Toys 'R' Us could go out of business next week.

[Apologetic_Warrior]

A lot of it comes down to debt.

Debt, interest, overspending, and mother inflation.

 

[Rion]

Failure to adjust to a changing world and debt, like most companies.

 

[thecolorsblend]

Debt, interest, overspending, and mother inflation.

Purdy much. Their cash flow was modest but a lot more stable than people think. Without that insane debt piled on, there's no reason to think Toys R Us wouldn't still be fairly dependable. Yeah, other factors were at play. But the debt is what really broke them. Sad, really.

 

[blackribbon]

They want too much personal information imho.

To order online only requires a name, address, a phone number (required by UPS), and credit card. Not that personal and if you use a credit card, you have given the same info to the brick and mortar store.

 

[blackribbon]

Debt, interest, overspending, and mother inflation.

So "bad spending practices by their customers"???

I only stopped going because my kids grew up. They don't carry what my kids want now. I was tickled pink when I had a reason to walk in for a baby shower gift for a friend. Oh, I also bought a plastic kiddie pool for my dog, so I was in there last summer too.

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

So "bad spending practices by their customers"???

I only stopped going because my kids grew up. They don't carry what my kids want now. I was tickled pink when I had a reason to walk in for a baby shower gift for a friend. Oh, I also bought a plastic kiddie pool for my dog, so I was in there last summer too.

Overspending in the overstocking sense for poor decisions concerning demand predictions for certain products.

 

[hislegacy]

I suspect that Mattel and Hasbro aren't making toys that the kids want.

Has to stick is a steady rise, so I don’t think that is the issue in that sense.

 

[blackribbon]

Overspending in the overstocking sense for poor decisions concerning demand predictions for certain products.

Well, the last time I went in, there wasn't hardly anyone in the store to buy any amount of stock. There selling point (to me anyway) was that they had a lot of different toys and not just the same few that Walmart carried.

 

[Babe Ruth]

I was tickled pink when I had a reason to walk in for a baby shower gift for a friend.. I also bought a plastic kiddie pool for my dog..

Ribbon, I feel the same way.
I'm a grown man, but a trip to Toys R Us is still fun for me.. when I take the family there, I still like to test-ride bikes around the aisles.
It's understandable to me, why ppl are converting to shopping online.. But they're missing some experience..

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

Well, the last time I went in, there wasn't hardly anyone in the store to buy any amount of stock. There selling point (to me anyway) was that they had a lot of different toys and not just the same few that Walmart carried.

It's kind of funny the local Supercenter which I worked for opened in 2008 and started out overstaffed. Today, they have more self checkout lanes than cashiers and with an almost completely different team of employees try to run the store with as few employees as possible. Toys R Us may be sitting on warehouses full of toys, I wouldn't know, but sometimes diversity comes with a cost.

 

[Nithavela]

30-40 year olds might be toys R us kids at heart, but todays kids who are the actual big spenders on toys (or more precisely, their parents) order them via Amazon or play video games that they download directly through the internet.

Toys R us slept through the big changes of retail of the last 10 years, and now they're going belly up for it.

 

[blackribbon]

Do they even advertise any more?

 

[Apologetic_Warrior]

30-40 year olds might be toys R us kids at heart, but todays kids who are the actual big spenders on toys (or more precisely, their parents) order them via Amazon or play video games that they download directly through the internet.

Toys R us slept through the big changes of retail of the last 10 years, and now they're going belly up for it.

You bring up a good point about the big spenders on toys, the big spenders tend to buy other brands which places like Toys R Us and Wal-Mart are not likely to invest in, such as Hot Toys, Medicom, Real Action Heroes, Sideshow Collectables, among many others. I've seen some unbelievable collections, and older collector's also tend to search for the older toys they grew up with, looking for the best they can afford, sometimes professionally graded, from places like eBay and such.

 

[blackribbon]

I think they missed the boat on advertising. We can sing the song about being a ToysRUs kids. I doubt that my kids can and they are even older than the current toy using generation. ToysRUs made their money on the popular toys that every kid wants, not on the collectors.

 

[StevenBelievin]

Any theories as to how this could happen to the giant of toy retailers? Are we spending more on electronic gadgets and cheap knockoff toys from China than on brands like Hasbro and Mattel? Personally the news is a bit shocking, and I have always been kind of a fan of Hasbro toy lines such as G.I. Joe and Transformers, and I am thinking the Star Wars toy lines in America came from Mattel.

Amazon

 

[USincognito]

edit - whoops. I was wrong about this.

 

[Tanj]

Failure to adjust to a changing world and debt, like most companies.

Definitely this. Even when you know it's coming it can be hard for large companies to adjust. Kodak is a good example, killed by digital photography...which they invented!

 

[Fantine]

Certain demographic groups are more likely to shop online.

When I was a young mother with three children and a husband who worked 60 hours a week, shopping was very hard, especially at Christmas time. I actually used to order Christmas presents from the Sears catalog (we're talking late 70's and early 80's) and have them sent to my parents' house. When it was close to Christmas, I'd go to my parents' house after they were asleep, wrap the presents, and sneak them into the house in the dead of night. Even every day shopping with kids is hard. I know why they shop online.

Now, as a senior citizen awaiting a knee replacement, I do more shopping online. I do basic shopping in stores, of course, but if I need to go to the hardware store to get one item I'll get it online.