StrollerQueen has been billed as "The World's Foremost Expert on Strollers", "The most influential reviewer of baby strollers in the world", and "The first blogger of strollers, before it was even called blogging". She has been featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BBC, New Yorker Magazine, Boston Globe, CBS "Early" show with Dave Price, NBC Today Show, KNBC--"Your LA", ABC-- "Extreme Makeover, Home Edition", several local TV stations, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, e-books, and has been quoted by several authors and bloggers.
(From the CBS Early Show)
Her nearly 12,000 members of the Kingdom of Strollerland are known in the industry as the "cutting edge, early adapters of new stroller fashions." In addition, StrollerQueen has been studied by famous think tanks such as the Rand Corporation for her influence on the stroller industry, and has been termed "An online Maven" because of her expertise and strong motivation to help others.
Excerpts:
| September 8, 2003 PAGE ONE TELL ME A STORY Where the Rubber Meets the Sidewalk, 'Strollerqueen' Reigns By SUEIN HWANG Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Janet McLaughlin's eyes narrowed as she spied a neighbor strolling a baby across the street. "That's a dreamer!" she exclaimed. Ms. McLaughlin jammed her jeweled slipper onto the accelerator of her lipstick-red Mercedes and shot down the block for a closer look. The dreamer wasn't the neighbor. It wasn't the child. It was their stroller -- more precisely, their Dreamer Design Ditto double jogging stroller, which boasts 16-inch-wheels, a no-rust aluminum frame and a striking purple fabric. "I know all the strollers in my neighborhood," explained Ms. McLaughlin. Actually, she knows all the strollers on several continents. Ms. McLaughlin knows by heart when Britain-based Maclaren started switching its stroller-production line to China, the weight of the Emmaljunga Husky stroller and the history of fabric choices on Peg Perego Pliko strollers. She chases down strangers to grill them about a new brand, trades buggies like baseball cards and deploys her fans on nationwide hunts for hard-to-find limited editions. Her stroller collecting has been through a holiday phase (strollers to match various holiday colors) and a countries-of-the-world phase. A part-time television writer and mother of two in her mid-30s, Ms. McLaughlin says she uses her own money to pay for the 52 strollers she's bought in the past five years. She says her husband, an engineer, doesn't even try to keep track of her collection, which is stashed about their two-bedroom apartment and garage. "Other people count sheep," she says. "I count strollers." While she doesn't earn a dime for her efforts, Ms. McLaughlin -- better known to her followers as Strollerqueen -- has attained celebrity status in the underground world of stroller watchers and gained outsize influence on new buyers. Shoppers around the globe seek her counsel with Internet postings titled "Wise strollerqueen give us your expertise!!", "ALL HAIL THE STROLLERQUEEN!" and "Stroller queen: thanks for making me look normal." She has referred so many customers to two West Coast stroller stores that they both periodically offer "Strollerqueen discounts." Just two years after creating her online handle, Strollerqueen is shaking up the fast-growing high-end stroller market. She's testament to how quickly the Internet can create unofficial gurus who wield considerable power in narrow markets. Take a then-unknown New Zealand all-terrain stroller called Mountain Buggy, which sells today for $329 to $699. One of Mountain Buggy's first U.S. customers, Ms. McLaughlin purchased the brands' pricey double stroller two years ago and posted her praise online. She raved about the swiveling front wheel, seats that fully recline, and the 28.5-inch-wide frame, which makes the stroller narrow enough to fit through most doorways. "In the first year and a half of operation every third or fourth customer who called told me Strollerqueen was raving about my product," recounts Alan Jurysta, Mountain Buggy's U.S. distributor. "That's how I know what she meant to us." Mr. Jurysta declines to provide sales figures but says sales growth has been so strong that Mountain Buggy was just picked up by baby retailer The Right Start and will now be sold in 220 stores nationwide. Strollerqueen's curses carry weight as well. Her online attacks complaining that the handlebars on the double strollers of Combi International Corp. break too easily prompted a company representative to lambaste her on the phone, she says, accusing her of exaggerating the problem. Pamela Pratt, customer-service manager for Combi, says the company has no record of such a conversation but confirms that Combi offered some refunds and fixed a defect in the handlebars of its Twin Savvy double stroller for 2002. A graduate of the University of Southern California, Ms. McLaughlin worked as a television reporter in Laredo, Texas, where she says she tangled with the Mexican mafia, and spent a year doing news radio in Turkey. Returning to California, she began writing for local news shows, which she continues to do part-time while caring for her two children, ages 2 and 5. When she had her daughter, Ms. McLaughlin says, she became a moderate stroller collector, amassing nine different models. Her interest really blossomed 2½ years later, she says, when her son was born and she couldn't find a stroller she really liked for the two children. "I began a quest for a double stroller that fully reclined and folded up, and there was nothing out there," Ms. McLaughlin says. I started searching the world." In March 2002, she saw a Web posting asking why so many parents buy so many strollers. Her reply grew into a popular 12-part series of essays. Dubbed "Adventures in Strollerland," the series is a stroller-centric soap opera with chapters titled "As the Wheels (don't) Turn," and "PRAM-MANIA!!!" In part eight, Ms. McLaughlin describes the trying task of unfolding a jogging stroller on a blistering hot day. "I quickly pull the stroller out of the trunk, then try to unfold it. Ugh. Try again. Ugh. It won't budge. Ugh. Still stuck. By now, someone has come over to hold the baby, who's crying to get out of his car seat," she writes. Aficionados say such incidents explain why they're so consumed by strollers. The right stroller, they say, is more than a gadget: It represents a momentary respite from the travails of motherhood. "It's about freedom," says Katherine Kelly, a Lubby, Md., collector who goes by the online handle "MamaKath." At her apartment, Ms. McLaughlin recently showed off some of her latest acquisitions. Nestled next to a bookshelf is a plaid Peg Perego Pliko, an Italian midsize stroller. While never used, the stroller is circa 2001; Ms. McLaughlin believes Plikos made then are superior to those made today, which she considers more "plasticky." Ken Maxwell, marketing vice president at Peg Perego SPA's U.S. unit, confirms the fabric change and says plastic was added because consumers wanted the Pliko to have a more stylish look. Her other new score is a never-used Maclaren double stroller made in 2000. Model years are critical to Ms. McLaughlin, who isn't as fond of Maclarens produced after the company switched its manufacturing to China. "Look at that," she says proudly, pointing to the words "Made in England" stamped on the stroller's frame. "This is worth its weight in gold." Bahman Kia, president of Maclaren USA, says the move had no effect on quality. He concedes, however, that observations on the online stroller boards are generally "very accurate." The company monitors the boards about once a month, he says. At the moment, what worries Ms. McLaughlin's fans most are the ages of her children. At 2 and 5 years old, they're starting to outgrow strollers completely. "I'm thinking that maybe you need to consider having a 3rd child so that you can continue with your present need for strollers," posted "Dcclerk" a few months back. "Yeah, you and me BOTH are worrying about that!" she replied. ![[Buy at Amazon]](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0596007337.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg) By Dan Gillmor
"The
influence of effective bloggers transcends technology. In the world of
baby strollers, a southern California woman named Janet McLaughlin
moves markets.117 “While she doesn’t earn a dime for her efforts,” The
Wall Street Journal reported on September 2003, “Ms. McLaughlin—better
known to her followers as Strollerqueen—has attained celebrity status
in the underground world of stroller watchers and gained outsize
influence on new buyers. Shoppers around the globe seek her counsel
with Internet postings titled ‘Wise strollerqueen give us your
expertise!!,’ ‘ALL HAIL THE STROLLERQUEEN!,’ and ‘Stroller queen:
thanks for making me look normal.’ She has referred so many customers
to two West Coast stroller stores that they both periodically offer
‘Strollerqueen discounts.’”118
From the IAOC:
(1) Mavens are people who collect information and knowledge and are socially motivated to share this information. Being
an expert in a field does not make a person a maven; being an expert
and being motivated to share expertise with others is what makes a
maven. In Todd's communications model, mavens are information hubs.
One of the best examples of an online maven is Stroller Queen (www.strollerqueen.com). Stroller Queen is an LA housewife with small kids. Over
the last few years she has established herself through her website, her
message boards, and her posts on other message boards (she doesn't blog
yet) as the most influential reviewer of baby strollers in the world.
I’ve had the opportunity to talk with Stroller Queen on several occasions and her stroller industry knowledge is truly amazing. But what makes
Stroller Queen so powerful a player in the stroller industry is her
strong motivation to help others in their search for baby strollers.
Excerpt from the NY Times, September 7, 2003 ..."If I see a stroller I like, I will literally search to the ends of the earth to find it," says Janet McLaughlin, a television writer from Santa Monica, known in chat rooms as StrollerQueen. The mother of two children under 6, she has owned more than 50 strollers. She has had six Emmaljungas, two Teutonias, and two Silver Crosses, and was the first American to buy the rugged $500 three-wheeled Mountain Buggy stroller from New Zealand. "Everything inside lights up when I see a beautiful stroller," she said. "I'm like, I have to touch it. I have to push it. Parents flip because they think I want to steal their babies." Ms. McLaughlin may not be able to contain herself in the year ahead.. Stroller Queen keeps rolling alongMother of two keeps sharp eye on new modelsBy ELLEN ZIEGLERVIEW STAFF WRITER
Some women obsess over handbags. Janet
McLaughlin's retail obsession serves a more functional purpose. Known as
the Stroller Queen, McLaughlin has owned more than 90 strollers for her
two children, ages 3 and 6. McLaughlin made a recent appearance at the
ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas and was seen literally running around testing
strollers.
"I was there for three days and in my final
half hour I was still running around," McLaughlin said. "I basically
wanted to see the big stroller rollout of the 2005 models, the designs,
colors and fabrics."
McLaughlin said she tends to choose different
strollers based on different situations under which she might use them.
This year, she searched the lines she knows and trusts for colorful,
vibrant designs.
"Every year we hope new manufacturers will
come," she said. "This year I saw quite a few that had changes that were
consumer driven, which is good. Manufacturers finally seem to be being
responsive to what the customer wants. I've had 90 strollers at this
point switch around depending on weather, usage, what I'm wearing, my
mood."
But her main criteria is always use, and she hopes to have a stroller for all occasions.
"I have different stroller for every
conceivable situation I find myself in," she said. "I'm kind of like the
guy what has the right tool kit and has a screwdriver for every type of
situation. I used to think why does he have to have a different tool
for everything, and now with these strollers I understand."
Some of the lines McLaughlin could be seen
testing at the convention were Inglesina, i'coo, and traxx, products
manufactured by the Germany-based Hauck company. One of the items that
truly impressed her was a remote-controlled model that retails for
around $1,300.
"You push a button and the seat back raises and lowers," she said.
After her kids are too old to ride in
strollers, McLaughlin said she'll probably either have another baby, or
continue to test strollers for other kids in her neighborhood. But for
now she'll continue to test hundreds of strollers per year to determine
if she needs yet another one for her collection.
"You can't look at hundreds of models for a
minute a piece and have a good idea of how good it is," she said. "What I
do is test drive strollers, (back) in Santa Monica at what I call the
stroller queen obstacle course. It's exactly the same route, so they all
are tested the same way, and I mimic real life situations. I'll steer
them with a latte in the other hand, to see how well they maneuver, and I
run them over cracks, gravel, puddles. I run them sideways up a hill to
see if they'll tip ... for me strollers mean freedom."
These Days, It Has to Do a Lot More Than Roll ..."Some experienced parents advise newcomers to consider buying several strollers, to meet a variety of needs. "It's like having different tools for different jobs," said Janet McLaughlin, who has called herself the "Stroller Queen." Ms. McLaughlin, of Santa Monica, Calif., has two children of her own and has become a one-woman cottage industry: she moderates a chat group about strollers with some 3,500 members and test-drives new models on an "obstacle course" she devised. Over the last seven years, she has owned some 114 strollers in the search for the perfect model and can even recommend what she calls the best one for loosely packed sand: the $325 Kool Stride Senior with alloy wheels"... 
Stars give stroller company a little pushBy Scott Kirsner March 23, 2008
..."If you get a picture of a celebrity pushing your stroller into the
tabloids, it's amazing how many people will run out and buy it," says
Janet McLaughlin, publisher of the website StrollerQueen.com. "That's like gold."McLaughlin
says that the upscale-ification of the stroller market in the United
States began when a Dutch stroller, the Bugaboo, was featured on the HBO
series "Sex and the City."...
The Age of Bugaboo Strollers
April 30, 2010
..."Janet McLaughlin, runs Stroller Swap, a group on Yahoo that has about
10,000 members. She’s owned more than 270 strollers and is, in person
and online, the Stroller Queen. She says Bugaboo was revolutionary in
three ways. It made Americans face their children in strollers, again,
the way prams always have; it brought back the bassinet; and it
convinced other companies that US parents would spend more than $400 on a
stroller.“They are unquestionably the company that broke the barrier on money—the sky is the limit.” The Stroller Queen
According to MSNBC.com, Americans will spend $500 million on baby strollers this year. With so many on the market, how can you choose?
Call Janet McLaughlin–better known as the Stroller Queen
to legion of fans. McLaughlin helps families navigate the stroller
jungle. As the owner of over 200 strollers, she is the reigning queen of
Strollerland.
A true “mompreneur,” McLaughlin’s praises
and curses have singlehandedly influenced the fast-growing, high-end
stroller market. She consults with companies and individuals on picking
out the right stroller for them.
She has been featured in “New Yorker”
magazine, CBS News “Early Show”, the “TODAY” Show, the “Wall Street
Journal”, the “New York Times” and other media outlets.
Check out McLaughlin’s website.
For a small fee, you can download her review of the latest crop of
strollers hitting stores. For a good laugh, you can read her 12-part
series of essays, “Adventures in Strollerland.” This hilarious saga
explains how McLaughlin (and her long-suffering husband) ended up owning
such a large and growing collection.
 We began the Kingdom of Strollerland as a place for our Loyal Subjects to swap, buy, and sell the objects of our passion--namely strollers. Our cutting edge reviews of the hottest and hippest buggies have attracted an international following. We now have a community of everyone from vintage pram collectors, to military wives, to first time bewildered parents. All are welcome on Strollerswap!
Janet McLaughlin | Santa Monica, CA | StrollerQueen
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