There has been talk of Toys R Us being revived in the US for a while now. In fact, almost shortly after they liquidated. The auction for the name and IP was delayed twice before being cancelled completely with the aim of opening new stores. Now, the goal may be in sight.
After the stores shut down in summer 2018, Geoffrey the Giraffe, Toys R Us’ mascot, was seen at a toy expo in October 2018.
Last Christmas, the remains of Toys R Us (then doing business as Geoffrey LLC) teamed up with grocery store chain Kroger to have toy sections known as Geoffrey’s Toy Box.
At the beginning of this year, Toys R Us’ parent company officially became known as Tru Kids, Inc., and it’s led by many former executives of Toys R Us. Bloomberg reports that Tru Kids is planning on opening two Toys R Us locations this year after shutting down all stores in the spring and summer of 2018. Stores are planned to be about one-third of the average old Toys R Us location and will have “more experiences, like play areas” according to Bloomberg. A lot of companies were upset with Toys R Us ordering stock before and after Christmas 2017 only to get stiffed when Toys R Us announced it was closing in March, so the new Toys R Us may operate like a consignment store in which companies only get paid when their product sells. Many retailers already operate this way, particularly for bread or soda sections.
Controversies R Us
The whole Toys R Us debacle still makes me uneasy. How did executives say, “Nope, nothing we can do, shut the whole thing down!”, pay their creditors pennies on the dollar, and then say, “You know what, we think we can earn more money keeping the name rather than selling it off!”?
It just doesn’t make sense to me.
But it’s the workers who have had to fight since Toys R Us’ closure. Employees were not going to get any severance once the liquidation was announced, but then the owners started putting money in a fund ($20 million total) for former employees in October 2018. If that date sounds familiar, it’s coincidentally when Geoffrey’s Toy Box was announced.
Recently, a judge awarded former workers some money, but it’s a largely symbolic victory: part-timers will get $34 while full-timers are getting $60 for a total of $2 million paid. As a comparison, the bankruptcy lawyers received $56 million, Toys R Us’ former CEO earned $11 million in 2017, and executives collected over $8 million in bonuses a week before Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy.
Shopping at the New Toys R Us
Regardless, it will be interesting if any geek items or collectibles will be stocked in these new Toys R Us stores. At 10,000 square feet, these new locations will be about the average size of a dollar store. So picture your nearby Dollar Tree or Dollar General. Some of that space is going to be taken up by these demo and play areas, reducing the amount of shelf space. Items like Barbie dolls don’t necessarily take up a lot of room, but if they stock items like cribs or kid’s vehicles? Yeah, shelf space will go fast. Will there be much room for items like Funko POPs?
However, collectibles have been a boon for stores like GameStop and Barnes & Noble, so Toys R Us may want to stock these sorts of items that anime and gamer fans are interested in. But will tweens, teens, and young adult shoppers choose to go to Toys R Us instead of picking them up at GameStop, Amazon, Hot Topic, or heck, even Walmart, where they can also grab some clothing and groceries?
One way that stores lure customers is with exclusives, but will companies be willing to work with Toys R Us to offer exclusives like they used to? Or will most merchandisers want to go with the consignment model, meaning the selection will be nothing special, particularly for anime fans?
I also haven’t seen anything about whether the new Toys R Us will be doing websales. Places like Walmart and Target are pushing their in-store pickup, and Toys R Us can’t compete if there’s only going to be a couple of locations opening. Plus, even if they will ship to home, it’s going to be hard since Amazon as well as Walmart/Target are trying to get things to customers in a day.
Final Thoughts
So while I hate the idea of Toys R Us being lost forever, I wish the company could have been rebooted a year or two ago, not after all their stores closed down and people lost their jobs. Yes, obviously remodeling or updating their stores would have required money which, at the time, they did not have a lot of, but obviously Tru Kids has managed to secure some financing to run its current and future operations, so Toys R Us could have done something to relieve their debtload without trying to walk away and starting anew. But what’s done is done, and it will be interesting if nostalgia will manage to overcome a lot of Toys R Us’ competitors’ advantages.