R.I.P. Toys R Us

I took my kids a few days ago to the store in Mesa so they could spend what was left on their Christmas gift cards.......wanted to get that done before the cards stop being accepted. That's the part that breaks my heart, kids loved walking the aisles with a gift card and endless options. And I loved going with them! Just not the same online. I do buy online occasionally, but the fun for me was walking the aisles and seeing something cool I never even knew existed. I found some really great stuff just by wondering around the store. Sure, when you buy online you get recommendations, but it's just not the same. And the other retailers like Walmart and Target just don't compare.

Hell, when I was in college I even worked at TRU during two Christmas seasons; I restocked the shelves overnight when the store was closed.........my inner child had a blast. Every time I walked in that store it reminded me of my childhood. For me, it's was like having a friend you could always visit. If I was going to a doctors appointment, or a movie, or getting a quick bite to eat, and I had a few minutes to spare, I would always drop in real quick and just walk around.

I can still recall how the shelves looked when I was a kid, full of Star Wars and GI Joe toys like the pics below. Sure gonna miss it.............

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What happened to toys??? Just look at those pictures above, TONS of product! Now you're lucky id you see one or two of a vehicle or playset....and that's IF they even make them, which they don't much anymore.

I know the answer to my question...probably something to do with video games, hand-held devices and ordering on-line, but it still breaks my heart that those days seem to be long gone. Even my own kids don't seem interested in toys and hardly ever requested to "go to the toy store". My 6 y.o. daughter still plays with toys but even she spends a majority of her time playing games on hand-held devices. :(

Funny thing is, after I posted that, I showed my son and daughter the photos. They both said, "Wow, were there really that many toys?" My son is 11 and loves Star Wars and GI Joe, he was blown away by the images of all those toys on the shelf.

So sad we won't see those times again.............
 
I just came back from ToysRUs. The first weekend of "sales" is a joke. 10% off the store....5% off Legos. Cut to the chase and deep discount this stuff already.
 
I just came back from ToysRUs. The first weekend of "sales" is a joke. 10% off the store....5% off Legos. Cut to the chase and deep discount this stuff already.

I went there today and it was pathetic. Anything a saw I could still get cheaper by just going down the road to Walmart or Targets.
 
In Toledo, Hobby Center was the true toy store to go to for models and the best quality items. As Toys R Us grew, they knocked out the small ma and pa stores here. Now we have one smaller chain Hobby Towne which is just getting by and the real killer is the "new" internet. Seems like somewhat of a general progression.
I would suggest store, whether ma and pa or larger compete with discounts on the net. Smaller store can generate revenue and overcome local recessions in purchasing and build loyalty based service. ANY profit covering overhead is a good profit and volume sales helps with purchasing discounts. What I did to grow my own family ma and pa in the 80's and 90s quite successfully to compete with larger chains.
Toys R Us refused to update to the times, spent monies inefficiently and service was spotty, mainly poor management and the refusal to quickly adjust to the market pressures. I still love them from my youth and my kids years, good memories.
I stopped there with two of my kids this past weekend. The shelves were about 20% empty, not very good deals. I did pick up a architecture Lego set for my "last purchase" along with my kids getting a couple items.
 
I just went ahead and told my son, age 7, toys R us had already closed. im not gonna take him there and have him run the isles wanting everything... if I cant get any deep discount bargains. especially being a single income/parent. :unsure and my son asked me "we can still go to wal-mart right?!?"
 
I just went ahead and told my son, age 7, toys R us had already closed. im not gonna take him there and have him run the isles wanting everything... if I cant get any deep discount bargains. especially being a single income/parent. :unsure and my son asked me "we can still go to wal-mart right?!?"

I know someone who works at our local TRU and he said a majority of the manufacturers are already planning to take back product instead of allowing it to liquidate. So stuff like LEGO will not make it to the discount shelves. I have a feeling most of the really good stuff will never be seen during the sales.
 
But when you really get down to it, it's hard to feel sorry for Toys R Us being wiped out by online shopping and other factors, despite your nostalgia. As Tripoli alluded 3 posts up, TRU had no qualms about the smaller toy stores it obliterated on it's climb up. In fact, there is probably not a single successful franchise of any kind that did not stomp a lesser business into the ground. Unfortunately, that's the way the system works.
 
I just came back from ToysRUs. The first weekend of "sales" is a joke. 10% off the store....5% off Legos. Cut to the chase and deep discount this stuff already.
The worst part was I saw people loading up their carts like it was going to run away from them. This discount wasnt even that much...
 
The worst part was I saw people loading up their carts like it was going to run away from them. This discount wasnt even that much...

My wife and I were sitting at WonderCon saying... what does TRU have that we even want? I mean, judging from the things they had before the sales started, we got everything that our local store had that we cared about, what is there to go back for? So we might just sit this out entirely.
 
im just an old school "buyer" that liked to "physically" look thru the displays of action figures for variant's etc. and then have product in hand pronto. kinda hard to do that online... :cry T.R.U. was great for buying video games at deep discounts if you had the patients to wait alil.. there prices would beat out all my other big chain stores, even wal mart. :unsure
 
It's hard to have any sympathy for them after I once went in there years ago looking at items, then a few weeks later I went back in and saw an item marked to clearance. These jerks actually RASIED the price to off-set any savings the clearance price would have given!

Yeah, so long TRU.
 
I am sorry for the hourly local employees that are loosing their jobs but that is where my sympathy ends.

Thanks to TRU exclusive's distribution problems, cancelling of on-line orders and the eventual mysterious hoarding by price gougers of those same products that were then never in stock.
Good riddance.
 
We're going to stop by today since we'll be in the area. I doubt there will be anything on the shelves that we want, any more than there was before the clearance started. TRU has been a place that wasn't worth going into for years.
 
Billionaire CEO behind Bratz makes his bid for Toys 'R' US

http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/13/news/companies/toys-r-us-billionaire-bid/index.html

"The liquidation of Toys 'R' Us is going to have a long-term effect on the toy business. The industry will truly suffer," he said in a statement. "The prospect of bringing the Toys 'R' Us experience to a new generation, my new grandson's generation, is enough to motivate me to Save Toys 'R' Us."
 
Billionaire CEO behind Bratz makes his bid for Toys 'R' US

http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/13/news/companies/toys-r-us-billionaire-bid/index.html

"The liquidation of Toys 'R' Us is going to have a long-term effect on the toy business. The industry will truly suffer," he said in a statement. "The prospect of bringing the Toys 'R' Us experience to a new generation, my new grandson's generation, is enough to motivate me to Save Toys 'R' Us."

I actually thought about this a lot - if they weren't so horribly mismanaged, cannibalized by their investors, and saddled with all that bad debt, you'd think/hope there'd be a market for dedicated toy stores. I think making the store an experience is a good idea - kind of like the old FAO in New York City, the TRU in Times Square, Hamley's in London, or that three story FAO that used to be in Vegas... Some of the toy stores in Japan and China are mind blowing...
 
Why were their prices so high compared to smaller stores that sold everything including toys? The only reason I would go to TRU is if I was looking for something very specific. If I could get it from Target or Fred Meyers, the price was always lower than TRUs.
 

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