"Toys'R'Us Isn't Dead, It's Just Becoming an 'Experience'" Topic

"Tru Kids Brand, the organization that bought the rights to the Toys"R"Us name as part of the chain's massive fire sale last year, announced today that it was bringing the toy stores back to the United States in time for the holiday season. But not as the giant warehouse stores you remember with toys stacked to the ceiling. Instead, they'll be popping up inside another dying retail experience: shopping malls.

That's the good news. The bad news is that Tru Kids has partnered with experiential retailer b8ta to create stores that focus on the "…hottest toy products and brands, carefully curated and showcased in highly immersive smaller-format spaces." Instead of just being rows and rows of shelves stocked with what kids actually want, the new Toys R Us stores will be more like interactive playgrounds with pre-planned events and activities every day, and the opportunity to play with a handful of toy samples. Toymakers will also be encouraged to design and set up branded shops within the new stores, creating another potential revenue stream for Tru Kids. The idea sounds like a mashup of the old Toys R Us experience and what Apple offers in its modern stores, with a focus on inundating kids and parents with ads and marketing for their tightly curated stock…"

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Amicalement
Armand

We'll just have to see where that goes. Brick and mortar does need to innovate. That looks like innovation.

Kids should play with toys more. When I see them they're looking at screens.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Sorry, but, "It's dead, Jim!"

I know I'm resurrecting this but,---. Many years ago TRU was carrying a great range of 1/18 WW2 action figures and models. My son and I started to collect them and put together some gaming units. After a while they became less and less available in the store. I knew the manufacturer was still coming out with new pieces, but they weren't showing up in the store. Then one day they were none. I asked the manager what happened to them all. He said they weren't carrying them any more. A few days later a stopped in the TRU near my work and they had large stocks of the stuff. I talked with this store's manager and asked what was going on. He told me that the store had a new policy of very limited "war toys" and nothing WW2 German. That all the product from the area stores had been brought into his store to get rid of. I knew then it wouldn't be long before they would end up closing.