Toys R Us RIP

[BJoe]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

Toys R Us screwed themselves, but to say online stores had nothing to do with it is oversimplifying the situation.

RIP Toys R Us. Kids these days don't have Saturday morning cartoons or toy stores. Sad.

It was a variety of things, questionable management practices (which I had seen and experienced first hand), the internet, including their partnership with a then fledgling Amazon after the utter failure of the original sales site 20 years ago had a hand in it, but the Bain buyout and the 2008 collapse probably accelerated things to where we now are.

[skinnyj]

Originally Posted by BJoe

It was a variety of things, questionable management practices (which I had seen and experienced first hand), the internet, including their partnership with a then fledgling Amazon after the utter failure of the original sales site 20 years ago had a hand in it, but the Bain buyout and the 2008 collapse probably accelerated things to where we now are.

Bain is doing the same to Guitar Center, another chain who's days are numbered.

The story is a year old, but not much has changed for GC.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-near-new-lows

[BJoe]

Uhg, that is disgusting. Are there ither countries that actually allow for this crap to happen?

[BUBBA069]

Originally Posted by skinnyj

Bain is doing the same to Guitar Center, another chain who's days are numbered.

The story is a year old, but not much has changed for GC.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-near-new-lows

When I was going to get my son his first guitar every musician friend I asked about guitars, first thing they all said was don't buy from Guitar Center. Then they would proceed to list several music shops around the area, and a couple online line places for parts and what not.

[skinnyj]

Originally Posted by BJoe

Uhg, that is disgusting. Are there ither countries that actually allow for this crap to happen?

This is why I cringe every time a Libertarian tries to preach the virtues of laissez faire capitalism.

[MrBlank]

Originally Posted by Shinchu

kids aren't going to have the incredible experience of walking in to a store that is FILLED WITH JUST TOYS wall to wall. it kills me to think of a world where that isn't possible. what other place can you think of that had their own theme song and mascot? i practically live by those words...
"I don't wanna grow up, i'm a Toys R us KID!"

please share your thoughts, stories, and feelings. i cant be the only one who feels this way.

I guess you also live in a world without Canada, as walking into Toys R Us is still quite possible here, and will likely continue to be possible for years to come. The Canadian stores have not been severely mismanagedl and continue to be profitable. It does appear that they will be sold, but not shuttered.



My main memories as a kid were trying out the Virtual boy upon its release, buying plenty of action figures, and always looking at the clearance / sale table out front of the mall location I often went to.

One memory in particular, was when I was around 11 or 12. I had spent the week working with my Dad at the Cabinetry company wherr he still works to this day. It was Friday (payday) and we stopped at TRU so that I could grab the newly released Lara Croft / Tomb Raider figure. It wasn't where I expected to find it, and we asked for assistance. Upon showing us where it was, the salesperson sneared and made a comment to the effect of: "Here is the doll you wanted". I remember telling him that it was an action figure, and that dolls don't come with guns, to which he had no reply.

[skinnyj]

Originally Posted by MrBlank

Upon showing us where it was, the salesperson sneered and made a comment to the effect of: "Here is the doll you wanted".

Crap like that pisses me off. As a retail associate, your job is to assist the customer and take their money. Your personal opinion on anything is not wanted or needed unless it is specifically asked for.

[Shinchu]

yes, i live in a world where Canada is not a 10 minute drive. its called California.
and you should have screamed the quote from spaceballs when lord helmet was caught playing with his "THEY'RE NOT DOLLS, THEY'RE ACTION FIGURES!!!" i hate judgemental employees like that. its funny, target employees have always been WAY more helpful to me in that aspect, and i usually have a good conversation about collecting action figures after they help me.

i have tons of memories of going to toys R us in my youth. seeing isles that had product fully stocked all the way to the ceiling, you never went there without getting what you came for. if you knew a toys had been released (johnny down the street has one) you could rest assured if you want to TRU, you would be able to buy one for yourself too. nowadays, you are lucky to EVER see "that figure" in the wild at TRU or really anywhere but that's mostly due to poor distribution and/or scalpers buying up entire shipments of a certain line before kids or collectors ever see them on the shelf. different topic but losing a huge retailer of toys is NOT helping in that aspect.

i went to my local TRU over the weekend, sadly explaining to my kids it could be their last ever trip. it was hard to keep my composure telling them, even now I'm getting choked up.
my son, at 9 is "too cool" for everything already, and his overall attitude was "meh" but i said well you like hot wheels? nerf? LEGOS?! he does. his 3 favorite brands. he gets it but not on an emotional level like me.
we went inside after mom snapped a pic of all 3 of her "kids" outside, yes i am her 3rd. i try opening all of my senses to take it all in one last time... and parent everywhere look just has horrified as i do. talking amongs each other about their memories, and how could this happen, etc. i had a REALLY hard time keeping it together. i went down almost every isle, just... looking. enjoying the splendor of a WHOLE STORE devoted entirely to toys, and the kids who would play with them.
i managed to find a star wars 6 inch figure of Rey, a version that was emblazoned with s sticker identifying it as a "Toys R Us Exclusive!", probably the last one we will ever see with that sticker on it. i have dozens more with that sticker, but this one is it. i was surprised to find 4 of them left. and i told my wife they were "only $25" when normal non-exclusives are $20. she said "go buy the rest! sell them!" i said no... i'm leaving them for the next collector. a quote from one of my favorite youtube channel, toy galaxy.
he actually did a great vid for this whole thing, explaining the history of TRU, and why this is happening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL0L8fWXIxc

and another guy i watch, summed up my emotions perfectly with his vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqh2E6qj7KI

the next day, i was at my in-laws and the girls went shopping, the boys stayed drinking Guinness and shooting pool. when they returned, my mother-in-law says to my son "here buddy i got this for you" it was a plush Geoffrey the Giraffe, the toys R us mascot. i nearly broke out in tears (i know, I'm a sap) and i just looked at her and grinned a thank you. my son was like uh ok thanks. knowing him, he will give it to me because he knows how much that place meant to me. he's a great dude.

maybe i need to move to Canada...

***UPDATE!***
supposedly somebody is trying to save TRU, but its not looking great, however the big news is, KAY BEE might make a comeback using this as an advantage?!
https://toynewsi.com/news.php?catid=1&itemid=30792
that's just... i never saw that coming!

[BadWagon]

Originally Posted by Greatscott

Amazon and Wally-world certainly did not help T-R-U, but the company that bought them hard a giant amount of debt they dumped on T-R-U, making it impossible for the company to stay afloat.

Didn't help, but sales weren't the issue with TRU, the massive debt placed upon them via the Corp's leveraged buy out.

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

Toys R Us screwed themselves, but to say online stores had nothing to do with it is oversimplifying the situation.

RIP Toys R Us. Kids these days don't have Saturday morning cartoons or toy stores. Sad.

No it's not an oversimplification, your statement however is. I stop in our local TRU quite often as they usually have a good assortment of random action figures. Our store was always moderately busy if not very busy.

The company KKR used a leveraged buy out to purchase TRU and it left no budget for TRU to make any moves. KKR also moved the funds from the LBO to their corporate accounts, thus sealing the fate on TRU.

Did online sales and stores hurt TRU? Of course. Were online sales/stores the key to the death of TRU? Nope. The debt, interest, and mishandling by KKR did.


"In 2005 KKR and Bain Capital (which included former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney) bought Toys R Us for about $6.6billion, plus assuming just under $1B of debt, for a total valuation of $7.5billion. But the private equity guys didn't buy the company with equity. They only put in $1.3billion, and used the company's assets to raise $5.3billion in additional debt, making total debt a whopping $6.2B. Total debt was now a remarkable 82.7% of total capital! At the time of the deal interest rates on that debt were around 7.25%, creating a cash outflow of $450million/year just to pay interest on the loans. At the time Toys R Us was barely making a profit of 2% - so the debt was double company net profits."

[Shinchu]

the first vid i posted above you explains all of that. (granted i was watching the kitty play with balloons during the legal jargon lol)

[Inspector86]

I have never been in a Toys R Us store so this means nothing to me. But I do find it interesting how companies like this didn't have the vision to become a leader in on-line sales back when.

[cmbscx10]

OH how I will miss shopping for my Niece and friends daughters. The TRU California MILF's will be sorely missed.

[BJoe]

Originally Posted by Inspector86

I have never been in a Toys R Us store so this means nothing to me. I do find it interesting how companies like this didn't have the vision to become a leader in on-line sales back when.

TRU tried in '97 IIRC, it failed miserably and they partnered with Amazon for some time after that. It's too bad those in charge at Sears didn't make a serious attempt right out of the gate, they had the network of stores and warehouses already, just needed a viable online site.

[Shinchu]

Originally Posted by cmbscx10

OH how I will miss shopping for my Niece and friends daughters. The TRU California MILF's will be sorely missed.

for that reason alone you will do fine in target

thing that kills me about TRU is in the late 90's it went from a half ISLE of say, star wars figures, to just a few pegs, like target and Walmart. seem slike some of that was to make room for the baby section so they didn't have to build a babies R us "oh hey we can save money if..."

somewhat related... does anyone know why the heck target did away with their outdoor garden sections??

only reason i saw directly, was a dude shoved a toy out from under the fence from inside the garden section, walked out and recovered the toy, walked away.
i made eye contact with him while in uniform, went straight to the nearest employee and pointed him out while he was still in the parking lot. (hell no I'm not tackling a dude over a rubic's cube)
so maybe it was a theft prevention thing? or they just didn't like asking at an interview "...and how are your gardening skills?"

[BJoe]

That remodel they did in the late 90's to early 00's, to go from the isles like a grocery store to the "zone" or "world" arrangement with everything chopped up like they have been ever since was a mistake. Seemed like it was easier to navigate the stores with a traditonal isle set up, had more on the shelves, oh, and more room in the back to unload the trucks and put things that weren't immediatly going on the floor. I think my store lost 2/3 of the store room areato the sales floor, plus we added a Kids "R" Us or Babies "R" Us section (can't remember which) that ate up more sales floor from the toy products. With my store, which was in St. Charles, it and the East Dundee store were the smallest Chicagoland stores to begin with so we didn've have as much to lose space wise as the bigger Fox Valley (where I went on Saturday), Bloomingdale, Schaumburg, or Downers Grove stores did for such things.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by Inspector86

I have never been in a Toys R Us store so this means nothing to me. I do find it interesting how companies like this didn't have the vision to become a leader in on-line sales back when.

You've never been to a Toys 'R Us?

I don't know how old you are, but I'm 40 and it was a place I loved to visit when I was a child.

Originally Posted by Shinchu

for that reason alone you will do fine in target

Target is the liberal version of Walmart. Nothing more and nothing less in my experience.

[Shinchu]

in my experience, the ladies who frequent target tend to have all their teeth

and i agree, i'm 38 and been going to TRU all of those years. not exclusively... i really miss the old TOY CITY in garden grove (browneye knows where it was).

anyway, another UPDATE!
Amazon might buy the BUILDINGS, and turn them into...

you ready for this?

BRICK AND MORTAR AMAZON STORES?!!!

source TNI via bloomberg
https://toynewsi.com/news.php?catid=1&itemid=30800

this... this could change everything. everyone crying about amazon killing brick and mortar... is now BECOMING a brick and mortar?! that's just...

my mind is literally blown.
just like this guy.



how's that for extending this trip down nostalgia boulevard?

[BigSki]

Originally Posted by JatoTheRipper

Target is the liberal version of Walmart. Nothing more and nothing less in my experience.

Don't know about where you live, but around here WM is nothing more than a trailer park general store. White trash in every direction, like a low-life magnet.

Targets are cleaner, better stocked, more organized, better quality merchandise and have employees that will actually help you find something. I'll pay an extra $2 for the same exact item at a Target just to avoid having to step inside of WM.

[JatoTheRipper]

Originally Posted by BigSki

Don't know about where you live, but around here WM is nothing more than a trailer park general store. White trash in every direction, like a low-life magnet.

Targets are cleaner, better stocked, more organized, better quality merchandise and have employees that will actually help you find something. I'll pay an extra $2 for the same exact item at a Target just to avoid having to step inside of WM.

My local Walmart is as clean as Target and the employees are equally useless.

I've been to lots of both and I stand by my statement. But you're right. Target does typically have higher prices.

Don't get me started on ship to home. Target shipped a folding table in cellophane and couldn't refund to PayPal. It's their policy to not refund to PayPal even though that's how I paid.

[BigSki]

I've never did any shipping from either store, no desire to. I was just sharing my experiences from my local stores. I can say that when I was in Palm Springs in November, I went to the WM with my relatives and was pretty impressed at what a nice individual store it was. I guess it was just a reflection of the area that it was located.