Our duck story

So why rubber ducks?

This is a question we get quite a lot. Why rubber ducks? At first we were very anxious ourselves. But we just had to do it. In 2011 I had a very cute children’s gift shop. My daughter came with the great idea to sell rubber ducks. The demand for ducks grew steadily as our collection increased until we came to a point that we started to think about a shop with only ducks. But wouldn’t that be too big of a step? Considering, well you know, rubber ducks…

Barbara de Vlam owner and founder Amsterdam Duck Store

Love for rubber ducks

As we researched for our shop supply we got even more enthusiastic. There are fans with enormous collections. Suppliers with amazing designs. Duck races all over the world. And of course Florentijn Hofman and his giant floating rubber duck who travelled from harbor to harbor. The love for ducks became contagious and the step to open a duck shop even became a logic thing to do.

Family effort

I wanted to share our love for ducks by displaying as many rubber ducks as possible in my shop. I came up with the name and shop concept, my brother designed our logo and website and my sister in law runs the webshop and is one of our sales women and my husband is my consultant and biggest fan. Most unexpectedly it became a family effort. The Amsterdam Duck Store was born on March 18, 2015 with a huge collection of rubber ducks. And it’s still growing…

Inspiration

One of our sources of inspiration is the Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman. We display his quote on our walls in all the Duck Stores to remind us of the friendliness that rubber ducks give:

“The rubber duck knows no frontier
it doesn’t discriminate people
and doesn’t have a political connotation.

The friendly floating rubber duck
has healing properties;
it can relieve mondial tensions
as well as define them.

The rubber duck is soft, friendly
And suitable for
all ages.”

Smile on your face

People who enter our shop, smile instantly. They see so many cheerful ducks. We feel that we don’t sell ducks but we sell little pieces of joy. It’s such a fun thing to do. We share our love for ducks. Even some of our customers travel from Duck Store to Duck Store.

Spreading wings

Not only customers appreciated our Duck Store concept, also entrepreneurs picked up this new business in cuteness. In a few years we spread our wings and now there are Ducks Stores in Amsterdam, Barcelona, San Sebastian, Lisbon, San Marino, Milan, Rome, Madeira, Segovia, Venice, Madrid and Paris. And more to come… Although I am very busy at the office, you can still find me working in one of my stores one day a week. My favorite place to be!