Forum - View topicNEWS: Toys R Us Plans to Sell or Close Over 700 U.S. Stores
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
|
|||||
They were overpriced in the US as well. Some people are either looking at it with nostalgic rose-colored glasses, or they simply weren't aware (or didn't care) how over-priced TRU was. They were good at marketing, and they had a lot of stuff, even if most of it was cheaply made junk. I suppose I'm more cynical about it because I've only been inside a Toys-R-Us store a few times, and I the only thing I remember buying from them, IIRC, was the external floppy drive for my Commodore 64. Damn that was expensive. :/ So I don't have any Golden Time Childhood Memories from the place. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6061 |
|
|||||
These days!? remembering some of the stuff that use to get made in the past toys weren't all that well made back then either.
It's hard to compare sales of something that's less established of a brand in certain markets than Super Mario Odyssey. Also I'm pretty sure those sales of Yokai Watch sales you're using aren't it's worldwide sales like Super Mario Odyssey's are. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
CandisWhite
Posts: 282 |
|
|||||
It actually is a knock to the industry. The Business News Network (Canada) has been talking about this: Toys R Us accounted for 15% of toy sales; With the news of the liquidation, Mattel and Hasbro stocks dived. Plus, they were willing to take a chance on toys that other large retailers were hesitant to stock or outright gave the finger to. It also was gutted as people have said; It wasn't even given a chance to make a go of it, even on smaller scale, because of that: An analyst on BNN compared it to what Eddie Lampert did to Sears Canada.
"I hasn' bin in a Toys Ur Us store for years and I thinks they suck." Laughs. I'm sorry, man, but how can you judge something you've only been in a couple times and the last thing you bought was a... floppy drive for a Commodore 64. To the people calling Toys R Us overpriced, that is untrue. You cannot OVER price something; That is illegal. The prices are MSRP, i.e. The actual price. Toys R Us charges the actual price because they must make a profit off of toys and toys alone. Stores like Wal-Mart treat toys as a loss leader because it gets people in the door in the hopes that they'll spend $300 on stuff they wouldn't have otherwise bought. Amazon basically treats all physical merch as a loss leader to get you into the digital realm, where the real money is. I can't speak to Toys R Us in the US but in Canada they are not full of "junk". Toys R Us carries the same quality of stuff, and even literally the same brands and lines, as everyone else. Yes, they're getting a lot of their lunch eaten by companies who cater to people who care more about the cost of mainstream things than where the money goes but it's not because they're a large dollar store full of untested, lead-containing, toys. |
||||||
|
||||||
Nazca Lily #837256
 Posts: 30 |
|
|||||
|
I worked at TRU for the past 3 holiday season, I worry about the core staff who I worked with. TRU did have higher prices on some of the popular toys during the peak of the holiday shopping times but those went down once the holidays were over. They would also price match many of the competitors prices for the same toys. (Pull up the website on smart phone - no problem, most of the time; though, yes, there were exceptions)
This past season they had the Dragonball Z and other Bandai toy line (in that display case), Sailormoon, some Super Mario figures, the small Gundam kits, Gutedama blind packs, NekoAtsume plushies. I think the first season I was there the Yokai Watch was becoming popular but the second year it wasn't - the same with Beyblade. But this past season Beyblade was making a come back, while Yokai Watch stayed tepid. Pokemon cards and toys were still popular - we had a bunch of the trainer packs (about 5-6 $50 boxes) get opened and the stuff inside stolen. There was so much shoplifting... Collector/ebay reseller would hide toys (Hatchimals, Fingerlings, Lego, etc) that had buyer limits and come back everyday and buy them. The sales floor employees would go through constantly tidying the aisles but maybe miss an area. |
||||||
|
||||||
Emerje
 Posts: 7371 Location: Maine |
|
|||||
Oh, don't misunderstand, they definitely had issues with sales. As the article pointed out:
They've also stated that their holiday sales came in well below their "worst case" projections. They were definitely having sales issue this past year, likely due to consumer trust being lost from all the reports of their financial problems in 2017.
Holy cow there's a lot wrong with this sentence!  First off stores can price things at whatever they want, there are no laws that dictate prices.
Second MSRP stands for manufacturer suggested retail price, it's the recommended price that something be sold at in order to still make a profit. It isn't binding and it's a well known fact that TRU often would sell above MSRP. MSRP isn't exactly a secret number so anyone can match the TRU price to MSRP. Finally toys aren't normally loss leaders unless they're on sale. Typically a loss leader is something expensive sold at a low price in order to get you into a store to buy cheaper items, like toys, or related items. For example video game consoles are loss leaders used to sell much more profitable video games or an expensive smart phone could be sold at a massive discount (or even free) in hopes that you'll buy a more profitable service contract. Walmart doesn't take a loss on toys, they buy in massive quantities, to the point that they can dictate their own wholesale prices and sell below MSRP at a profit, a very long standing complaint of the toy industry that was causing issues for new companies coming onto the scene in the 2000s. Amazon prices are fluid, based on supply and demand, but they're also like Walmart in that they pretty much can dictate their own wholesale prices on many things without any real loss. Emerje |
||||||
|
||||||
CastMember1991
 Posts: 859 |
|
|||||
I meant to talk about US sales, which basically meant it sold 1 million copies. I misspoke. Speaking of Odyssey, I actually played a preview of it at the Nintendo store in New York. It looks like a lot of fun. |
||||||
|
||||||
Ambimunch
 Posts: 2012 |
|
|||||
|
||||||
|
||||||
Top Gun
 Posts: 4639 |
|
|||||
|
This one really hurts.
 TRU was my childhood mecca. I don't even want to think about how many hours I spent in there, and it seemed like I never left without a Hot Wheels car or Lego set. What sucks the most is that I have a young niece, so this past holiday season was the first time I'd set foot in out local store in something like 15 years. As soon as I walked in it was like I was 10 years old again. Guess we have to grow up now even if we don't wanna.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
vcmusik
Posts: 39 |
|
|||||
|
RIP TRU and Geoffrey the Giraffe. Had some fond memories, which culminated in my discovery of Gunpla. It was admittedly overpriced there, but I didn't care. Sad to see them go, but 'tis the times.
|
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group