Despite The Recent Bankruptcy and Layoffs, Retailer Toys 'R' Us Might Be Making A Comeback

Yesterday when I was driving to work I saw Geoffrey panhandling on the highway exit ramp.

Just thought I'd point out that all their physical stores were auctioned off. This is JUST the IP, nothing else! Don't expect the same stores you went to to suddenly reopen, they don't own those properties anymore.

Probably will be an online presence?

@holygeez03 Major online presence with a few select physical locations in high volume areas. That's my prediction anyways.

I remember when Woolworths went bankrupt some 10 years ago here in the UK. That was a massive blow to the UK high street and to a lot of Brits who remembered growing up going into their stores, seeing the huge pick n mix selection while looking around their videos and games etc... that came back as an online presence, even doing pick n mix initially. But that too has gone, and I imagine a Toys R Us presence wouldn't do much better in today's competitive climate.

My N64 came from Toys R Us in 1996... also probably the last thing I ever bought there.

I'm surprised WalMart or Target didn't buy the Toys R Us name and re-brand their toy section.

And to think, they used to be so far ahead of the curve that they were using text speak before texting was a thing...

Walmart R Us ?
(Sorry, i live in Indonesia. Never been in Walmart, just only knew from America's Next Top Model challenges)

Well if Circuit City can come back after all this time, why not TRU?

https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2018/01/16/circuit-city-comeback-consumer-electronics-changes/

@holygeez03 "re-brand their toy section."

Funny, I think that every time I walk into the newly remodeled toy section at Target.

You cant do a "lol jk" at this point in time, Toys R Us....

I don't have high hopes for this and see it as another dot-com with an Amazon sellers page and nothing more. But part of me is happy to see it living on in some way. These things never go well. Part of me cynically sees this as a ploy to liquidate assets without having to have payouts, and retain the IP alone.

TarMart just can't compete with a real large toy store....like everything else they only have a selection of "the most popular items" It's like living in a Communist economy: Here are the approved toys that all children shall simultaneously enjoy, you don't need access to others, they distract from the unity of the People!"

@pika677 True. Though that may not be true for every individual store. Some abandoned buildings in our area for example, haven't been bought for years, such as our old Walmart, Carl's Junior and Del Taco.

This is good news regardless.

It may be that some places can slip right back into their old buildings, which is a lot easier and cheaper then constructing a new one.

At least, I would presume so.

Isn't KB said to be making a comeback too? I'd gladly welcome both.

To be honest i dont see how any high street retailer can survive with the price some of them are charging... Went to a GAME store here in the UK, tried to get an SD card for my Switch to support the high street, damn things where 50% more expensive than on Amazon.

Showed them and said "how can i justify paying that"?...

I had already come to terms with their demise (not that it took much) so I would say just let it die. If anything like holygeez03 mentioned, I would think if one of the major retailers wanted to pick up the IP and use it to rebrand their toy selection. Hell even a Best Buy type of scenario where they open a "store within a store" that might be better.

@Razer how can u expect them to survive if they don't. Running retail is far more expensive than a virtual store.

Something has to change in order for these brick and mortar stores to actually make a profit. They can't compete with online retailers. They'll either drown in debt or won't make a dime charging what Amazon and the likes do.

I guess if Hostess can come back, then Toys 'R' Us can too. On a slightly different note, someone mentioned Woolworth. Wow... I haven't heard that name since I was a wee bambino, and didn't even know it existed outside the US. Stuff ya learn everyday!

The first and last time I ever bought anything at Toys R Us was the gold cart edition of Ocarina of Time, right after Christmas 1998.

@Anti-Matter its just a mega store that sells everything and can drive out and kill small businesses because of cheap prices but can also kill small towns and stuff if they decide to close down after killing local stores.

A rethink on the idea of retail Toy stores and what customers really want could work, especially with good brand recognition. So I think there's potential here for something good, but I don't have high hopes.

Should had stay dead, no one I know wants to shop there anymore even if they had kids.

HAHA. I laugh at all this because in Canada, Toys R Us never left. The retail chain in this country was spun off and became 100% Canadian owned & operated, making it one of the largest national retailers. The Canadian division has always been profitable and only went in to bankruptcy protection alongside the U.S. division because the Americans were syphoning money from the Canadian division to bolster themselves (same thing happened to Blockbuster Video and Sears). I still shop at Toys R Us Canada for video games, Lego, Tamagotchi, and other fun things and now that I have young nieces and nephews, I plan on taking them to Toys R Us (once they grow out of the Babies R Us age group) where they too will fall in love with the store. So while the rest of the world seems to be getting all giddy that Toys R Us is back. Well in Canada, Toys R Us NEVER LEFT!

I don’t like for people to lose their jobs, but the Toys & Babies stores in my town were filthy, sticky, germy cesspools covered in layers of 20 year old kid puke, staffed with rude, unhelpful employees, and filled with over priced plastic trash that may as well have been driven straight to a landfill. We only went when it was absolutely necessary. Just my two cents.

@BionicDodo Tbh they were far ahead of the curve.

The issues is when they got acquired by scummy hedge funds folks that sadled them so badly with toxic debt they could never rise up no matter how profitable they were(and they were, apparently).

I can't recall the maneuver but it sounded like they literally used Toys 'R Us as a literal dumping pool for debt that Toys 'R Us' profits were literally diverted to pay off rather than reinvesting the stores' nonetheless lucrative profits into further improving their operations... literally kneecapping their ability to even continue to adapt and competes with the likes of Amazon and it's ilks or other form of competitions it could even have otherwise easily brushed off had it not been hijacked by hedge funds managers like it was.

Like I can't recall the full story, but it wasn't even the first brand those scums had done this to if I recall.

@Ludovsky Bain. They have a long, long, long history of doing that. Prior to TRU they did the exact same thing with K-B Toys. Buying the company was for the sole purpose of finding a sink to destroy to make the debts disappear somewhere to shuffle around the money. They never wanted the company for the company, they just needed a "vehicle" to move the debts into that they could sacrifice along with the debts.

FWIW, this is the exact same schtick, Vivendi does. They gobbled Activision, dumped the debt on them and ran them into the ground back some time ago and left them for dead when there was nothing left to extract (we complain about loot boxes but kudos to Activisions original management being able to reverse that sinking ship upright again.) It's what they did with Universal before Comcast bought the rotting husk they left behind. And it's what they were positioning to do with Ubisoft all these years (finally that war is finally temporarily halted.)

What I find interesting about Bain/KB/TRU though is, maybe they just saw toys as a high margin easy to exploit target, for the debt dumping antics. But why the targeting of that specific industry? They successfully eliminated the only two large toys exclusives brands back to back leaving Walmart, Amazon, and Target as the only large survivors in the market. IT could be coincidence bit it almost seems like a hit job to control a specific market. And I do wonder what holdings they have in WMT/AMZN/TGT that may have heavily benefited from sinking their competition in that field in rapid fire.

@NEStalgia @Ludovsky Yeah, Bain capital is all you need to know that this whole thing wasn't going to end well. I just have this bad feeling that the ip owners, are going to repeat the TRU bankruptcy-get-out-of-debt-then-bankruptcy cycle.

@Everyone_Else: I like supporting different stores in my area, because, while different (store) chains may have the same owner, I absolutely hate the idea of monopoly. Competition for my dollars helps me, and other consumers.

My store closed a couple months ago. It’s was definitely a sad sight those last few weeks.

I wouldn't be surprised if they just slap the Toys R Us name on cheap toys (dolls, building blocks, rip off lego) and sell them in supermarkets.

I thought I heard someone mention once that TRU may show up as pop up locations in malls at Christmas. That would be an excellent use of the IP.

(GASP) SOMEBODY PINCH ME.

I know a lot of people have a fond nostalgia for Toy's R Us, but even as a kid I remember avoiding asking my parents for things from there because they were more expensive. Everything was more expensive from Toy's R Us. Pokemon cards that would be 3.99 a pack elsewhere? 4.21 there. 19.99 Lego set at Target? 21.40 at Toy's R Us. etc... So I knew if I wanted something, I should ask to go to Target or Meijer. I remember noticing this even as early as late elementary school.

@bimmy-lee It was the same at every TRU I've ever been to, except for the Times Square store. TRU employees have consistently been the least knowledgeable and least helpful retail workers I've ever encountered, the stores always looked rundown and dirty, the prices were consistently higher than MSRP on everything they could get away with marking up, and generally it was just not a fun experience. I've shopped there because it was the only option, but I will never understand people actually being nostalgic for TRU. We're talking about a giant, rapacious chain that drove every independent toy store in America out of business and never cared about its customers, its employees or its communities. They were the very definition of a predatory corporate machine that eventually lost out to even bigger predators.

I'm sorry for the thousands of people who lost their jobs, but I can't say I'm sorry that TRU itself is gone.

Maybe open select stores but with a warehouse style layout. Keep everything in big quantities above the shelves like Cotco but on a more consumer friendly layout similar to Home Depot/Lowe’s. Have only a few stores but the stores can act also as a warehouse with parcel shipping within the store’s area. On days like Black Friday the extra space above shelves will be very useful. Keeps things fast since toys that are in demand won’t have to go to a DC but to the store itself. Also their presense should be more online, but with pick up at store options as well if customers want product sooner. I dunno just a random idea.

@JasmineDragon - I’ve been by the Times Square store a few times and was blown away that a TRU could actually be nice. As a parent, I have an extra deep dislike for BRU. It was predatory. We had to buy five baby swings before we ended up with an acceptably broken model, and on swing three, I purchased the same broken swing I returned the first time. I know it to be true because the bag of hardware was still sealed with the blue painter’s tape I used to reseal it when I returned it. Nobody there even remotely cared. During that stretch of returns, I was there twice in five days, and the same pallet of stock was sitting in the middle of the swing aisle both times. There was an employee there that I’m convinced was tweeking on meth every time I saw her. Maybe I’m a bad person (I probably am), but I thought of her when I first heard they were closing, and I was glad. Since then, we’ve been able to circumvent BRU, but until we figured out alternatives; I always felt like such a rube giving them my money. Good riddance, and I honestly hope this resurgence doesn’t work out. The buying public will be better off, even if Bezos is the alternative. Not great, but better than the worst.

Hoping for the best. It is such a magical place for children and fun for adults too.

I always liked the cards and little toys of game and other characters that you just couldn’t find anywhere else.

I always thought TRU was really expensive until I started going back there with my kids, but they always had really good deals. They need to make sure to advertise their prices better than just dead newspapers.

I worked there before Bain and it was kinda fun.

After the bean counters came in “We no longer make a profit selling toys so you must push these 90% profit extended warranties.”

Poking around a bit it seems they did make a profit selling toys...

Toys’R’Us never officially died anyway. The Canadian division survived and is looking to make a comeback. I don’t know how that will impact their American presence though. I guess they are technically separate now since the Canadian branch basically spun off.

I used to go to that store, but I haven't been to one for years. I always found them to be rather overpriced.

I said it months ago and I’ll say it again, how on earth do people have fun experiences here. I’ve been to a couple TRU’s several times and have always been greeted by the same dirty, disgusting place. Not to mention the fact the employees didn’t know about anything they were actually selling whenever I would ask for assistance in finding an item.

If you need a place to shop for toys, just go to Target, yeah, it is not a specialty retailer for toys, but the employees there are incredibly more helpful than the one I ever found at TRU, and they aren’t overpriced (That’s another thing I never understood, why are you all over paying on stuff there when you can just go to Target or Amazon for way cheaper prices).