Marty Mickelson had hoped this holiday shopping season would catapult his new family-friendly card game, Hasty Baker, to major commercial success.
Sales — nearly all of which took place on Amazon’s Marketplace platform for third-party merchants — climbed as the pandemic sent families indoors. By autumn, the Vashon Island software engineer believed his game had gained traction among parents looking for an indoor activity for cooped-up children.
But the holidays, he said, are when makers of card and board games score as much as three-quarters of their annual sales.
“This is the most important time for us to sell everything we can,” he said. “Any bit of trouble from the selling platform affects us a lot for the rest of the year.”