Forum - View topicNEWS: Toys R Us Plans to Sell or Close Over 700 U.S. Stores
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trunkschan90
 Posts: 594 Location: California |
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 I went there when I was little to buy toys such as Legos, stuffed animals, board games, She-ra action figure and castle, Barbie, my toy kitchen, My Little Pony and Hello Kitty, a couple of my Halloween costumes and candy, VHS of Muppet movies, etc. My parents bought me my first little blue convertible car and my pink tricycle. The memories. 
This Hello Kitty playhouse was one of the items my parents bought for me back in the mid 80's at Toys R Us. 
Sure they were expensive, but they do price matches. |
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AnimeLordLuis
 Posts: 1626 Location: The Borderlands of Pandora |
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R.I.P Toys R Us I’ve spent some of my best childhood moments in your stores and I will always remember you fondly.
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2714 |
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If not for the mention of Japanese store closings, I couldn't see why this is here. Not really anime related...
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1775 |
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I knew the writing was on the wall when BBC announced that the UK stores were closing about a month ago.
Like many others, I’m sorry to hear this news. Toys R Us was, next to FAO Schwartz, my favorite toy store as a child. Had 5 year old me had any wish, it was to win one of those Nickelodeon Super Toy Runs and just shove everything into the cart. I recall that Toys R Us was heavily invested in the Pokemon franchise in the early days of the series in the US, often having special promos and giving out badges to those who participated in playing the trading card game there. Sadly though, I felt more devastated by the loss of FAO; What child my age didn’t act out that scene from Big there? I feel sorry that future generations won’t, as of now, get to experience something like the joy of going to a toy store. Walmart and Target can’t even scratch the surface. |
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Emma Iveli
Posts: 681 Location: Hobo with internet |
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Oh... another part of my childhood going bye-bye... granted the two stores I consdered to be a large part of my childhood closed years ago... but still... it is sad to see it go.
And I have been to one in Japan. The one in Sunshine City... it was pretty much the same now that I think about it. |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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We wouldn't be this pop-culturally traumatized if Sears was going under... 
And yes, to put it kindly, Toys R Us was not exactly the place you went looking for anime besides Pokemon, Sailor Moon or Cardcaptors (yes, they put out a talking plush with Kero's surfer-dude voice)--But it's mostly here because, with Sears and JC Penney also teetering on the brinks, business is spinning the one closing into a, quote, "Retail Apocalypse" of '18-'19, and advising businesses on how to "brace for the coming future". Everyone else is sad because they're "losing their childhoods", even though TRU was basically crippled from the minute they started pumping more money into Babies R Us, Amazon took over the collector-figure market, more kids started playing with tablets, and more parents started relying on Target to do their Christmas shopping. Nowadays, the annual holiday TRU toys ads have been replaced by the annual holiday Target toys ads....Yeah, just not the same.
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Stuart Smith
 Posts: 1298 |
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It's pretty much an enormous blow to the American toy market, much like when Borders closed down it was a huge blow to the American manga market. Admittedly, I haven't been to a Toys R Us at all lately outside the occansional gift search to a family member and most of my own personal toy shopping is off import and second-hand shops like Mandarake, but I imagine a lot of kids marketed anime here will suffer, like Yokai Watch which had tons of merchandise, and probably Pocket Monsters as well. Not too surprising, though. Toys these days are pretty poorly made, overpriced, and they make stuff no one wants so it shelfwarms for years. My insiders in the industry tell me lots of fun stories, like how he can barely keep these rainbow monkey figures in stock because girls eat them up, but he can't even give away the mountain of Rey figures on clearance for a dollar because no one wants them, but they're pretty much forced to stock them. All the crazy stuff he told me I'm not surprised toy stores are struggling. -Stuart Smith |
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uruaoi
Posts: 3 |
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The closing of the stores isn't necessarily to do with sales. My boyfriend works at HQ and basically, TRU was bought out on a debt over a decade ago and instead of selling when it was profitable, the owners decided to get greedy which resulted in *taadaaa* more debt. The current CEO wanted to get rid of that debt (so they could focus on improving high performing stores, etc.) so they filed for chapter 11, which is debt reorganization and not liquidation. However, this was right before the holiday season and for some reason, made sales go down even though they weren't going out of business. This was totally unexpected and honestly blindsided everyone at HQ, CEO included. Fast forward to now, the creditors working on the chapter 11 have the choice of reorganizing debt or liquidating for fast money. Instead of looking at how TRU has been PROFITABLE prior to the chapter 11 filing, and would continue to be profitable once they got out of bankruptcy, they'd rather just get their money ASAP via liquidation, which brings us here. |
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Kicksville
 Posts: 1265 |
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As I understand it, this isn't too far removed from what happened to KB Toys, right?
Aside from the aforementioned anime merchandising for kids: Certain locations have been selling what I assume are Blue Fin Distribution collector's stuff - Gundam candy toys (without the candy), Sailor Moon figures, Dragon Ball statues, etc. One not far from me actually expanded their arrangement to have a display case like Barnes & Noble. They even had some manga, like Fairy Tail, which appeared to be selling. This was a great way to get stuff like individual Gundam Converge figures at reasonable prices, so it sucks to see it go just when it became a good option. |
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explosionforgov
 Posts: 80 Location: United States of America |
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I admire/look up to Rey immensely and can't see the appeal of Fingerlings, so I have no idea what those kids are on about. But then again, I'm a grown woman around Daisy Ridley's age and not a little girl, so maybe I'm not the target audience. Our TRU has only a few pieces of anime merch-- Sailor Moon, One Piece, and Naruto among them, but most of the sales are Pokémon, Yo-Kai Watch, and especially DBZ, which is particularly popular in our area. I think I saw some blind-boxed Death Note stuff there, too. Also, that claim about informing the workers of the closure on Wednesday is inaccurate. Everyone I know who works there only found out today via the internet. Every other question to their managers in the months beforehand was just met with a "We're not closing, and if the customers ask, tell them we're not planning on closing." |
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asukas
Posts: 19 |
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This is really sad, and really nerve-wracking... I work at another struggling retailer and news like this always makes me wonder if we'll be next. I hope everyone is able to recover from this and find new jobs quickly, but this is an awful blow...
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6902 Location: Kazune City |
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Mawdryn
 Posts: 240 Location: St. Louis, MO. U.S.A. |
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My local Toys R Us closed back in 2015--it was only a nine-minute drive from my house. Had a lot of good memories there. In fact, it was a place I went to whenever I was feeling down about something, it always kind of cheered me up. Bought a ton of stuff there over the years. So losing that store was pretty much the end of TRU for me (the second-nearest one was nearly an hour's drive away and not really feasible to go on a regular basis--I only went there once, mainly to say good-bye to that last bit of my childhood).
My heart goes out to all the TRU employees and I wish them the best of luck in finding new jobs. When I first entered the job market myself, I actually applied at that local TRU and even got an interview, but I was nervous and bombed badly. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise now. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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An unjust end to what was perhaps the finest retail establishment of which I have grown out. I do recall how each visit engendered a lesser sense of materialistic wonder and a greater sense of mild embarrassment as my childhood dwindled.
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Primus
 Posts: 2835 Location: Toronto |
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Toys R Us Canada is still hanging in there and might wind up being bought by a toy company (which kind of sounds like a bad idea, but okay).
To relate this to anime, back in, oof, maybe 2007 or 2008? I remember walking into my local store and noticing they carried Gundam SEED Destiny DVDs. That was the moment I realized the first show did really well up here. The store carried Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and other kids anime DVDs, but nothing else from Bandai Entertainment. Heck, there hadn't been Gundam merch in mainstream Canadian retail for years at that point. Yo-Kai Watch merch has been dead at retail for a while now. Most of it was liquidated to stores like Dollar General/Dollarama a while ago. TRU dying in the US would really hurt brands like Beyblade and any other Japanese toy-focused property looking for a US entrance (hey, Zoids Wild). |
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