The Decline of Toys R Us...What Happened? REACTION | OFFICE BLOKES REACT!!
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
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Growing up in the 90s, going to Toys "R" Us was a massive deal. They had everything. You knew it was going to be a special day.
I'm always gonna be a Toys R Us kid
Agreed I dont wanna grow up!
I was a Playworld and KB Toys kid
@@MikeB12800 KB toys was always way too expensive.But I miss them.
@@davidk8509 KB was way cheaper than Toys R Us. So was K&K Toys. Both of which were usually inside indoor malls, which created a premium, and Toys R Us was still more expensive.
@@rukus9585 mine was the KB toys in the Marquette Mall in Michigan City, IN. Loved that place!
So a big hedge fund buys Toys R US, uses them as a piggy bank to borrow off of, which screws them in not being able to compete on price with big box stores like Walmart and Target. I remember going to the Toys R Us going out of business sale, even with a big discount, the items I was finding were still more expensive than the regular price I saw at Walmart.
Yup. Dave was spot on when he said it sounded illegal. It's technically not, but it's a really shady business practice that's pretty common. They 100% saw their inevitable demise coming and bled them dry. Rich people get rich because they spend other people's money.
We must also remember that Toys were a big thing in 80's and 90's but there are not many gotta have toys these days. As for this year, I believe it was Macy's that brought it back in their stores for the holiday season. Remember KayBee toys also closed as malls started to decline. Also, FAO Schwartz and others.
You mention mall closures made me think about the Bankrupt and Abandoned series from the CZcams channel Bright Sun Films. I think those would be interesting videos for these fellas to react to.
@@jenniferhamels1176 I agree but they are kind of a downer. I have fond memories of going to Sears or Montgomery Wards as a kid or ordering from the catalog.
I remember as a kid going into ToyRUs and making a beeline to look at the 12" GIJoes, they had the largest selection of all the cool, historical based ones. We didn't go in often as a kid, and as I got older, I realized how expensive they were compared to other stores and hardly shopped for kids there. Because KB-Toys was in the malls, I went into them much more often as a kid. ToysRUs is still the one that comes to mind when someone mentions toy stores, probably a combination of marketing and the sheer size when you're a kid.
As a kid in the 80s-90s, ToysRUs was a 1hr drive to a store. Now MN has Mall of America as our "local mall", which inadvertently closed down smaller town stores and malls, since MOA is an easy drive.
I have never been in Toys R Us and I was a kid during their prime years in the 80s and 90s. I've also never been to Disney. Sometimes I wonder what my childhood was. Lol!!
Toys R Us was such a big part of the Gen X childhood. When the Christmas Cataloug arrived in the fall, you knew the holidays were on the way. I remember flipping through it for hours, taking in the pictures of all the cool new stuff. So sad that its another thing that is now quaint by modern standards.
I think the story is that Toys R Us was operating LIKE a Walmart or Target with the kind of overhead that those mega corporations require. 30 years ago, toys (and many other super focused stores) could have that kind of a presence. With the proliferation of big box stores and then the internet selling everything and in the most convenient way possible, the market for toys changed dramatically. I think there absolutely can be a major toy chain across the US/world, but they were all sized and operated like large department stores and had overheads like them, too. Toys R Us is facing the same problem that companies like Staples ran into. Let's even say that these companies operated near perfectly, there's no growth opportunity.
Toys R Us needed a complete overhaul. Sell all their huge department stores, layoff a ton of their employees, open smaller boutique chain stores in malls across the country that will succeed off their brand name, reduce the products on their shelves down to their best sellers and high end toy products, and put everything into their online presence selling all the hundreds of different cheaper mass produced toys that aren't in their stores anymore along with everything else.
At that point, Toys R Us would've been a smaller company at the size they needed to be to succeed with growth opportunity. Funny enough, this is the perfect time for all that to happen once the Toys R Us fallout is complete. Someone will own the brand name and that should be enough to get some investing to start small and grow.
Remember also how many toy companies have disappeared or mostly gone away Hasbro, Kenner, Mattel, Tonka, Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley, Coleco, Sega, Atari. Some are still around but most are not the healthy go to companies they once were. Even Fisher, which owned the safe small child toy market has dropped a lot.
I worked at toysrus for 4 years. They were so behind the ball on everything. The last year before I quit had just implemented an in store pick up and ship from store system. Years after so many big box retailers already had been doing this. The employee turn around was insane and management was abysmal. Everyone saw the closure coming
my mom worked there so i worked a winter seasonal job there in the early 2000’s. 90% of the ppl they brought in to work the busiest season just stood around while the store got destroyed by customers. always felt mismanaged
My nearest Toys R Us became an Ollie's. Which is a bargain store. They've got some good stuff. Their slogan is "Goof Stuff Cheap". Their commercials are..... different.
I've bought 3 earbuds for less than $3 at Ollie's, and they're good quality for the cost! (Yes, I'm cheap, but I look at myself as "smart with money ")
Damn...I remember as a kid being heartbroken that Toys R Us was going out of business
Me too
In the old days (hi, Mike and Daz!) a trip to Toys R Us as a kid was an event to look forward to three, four times a year.
In 2005, I went to a Toys R Us to buy a stuffed giraffe -- and they didn't have ANY. It's their mascot, for Pete's sake!
Toy's R Us is now open in many Macy's department stores. Their inventory isn't anything like it was. But, you never know if that will change.
👍🏻Oh I didn’t know about Macy’s . They also have their online site for purchases.
The Ipad and toys is exactly what my nephews and nieces do. They love playing with traditional toys, but they are watching something on their Ipads while doing it. Sometimes is a CZcams video doing an open box on the very toy they are playing with.
It feels like they picked the worst time to take on a bunch of debt. Brick and mortar shops on the decline, video games/internet/phones on the steep climb, etc.
I was so sad as a kid, when I learned toys r us was going out of business.
As a kid I understood that Toys r Us was more expensive and told my mom it's okay for us not to go there lol
Macy's in Monmouth mall had a toys R Us section during the holidays this past year. this must have been an older video you watched, ToyRUs disappeared for many years.
Think of how the kids conduct themselves now vs 20 years ago. I bet every one of us has seen that kid screaming at his parents or vice versa in a toy aisle. Can you imagine them through a store that's nothing but toys? Prices being high, anxiety high, kids throwing a fit.... no thanks.
Toys r US was bought over through a leveraged buyout. The buyer put the debt on the company and toy r us could make a profit while servicing the debt so they decided to file bankruptcy. Example of why leveraged buyouts should be illegal
As someone who had a kid in prime time toy age during this 4-7, I can make a list of many different reasons they failed, most of which were frankly mismanagement, and looking at their buisiness on spread sheets, instead of as a parents. 1) Obviously they were facing a big online competition. However they could have also taken advantage of this to sell as well like other retailers have done, they were a large enough company they could have done so competitively, but with so much debt I doubt they wanted to invest in the new technology and shipping infrastructure, that was a suicidal decision, and reminds me much of how BlockBuster failed to see the danger from Netflix until it was too late. 2) Kmart was also going out of buisiness during this time. Kmart was a huge national chain and also going through bankruptcy. Except instead of just closing up they were slashing everything down to super low prices. They also carried many of the anchor products for younger kids like Fisher Price and Playskool that TRU did. So not only was TRU selling higher then online, they were absolutely being undercut by Closeouts at Kmart....and Kmart wasn't just selling off their inventory they were still ordering new product for toys and selling it immediately almost at discount. So now TRU is getting killed by online and retail, and their online presence is clunky and not well set up. They also seemed dead set against sales themselves. Their sales were very "token" and no where near the sort of deals you could get online or at other retailers like Kmart, Walmart, and Target, both Walmart and target would put on sales and clear shelf space for new product regularly, and given they sold a lot of diff products if they ate it on some products that was fine. Also as a result they had isles and isles filled with the unpopular toys no one had ever bought, and this filled up shelf space with dusty toys. Their managers trying to minimize loss simply would not order new toys in many lines until all the previous product sold, whether or not that was product ANYONE wanted. Meanwhile there's Kmart constantly getting new product even though it's been going out of buisiness a year, and as a result the shelf is full of fresh toys, and not 7 copies of the item no kid wanted. Same thing went for their large digital content. I mean they had to be selling more video games and consoles then even Game spot and other video game retailers....so the video game reason isn't valid, because they were in that market as well. But once again the same story, isles of old content and games, and very little fresh product. That was bad for toys, but worse for video games where 6 months makes a game ancient history. They should have been selling their stuff off the shelves to get liquidity and at least compete. After all they had some huge Advantages over ANY competitor, being the largest retailer many toy lines lived and died by their TRU buisiness, and so TRU got special editions of items offered nowhere else, They probably could have pushed more to stop Kmart from undercutting them on new products. But It's like their management and buyer's had all decided bankruptcy was a foregone conclusion, and didn't want to make any changes to be competitive. Last, and I don't know what the thought process was here but they just kind of closed down everywhere at once. If things were this bad they should have done like Kmart and closed down more slowly starting with locations not doing well, doing their best to keep good locations open. The started the sell off of expensive real-estate way too late. Here they were a semi monopoly on the Toy Buisiness as they had driven every other chain toy store out of buisiness themselves. But they ended up getting killed by general retailers because they simply refused to evolve. I don't know I have a feeling there was more to meet the eye then this as well on mismanagement front, and an employee could shed more light. But stagnant inventory, a less then half hearted attempt to compete, and the timing of everything else killed them. For anyone who says kids do not play with toys anymore.. I say your nuts. That may be true for older kids, but there are so many toys like Nerf and Legos that are rocking sales, and the fact is kids were and are getting MANY more toys then previous generations got. Overall families were spending MORE on toys then previous generations did. In the end never underestimate an MBA's ability to mess up a company when they look at everything as numbers on a spreadsheet vs understanding their products and customers.
I think a lot of big box stores are going the way of the dodo.
Leverage buy outs should be illegal. It has ruined so many good companies.
Real toys are good for kids. It's a shame that they aren't being used as much.
watch the UGA vs Ohio State college football playoff game from New Year’s Eve!
At least they have the Times Square location that’s like an experience more than a shop.
I was curious, so googled Toys R Us in Southern California... And there's a location in Tijuana Mexico with a 5 star rating ha ha.
Bargain Town was before Toys r Us. I used to check out the bikes in the basement at the store.
love the videos, keep it up guys
There are 5 Toys R Us locations in my city (Vancouver, Canada)
Worked for the company for 15 years. Bad leadership who made bad decisions destroyed the company. Never listened to the people in the stores which is possibly the demise of most companies that fail. Could've downsized TRU and put more focus on BRU.
There's a Toys R Us here (Ontario) and it seems very very outdated. Like it hasn't had a refurb or company change up since the 80's. Half the store is pink and dolls and the other half is blue with dinosaurs and cars. I mean like, it's 2023, remember those amazing Christmas movies you used to watch as a kid, with all the decorations and the toy train sets and the RC cars and the just the magic and amazement, well, Toys R Us doesn't have that at all, and it should. It's boring even around Christmas.
He said at the end "create a fun environment for kids" they haven't done that.
All Toys "R" US had to do was run ads appealing to peoples love of the brand. They run an ad saying we need your help. We are going to go out of business so please come and shop at Toys R US. I think it would have worked.
There's still Toys R Us in Macy's in the United States
He made a follow up video, maybe give that a watch too
In 2020 the Toys R Us store in my city became a 30,000 sq ft liquor store haha!
Valerie Burris Toys r us are trying to make a comeback.
I discovered Toys-R-Us a few years before they closed. The one thing I remember that was frustrating was their check-out procedures - extremely long! It was an exercise in how many keys they could punch on a single item.
Grow up.
Closest Toys R Us was 45 miles away, also were we went to shop at the mall across the street still is. The building for the former toy store is now a cannabis dispensary. Times have changed.
I highly recommend Bright Sun Films for more on this type of topic! He does an "abandoned" and "bankrupt" series
He should have branched into the insurance sales as well
I’d totally buy a policy with “Fire Insurance R Us”
As a kid I used to go to toys r us every day 😂 made my grandparents poor asf. I was sad when the one near me shut down
They did have a good PC game selection.
It’s the culture now. There’s no going back. Amazon and phones and gaming systems have crushed the old school toy.
Without watching the video or reading the comments the most obvious answer is the internet happened to toys R us. Lol
never went to this store as a kid... I was a KMart kid
I'm actually pretty surprised that they had international locations. It seems like such an American brand.
Toys R Us still exists and were opening 400 stores inside Macy's as of 2021 last I heard. I don't agree with the electronic gaming killing toys r us as they started selling that stuff there, and my entire family starting buying from them almost exclusively for games for their kids. My first Xbox came from there I'm pretty sure. If not then the games did. I remember right up until they closed that if you wanted a game and they were out at Walmart or somewhere like that, you could almost always reliably obtain a copy from toys r us. Imagine if they made their own steam competitor? Like if 90% of PC gamers bought their games from PCs R Us or something like that it would've been crazy. We shall never see a company so synonymous with fun and childhood wonder again I fear. Maybe they'll be able to regain some of their status under new management, ownership etc
I miss toys r us. I don’t like going to Walmart or target for those kinda of things.
Toys r us was great!!!!
I will always be a Toys r Us kid
Where i got all my WWII figures as a kid......🤔....hell wrong with me
Dinosaurs weren't as popular with kids in 1957.
What's that stupid thing on Dave's arm?
Is it to stop the strap of his handbag from digging into his skin?
Companyman such a good channel
Smyth's Toys stores are huge.....a good replacement for Toys R us
American here - I heard Toys R Us is coming back. I seen an article online. They have stores in Canada it shows online. Toy store I remember when I was growing up is Kids Town.
Yup, technology is the culprit. But even back in the 1980's at the malls, I usually just passed by ToysRUs (I visited inside maybe a couple times in 10 years) & the reason was that I was already a teenager, so toys was not much of a thing to me anymore. So, that's another reason, that the store sells a niche product, i.e. toys. Even despite selling some furniture & some clothes, it's still mostly toys. So, unless they start selling a lot more of other stuff, then they will only attract a small percentage of customers. For me to come in, they would need to sell electronics & groceries, maybe even some fast food ... all at a good cost. But guess what, other stores already do that, so it would be difficult for them to venture out & compete in those markets. When you can do different things, that could be one factor that can help because more diversity of product can bring in more diversity of customers. The Blokes are reacting to many different subject matter, rather than sticking to one thing, say only standup comedian reactions for example, & thus that itself is making this channel successful due to more exposure via YT algorithms.
But of course, with Toys R Us, that leveraged buyout really did magnify their debt. While this store has some good memories for me (from my youth), I have really no emotional attachment to them. The one store that I do miss more, especially in their heydays in the 1980's, would be Radio Shack. I still have plenty of electronics parts, tools & devices that I bought from them over the years/decades, from the early 1980's all the way to their liquidation in spring 2017.
I am not sure. If I have ever been to Toys r Us. Recently they have opened the toy shops. Into Jeffery's toys. Nevertheless it is still considered as a "failed company". They recently became bankrupt in 2018. My opinion on Jeffery's toys is a horrible concept. The next company's history should be. Decline of long John silver's.
Ironic that the founder of a dead company is named Lazarus.
Maybe the company will come back from the dead. History is far from over
@@mumuspain2086 It turns out it did last year and has appeared at many Macy's locations. Now it's undead.
at 21:25 what was that? that was scary.
More classic American capital investment
i dont wanna gyow up....
Toys-R-Us still has stores in China. The pandemic very possibly affected that, but they had several stores unlike the US.
Someone tell me what I’m not getting from the dr g raffe part? What’s so bad about the name?
this video explained nothing. first of all, it was all speculation, which any dummy with a mic can make, making it hardly credible. and second, he barely did any research or analysis, just reading a couple news articles and saying they're in debt. well duh, why else would you file for bankruptcy. would've been more interesting to see a more comprehensive analysis from a more credible source
Side rant … Compared to the creativity fostered by toys “of old,” current toys are pitiful. In the past when you purchased a box of LEGOs, children explored and created using their *own* ideas. Toys were open-ended, and the play options were endless. Now you buy a LEGO kit-complete with instructions on what exactly to do with it-for building Boba Fett's Starship Microfighter. Zero creativity; little thinking. Once it’s done, it’s done. I’ll go yell at some clouds now ….
U could still do that. But sone ppl want to build certain things and dont know how to construct things on their own. Kids like toys but they also like internet/games. I liked ps2 games growing up and toys. Just more options nowadays for stuff ppl like
As a 90s kid...I'd have legos with instructions everytime...doesn't mean you gotta follow them..they all ended up in a bin mixed together. Only problem I have with them now... Ridiculous price
WTF is Toys R Uz? ...it's us, not uz. It's a feckin' 's' not a 'z'.
Like 'Dave sounds suss', not 'Dave sounds suzz'.
That narrator was annoying.
Simple, they were ungodly expensive ? Facts