”
Bennett, a mid-sized, round-faced, dad-about-DUMBO, has operated www.penguin-place. com for 10 years. This is the first time his dominion over the online penguin paraphernalia business has been challenged. Or even, frankly, noticed.
In response to competition from sites like www.penguins onparade.com and www.penguingiftshop.com, Bennett, 47, will re-launch his Web site this month.
“My present ‘Penguin Place’ is … very cute and quaint, and everyone likes it, but folks are driving past and going to the mall,” he said.
Bennett has been in the business of selling penguin bric-a-brac for 20 years, his Web site preceded by actual retail outlets.
Since 1997, he’s run his Web site out of what he’s dubbed “The Igloo” — a home office on the fifth floor of a decrepit old factory that some call the “DUMBO Museum” for its apparent refusal to go luxury, like the rest of its neighbors in Brooklyn’s SoHo.
The Igloo itself harkens back to a less orderly age: extensions cords hang from dirty pipes, while brown boxes erupt with penguin onesies, T-shirts, slippers, wallpaper, and less mundane penguin items, like the Waddling Penguin Pooper — which, after you wind it up, deposits small brown plastic candies from its behind (yes, it’s a big seller).
One of the few penguin items not for sale is a bottle of Penguin Ale given him by Rex Hunt, the former governor of the Falkland Islands, home to the Rockhopper penguin.
Some of Bennett’s most ardent buyers include members of the big city philharmonics (apparently, because they resemble penguins in their tuxedos and bowties), and a running group for overweight people called “The Waddlers.”
Bennett’s entanglement with the Gentoos and Blackfoots of the world began when he was a freshman at Queens College and dating his “first real girlfriend.”
“She liked gymnastics, the ballet, and she also liked penguins,” said Bennett. “Me being a normal 18-year-old guy, I started getting her penguins. And she reciprocated. It sort of became known amongst our friends and family that penguins were our thing.
“When we broke up in my junior year, I had a major foothold in penguin paraphernalia,” said Bennett.
A couple of years after graduating, Bennett visited Boston’s Quincy Market, which had just been revamped and was flush with stores selling all manner of kitschy stuff.
There was Hog Heaven, with its stuffed cows and bovine salt-and-pepper shakers, and a unicorn store filled with “mythological things.” So on a dare, Bennett visited South Street Seaport and submitted an application to open a penguin pushcart.
And so, on May 15, 1985, “Next Stop South Pole” was hatched. The ex-girlfriend designed the cart, and Bennett filled it with penguin items he’d bought from toy trade shows.
“The first week, my parents would pull up chairs about 20 feet away, near the food court, and just watch, because they couldn’t understand what I was doing,” said Bennett.
Soon, he moved into a kiosk, and then into a store on Pier 17. He eventually had a location in Baltimore, seasonal carts in Miami and Colorado, a mail-order catalog and a quarterly magazine about penguins called “The Penguin Post.”
Along the way, Bennett nurtured his love for penguins — he says, “I’ve never met a penguin I didn’t like, which is more than I can say for most people I’ve met.”
Meanwhile, Bennett has had to adapt to a shifting business climate. In the 1990s, as the rest of the city became more tourist friendly, South Street Seaport lost its luster. And, the Internet grew. Soon, he ran his business entirely online.
“By 2000, I was grossing more than $200,000 a year,” said Bennett.
The ex-girlfriend, the progenitor of Bennett’s penguin fixation, and now a purchaser of merchandise for Disney theme parks, said she’s not surprised by Bennett’s success.
“He definitely has an enterprising sort of spirit, so he’s able to make it work,” said the former flame, Robin Feinsot.
Bennett was typically humble about his accomplishments.
“I was 24 when I came up with the concept,” said Bennett. “I also thought a spooky carwash was a good idea.”
Well, one out of two ain’t bad.
