‘Creating order out of chaos’: KC company’s puzzle sales soar during COVID-19 pandemic

Springbok, the oldest jigsaw puzzle brand in the nation, normally sees its highest demand from Black Friday to around mid-December.

Tyler Young, director of ecommerce at Allied Materials, the Kansas City company that owns Springbok, calls that time of year the “Super Bowl for jigsaw puzzles.”

But now, amid the coronavirus pandemic, Springbok has more than doubled its sales from previous peak periods, said Steven Pack, president of Allied Materials.

With many people stuck at home reaching for new activities to occupy their time, demand soared. But Springbok was unable to prepare for the demand like it normally can for busy seasons.

“Typically, for the fourth quarter, we have an opportunity to ramp up and build inventory in anticipation of what we expect the fourth quarter to be,” Pack said. “You have months where you can literally build hundreds of thousands of puzzles and have them in inventory to meet demand.”

In response to this unanticipated uptick, the company has hired more than 15 new employees. Now, employees work in multiple shifts to fill and ship orders 20 hours a day.

Pack said he thinks the popularity of jigsaw puzzles during this time is partially due to the sense of fulfillment in finishing one.

“When you put a puzzle together, there is a sense of certainty when you complete it,” Pack said. “There’s a comfort that you get from ‘I put this whole thing, all these pieces together, and I made this beautiful picture.’”

Puzzles are a way to pass the time without looking at a screen, something Young said people can only do for so long.

“Puzzles have been shown to have a calming effect, and they’re a way to feel productive,” Young said. “Each time that you put another piece in place, I think you feel a small sense of accomplishment.”

They can also take one’s mind off of the anxiety-inducing aspects of the pandemic.

“It’s creating order out of chaos,” Young said. “You have a pile of pieces and you’re creating order out of it. For a moment, you can depart from all of the negative news and things going on outside of your house.”

The company’s trends show that a few categories of puzzles have been most popular during the pandemic: bright and colorful puzzles, puzzles with themes of travel or exotic locations and puzzles that appeal to millennials, such as those with classic video game or comic book images.

Springbok usually sells its puzzles to a number of retailers, from specialty stores to chains like Barnes & Noble and Hobby Lobby, Pack said. With such high demand from online orders, the company has been unable to continue stocking those retailers.

“We do deal with certain regional and national chains, and they’ve totally run out of inventory,” Pack said. “It’s just impossible to meet the demand.”

Since the pandemic started, Brookside Toy & Science has placed two Springbok orders for around 50 puzzles, one in mid-March and one at the end of March, owner Holly Pollard said.

While the first order was filled quickly, the second took almost a month to fill, Pollard said.

“That one was a struggle,” she said. “Like, they almost weren’t going to be able to get it to us, and they had such a large volume of orders. I think they got a little behind.”

Pollard said she was close to canceling the second order and going with other puzzle suppliers, but she stuck with it because she is fond of the Springbok brand.

“I like their family puzzles; those are my favorite,” she said.

When her own business went online during the pandemic, Pollard said one of the first things the store did was put puzzles on its website.

“That’s what people were shopping for right away,” Pollard said. “And that has maintained. People are still coming in looking for puzzles.”

Brookside Toy & Science does still have some Springbok puzzles in stock from its second order, Pollard said, and the store is selling them both online and in person.

Springbok is now in the process of again supplying its puzzles to its usual retailers.

“We are ramping up production as we speak, and we will start shipping to those retailers this month in quantity,” Pack said.

Along with increasing production, the pandemic is causing Springbok and other business under Allied Materials to operate differently.

Pack acquired Springbok from Hallmark Cards in 2002 and added puzzles to the offerings of his father’s military supplies company Allied Materials.

Allied Materials also makes American flags. With its textile manufacturing capability, the company was able to produce masks for its employees quickly after the pandemic began.