Brickset ForumToys R Us bankruptcy filing?
Phonegal
Bagram, AfghanistanMember Posts: 22
Wall street journal is reporting that Toys R Us is preparing for bankruptcy filing before the holidays to keep doors open.
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Comments
As long as they get their bricktober batman figures in stock I could care less to be honest.
Ill always have fond memories of going to TRU as a kid, but this has been a different store since the late 90's
are TRU's days numbered?. maybe. as long as people flock to megalyths like amazon, enshewing human contact for drone delivery cuz it's cheaper.
i'd buy there on lego more, but the 1 store is way out of the way for impulse buying. its basically a special trip just going there.
Their owners saddled them with the debt they used to buy them out.
And with recent record sales of things like Lego they think they can just keep pushing up the prices with no problems.
Eventually with nothing to sustain it the bubble bursts.
There are many things that companies can try.
One is to expand into new markets such as China, Russia etc.
The other would be to cutback the prices and attempt to sell more product.
All tactics have their own problems.
Since the story mentions Amazon let us continue with them.
Amazon have done the second of those and it has worked. So Far. But eventually even Amazon will have trouble selling more stuff in a closed market and so the discounts have been falling away. So they will have to expand into new areas.
O wait a minute they have, Amazon TV and all those other Amazon electrical goods.
Some company somewhere will always lose market share to another company that has found success at that moment. Cycles like this are inevitable.
If Toys R Us has to close then some other company will expand and in the UK this will probably be Smyths Toy stores. But eventually even Smyths may run into trouble and another company will replace them. In the US it could be Walmart or some other currently regional toy store chain.
Woolworths is gone, but Poundland etc replaced them for Sweet sales etc. Other stores replaced them for clothes sales. [email protected] took some of their High Street stores.
BHS is gone but other clothes stores or online stores like Boohoo etc replaced them.
M&S is looking wobbly but other stores would replace them if they fall.
... and so the cycle continues.
I don't have kids but I see this with my niece, nephew and god-son...it's very disappointing
In the US, Amazon had a 43% share of online sales in 2016 - which might sound impressive but when you consider that total online sales accounted for only 11.7% for the same period, the net result is that Amazon's retail share is only 5.031% of the entire market.
The fact is Toys R Us just aren't a very good company to buy from - here in the UK at least. When buying online they send damaged products or products that weren't damaged to start with but arrive damaged because of the inappropriate packaging they use.
Their stores are barren places. They always have too few staff and the people that do work there are disinterested and lack basic knowledge about stock and products.
They're generally not very competitive when it comes to price.
They're technologically behind their competitors. Their tills look like something from the early 1990s and error messages on their website (especially when trying to use a voucher) are almost a certainty.
Their customer service - both online and in store - is bad.
One positive thing they have going is that it is fun browsing their shelves compared to on a screen.
But on the whole, people expect more from their retail experience and Toys R Us have to up their game or expect their relevance to decline further.
Also, people have less money to spend, but that's a whole other conversation point.
^ Actually, I've been really impressed by the quality of boxes that I've received from TRU online but perhaps I've been fortunate; everything has arrived in strong outer boxes with lots of air-pockets etc.
My local store is pretty good overall too; the staff are always friendly and have always done their best to help. I really hope that this doesn't impact on the UK operation; it will be a sad day if they close, especially as my nearest LEGO store is a 250 mile round trip!
Matter of fact, on line we expect next day shipping....and free!! That at one time cost more then the product, and it is now given away.
We also don't value local sales taxes for schools, roads, and services...we say we do, but our buying habits say otherwise.
Right now, in the US at least, every Lego box meets DOT shipping regulation on its own, sans Box Maker Seal, so it can ship without any protection. The inside product will arrive safely. So to provide a redundant box with padding/protection is an added value cost. Who should pay for it?
The quality of Amazon packaging in Europe has declined in the last few years, occasionally LEGO boxes will arrive with dents because the outer boxes are poor quality cardboard that is easily squashed. I ordered 2 of 31068 which were shipped separately, one was perfect the other wasn't.
Except in TRUs case, not offering it would be silly as ever other major retailer also has free shipping, or some sort of if over X free shipping. I think every major company has deals to ship in bulk from companies, if I recall someone like LFT explaining this. So shipping in boxes is minimal cost compared shipping in its packaging and the amount of returns people would likely make to the store if the box was damaged (remember, for retailers the customer is always right), meaning also the item would need to be discounted to resell it after the fact.
Never mind the godawful seals LEGO puts on their boxes would pop easily and explode the contents all over the shippers depots or vehicles
However, for any other toys I want to buy, odds are not in my favour of them being in stock. Maaaaany years ago, Transformers or Star Wars action figures would have huuuuge parts of an aisle dedicated to them. Nowadays if you find more than a few things hanging on the pegs in their tiny allocated space, chances are they are an old toy you already have.
to few others that commented about "others filling in" least here in canada, nope, tru goes down, only one will benifit is walmart, as in most area's, you either go to walmart or TRU for toys. NO one else in my city carry's much of anything IN any type because well, why complete with the evil entity called wallmart. In today's retail world you can't as they have no compunction on locally taking a loss to drive out competitors.
As far as traffic goes, i can't remember a single time i've made the trip that there wasn't minimum 10 cars in the lot and people in store shopping. granted it's been a tru/bru split building since the 90's. at least in canada, they seem to be doing okay, enough to offset the slow us market and the disastrous eur/asia market, no. but then this mess came from thier new owners saddling them with debt they didn't generate, it's a situation clearly intended to go belly up.
And yup if TRU goes, there is only Walmart and then various independant stores (which aren't common in every city!). I miss Target :P
Dig around, not the first time this has happened.
But they should be honored as long as the doors stay open.
It's the last part of that statement which is of concern to people (when will they close? will they tell us when that would be?).
It's hard not to see why they failed: on-line competition, huge inventories, rent payments, and the coup d'grace: being bought out by a few private equity firms who leverage the hell out of the company, pay themselves handsome bonuses and dividends with the cash, make sure their debt is the first to be serviced, and bleed the company dry.
It's a different era, I guess. But I'll always have fond memories.
Didn't take an Einstein to see what was going to happen
Amazon are pushing Prime so hard now, if you're not a Prime customer, they are deliberately giving you a third rate service. Last year I ordered some SD cards for our holiday (to put some films on the tablet), 2 weeks in advance of our holiday and the cards were in stock. They arrived on the first day of our holiday, so we were already gone.
It was like Amazpn had decoded to sit on my order for 10 days because I wasn't a Prime customer.
I will miss traditional bricks and mortar toy shops if they go to the wall. Right now I gave a Smyths very close. It's well stocked and competitive. They usially get a frequent dose of my money.
Excluding that debt load they seem to be doing OK-ish, so no need to blame Amazon for this bankruptcy.
On the tangent of online vs brick-and-mortar: does the staff at TRU add any value? Not having a TRU near me, I have never been, and can't really judge. (And the European TRU's might have a different customer service ethos anyway)
However at the large toy retailers around me (Fun, Maxitoys, Intertoys) the staff is next to useless, with 0 product knowledge and looking like they could do without those pesky customers. In addition 90% of what they stock is plastic crap that looks like it will not survive first contact with the enemy (/a child).
You don't add value AND you are expensive? What's your raison d'être?!
The only toy store I voluntarily go to is a small local one with knowledgeable staff and quality products only. (Well, and the Lego Store) That 1 little store stocks more quality products than my 2 local big box toy retailers combined. For everything else: Amazon it is.
As far as getting stuff now, I use Prime Now from time to time, 1 or 2 hours to get what I want, and regular prime is 1 or 2 days. But there is certainly something to be said for getting hands on with the product before purchasing.
The one thing we will miss if they close their doors is the spectacle of taking my daughter to the toy store. You can't really replicate that experience no matter how large the toy section at Target or Walmart is.
I'll also miss waiting in line at the local Toys 'R Us to score hard to get things like NES Classic, etc. It was always a fun scene. I hope they figure out a way to keep the doors open. I never quite understand these bankruptcy things. Sometimes it's the nail in the coffin, other times just a bump in the road.
Poor Geoffrey.
It is still very sad. I remember buying the (now vintage, eps. IV-VI) Star Wars figures from them when I was a wee lad. Sooo many figures on the wall!
It's sad that their debt overlords have so little knowledge of retail and were looking to make up their money in profit per item instead of using higher volume sales along with a lower profit margin per item to increase profit. I know a ton of people that would gladly hand their money over to TRU instead of Walmart or Amazon if TRU was the same price. How dumb is it to turn the best name in toy retail into something synonymous with 'price-gouging'?
Back in the 80s I needed leaf springs for my '69 Firebird. When I went to the local mom-and-pop parts store the owner sent me over to Sears because they could sell the same parts far cheaper than his wholesale cost, because Sears bought them by the shipping container.
http://fox8.com/2017/09/18/toys-r-us-bankruptcy-fears-hit-mattel-and-hasbro-as-holiday-shopping-season-approaches/