Just seen on the News that Toys R Us have gone bust here in the UK.
Pictures of their clearance shelves looked quite sad. I remember checking them many times in the 90's for older boxed toys.
With their demise is there change afoot with toy shops on the high street or is this unique to Toys R Us? Have you got toy shops still readers?
Alas, electrical appliance giants Maplins have gone bust too.
Is this the result of online buying and the reason why the founder of Amazon is the richest person in the world?
I would say that on-line shops are one reason, the other is that kids prefer to get tablet or smartphone rather than toy.
ReplyDeleteThis and last year LEGO had a big Drop in Sales. One of the reasons was that kids prefer tablets, the other was that the Price of LEGO is waaaaay inflated
We get lots of baby toys for our small Grandson but we buy them nearly new from Charity Shops. But we're old. One toy shop seems to be doing well here nationally, Smyths. I wonder if small toy shops are surviving?
DeleteI agree Ran, smart phones and X Box are the new toys.
DeleteNot sure if all the UK stores are closing or not. Here in the US they are closing 200 or so stores. This isn't the first time they've closed a bunch of stores. I know of at least 4 location sin Houston that were cosed years if not decades ago.
ReplyDeleteThere are several reasons for this round of company downsizing.
They did not stay current and trendy with their online presence. The website is not great to navigate and the search engine in it is rather haphazard.
Staffing. Around the holidays, staffing was decent but the rest of the year the stores would be running on a skeletonal staff and if you wanted soemthing from a locked case or help with a large item, you might have to wait 20 minutes or so. To me, waiting is not a big deal but given today's me first and time is money focus, many consumers will walk or get very vocal about having to wait. Impatience is more common than common sense.
Stock. There's a lot of challenge to keeping a store looking good and filled. You have to try and stick to the company planogram for the aisles but need to be on top of things inventory wise and know when and how to flex product over to minimize the empty pegs and shelves as things sell out and reorders are delayed. They also don't have a tidy appearance. You can pull a box off a shelf and find abandoned merchandise shoved behind it. This applies to many retail stores though and not a TRU exclusive.
Clearance. TRU has an abysmal policy on markdowns. Items will stay on the shelf at full price despite the box being shredded, parts missing. Items can be found on the shelf long after other retailers have clearanced them out to make way for the new. For example, Lego set 79011 Desolation of Smaug - Dol Guldar Ambush retailed for around $24 when it came out in 2013. By the end of 2014 it was gone off most shelves having gone through a series of markdowns to make way for the next wave of Lego.Not at TRU, it sat on shelves at full price until early 2016 when it was tossed into their clearance bin for 3 cents. No markdowns in between, just $24 to 3 cents in one swoop. They missed out on a chance at recovering some cost had they gone the more traditional mark down route. I know this one for fact as I still have my set sealed and with the 0.03 price tag on it. The do seem to now take price cuts regarding clearance given how the Thunderbird items were marked down 1/3 off which resulted in most of them being gobbled up leaving a lot of Brains and Max on the pegs and the ocassional Tracy Island.
They went too deep into some trends. The Skylander, Lego Dimensions lines. Way too many different ones to pick from results in favorites being bought and pegs of unwanted unpopular ones to choke the pegs. That's the risk of any assortment box you get though. Somethign is goign to sell out and something else sits and gathers dust.
I worked 14 years in retail as a dept manager. I managed the electronics/movies/music dept, the toys/seasonal dept and stocking team at different times during my career.
TRU used to be a warehouse kind of store that had items cheaper than the competition, the difference between uk/usa to me was the us stores in the 90's were filthy, dust covered item's but the staff were helpful versus uk which had a higher standard of cleanliness but the staff couldn't give a shit! Putting a flag ship store on Broadway while amazing it missed the point of the store's origin and in turn alienating the customers who were attracted to the idea of bargains from a warehouse environment - Mark J
DeleteFabulous insights Lance. Its clearly not easy running a large toy shop and probably harder running a chain of them. TRU should have taken you on! Fortunately my only real TRU phase was in the 90's when I raoded the clearance shelf of one store a few times and came away with a trolley load pf wonderful boxed gold like Defenders of the Earth, Marvel Super Heroes, MOTU and Secret Wars. Its a lasting memory and a good one. All the UK stores will close with the loss of thousands of jobs. Amazon has been mentioned repeatedly in the news as one of the main reasons TRU has gone under.
DeleteHi Mark, that's an interesting angle. I'd never thought of TRU as a warehouse store but your'e right. When you say Broadway, do you mean in Manhattan?
DeleteLiterally Time square, it had 7 storeys, a ferris wheel and dodgems in the basement level. Each floor had a different theme, the top floor being action toys which featured a life size animatronic T-Rex!! Motion activated too! It's vision was literally motion based!! I bought a spidey figure there that has 60 points of articulation!!- Mark J
Delete7 storeys of toys Mark! Wow! It must have been bigger than FAO Schwarz!
DeleteThanks Woodsy. My TRU phase is still going. I don't recall having a TRU when we lived up in Michigan but we had Circus World and some other toy store. Once in Texas in the late 70s is when I got introduced to TRU. During the 80s it was a great place to get Micronauts and robot toys including Bandai's Godaikin line and numerous rip offs. That's where I got my Godaikins that I still own.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago TRU started putting small store fronts in various outlet malls. They called them Toys R Us Express. Think very small footage, a way smaller selection of toys, mainly the more popular ones and overstock slow movers, all at about 10% higher price than going to a TRU store proper.
Not sure if there are Toys R Us Express in the UK. I haven't seen them Lance.
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