Huina Construction Toys NZ, run by the Aldrich family, has grown from a handful of miniature excavators into a full range of RC machinery
Huina Construction Toys NZ is run by the Aldrich brothers Brad and Travis, together with their father, Dave. The business specialises in the sale of excavators, dump trucks, loaders, bulldozers, cranes and other construction machinery – albeit in miniature.
The origins of the business were fairly modest.
“We’ve always been involved in importing different products,” says Brad. “Over the years we brought in all sorts of things, including construction equipment and camping products, but Huina was the range that really stood out.”
The first Huina order arrived in New Zealand roughly five or six years ago and consisted of only five or six excavators.
“There wasn’t really some big plan to start a specialist RC construction business,” Travis says. “We saw some machines that looked interesting, thought they were worth trying, and brought a few in.”
The response was good enough to encourage another order, and then another. Excavators were followed by other machines, and the range gradually expanded to include trucks, loaders, dump trucks, bulldozers, cranes and other construction-related vehicles.
The brothers also dealt in other radio-controlled brands and products, but construction equipment kept drawing them back.
“Our approach has always been pretty simple,” says Brad. “Bring in the models we like, see what customers enjoy, reorder what works and keep adding new machines.”
A family affair
There is nothing particularly corporate about Huina Construction Toys NZ. The operation remains very much a family affair and is still based in the garage at the family home. Brad and Travis moved out of home years ago, but eventually returned to reclaim their father’s garage for an entirely different purpose.
“We moved out years ago and Dad probably thought he’d finally got rid of us and had his garage back,” Travis says. “Then about 10 years later we came back and took it over again.”
These days, Dave is still an important part of the operation. At 83, he handles the packing and dispatching of orders, while Brad and Travis look after the other aspects of the business, including the website, advertising, factory communication and servicing.
Dave is also apparently not prepared to let his age get in the way of maintaining standards.
“Dad is very particular about how everything is done,” Brad says. “Everything has a place, every order needs to be packed properly, and he keeps the whole operation organised.”
There is, however, one slight contradiction in the story.
“He complains about doing the packing,” Travis says, “but he actually loves it.”
That attention to detail is perhaps easier to understand when you consider that every order leaving the garage represents a small piece of machinery that has to survive being handled and transported across the country.
A connection with the real thing
The brothers’ interest in construction machinery isn’t simply a case of spotting a popular toy category.
Travis has spent much of his working life around machinery. He worked as a builder before moving into house lifting and haulage piloting – jobs that put him around trucks, lifting equipment and construction machinery on a regular basis.
That background gives him a useful perspective on why miniature construction equipment has such an appeal.
“They’re not just toys to a lot of people,” he says. “They’re miniature versions of equipment that people see and use every day.”
Brad’s connection to the industry has come from a different direction.
He has spent several years living and working in China, where the radio-controlled and model machinery market is considerably larger and more visible than it is in New Zealand.
“There is construction happening everywhere in China, and RC products and model machinery are much more common,” Brad says.
His time there has also allowed him to attend trade shows and visit factories producing the equipment sold by Huina.
“That gives us a much better understanding of how the products are made and what’s actually worth bringing back to New Zealand,” he says.
Factory visits also give the brothers an opportunity to look beyond what appears in a catalogue. They can see the machines being manufactured, assess new models and get a better feel for the quality and functionality of different products before deciding what to import.
Not just for kids
Perhaps the biggest surprise since the business began has been the age of its customers. Initially, the brothers assumed their main market would be parents buying construction toys for their children. Instead, they discovered a substantial adult following.
“Probably around half of our sales are to adults,” says Travis.
And there is a fairly obvious reason.
“People buy the machine they drive at work,” he says. “Truck drivers buy trucks, excavator operators buy excavators, and people working in construction often want a model of the machine they spend their days around.”
One encounter particularly illustrated the point.
The brothers met a customer at a pub who had bought one of their excavators. He worked as a digger operator and had created his own miniature construction site at home, complete with an area where he could operate the model.
“He wasn’t just someone who had bought a toy and played with it for a while,” Travis says. “He genuinely loved machinery and had created his own little construction setup.”
The same enthusiasm has been evident among some younger customers. Teenagers have purchased some of the larger and more sophisticated excavators and told the brothers that the machines operate in a surprisingly similar fashion to their full-sized counterparts.
“They’re obviously not the same as a real excavator, but the controls and movements give you a feel for how the equipment works,” Brad says.
For anyone who has ever spent time watching a competent excavator operator, the attraction is easy to understand. There is something inherently satisfying about coordinating boom, arm, bucket and slew movements to carry out a task, whether the machine weighs several tonnes or fits on a table.
Bringing machinery into the classroom
Brad’s work as a school teacher has also opened up another side to the business. He has taken some of the RC construction models into the classroom, where they have proved popular with students.
“The kids absolutely love them,” he says.
More importantly, Brad has found that the machines can be used as practical learning tools.
Rather than simply looking at a photograph of an excavator, students can control one and see how its different components move. They can experiment with the controls, work out how to coordinate several functions and observe how different types of machinery are designed for different jobs.
It also introduces an element of problem-solving.
“You can actually see what happens when you operate the controls,” Brad says. “It’s much more hands-on than just looking at a picture in a book or on a screen.”
For students who are interested in machinery, construction or engineering, a small RC excavator can therefore become more than something to play with. It provides a simple way of understanding the relationship between controls, movement and mechanical functions.
Beyond construction
While construction machinery remains the core of the business, Huina Construction Toys NZ has also started bringing in some Toyota models, and that may become a more significant part of the range in the future.
There is a family connection there as well.
“When we were growing up, Dad had a red 1992 Toyota Prado,” Brad says.
Travis subsequently owned the same model for a period, making the Toyota connection another example of the way personal interests have influenced what the family chooses to import.
It is a theme that runs through much of the business. Rather than attempting to build an enormous catalogue of every RC product available, Brad and Travis tend to focus on machines that interest them personally or that they believe will appeal to people with a genuine interest in machinery.
The next generation
The family connection could eventually extend beyond Dave, Brad and Travis. Both brothers now have young sons of their own, although they are still too young to become involved in the business.
For now, the idea of a third generation taking an interest in miniature construction equipment is more amusing than practical.
“We can already picture it,” Travis says. “Sand pits, RC excavators, trucks everywhere and probably plenty of arguments about whose turn it is to operate the digger.”
The brothers suspect they may have as much fun as their children. That is perhaps an important part of understanding why the business has continued to grow. There is clearly a genuine enthusiasm for machinery behind it, rather than simply an attempt to identify a profitable toy category.
One machine at a time
There are ambitions for the future, including the possibility of establishing a physical shop where customers could see the machines operating, compare different models and get a better idea of what they are buying.
The business has evolved considerably since those first five or six excavators arrived in New Zealand, but the basic philosophy has remained much the same.
“We’re happy growing it the way it started,” Brad says. “It’s still a family business, and we’re still doing it one machine at a time.”
Its products may be small, but the enthusiasm behind them clearly isn’t.
For more information, contact huinatoys.co.nz
Images supplied
