Posted on 03/15/2018 3:03:47 AM PDT by C19fan
Toys "R" Us is going out of business in the U.S. The iconic chain announced early Thursday that it's seeking bankruptcy court approval to start closing its 735 U.S. stores and liquidating their inventory.
Some 33,000 employees will lose their jobs as a result.
Toys "R" Us Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dave Brandon said in a statement, "I am very disappointed with the result, but we no longer have the financial support to continue the Company's U.S. operations."
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Toys "R" Us, which declared bankruptcy in September, was unable to convince creditors to refinance its more than $5 billion in debt, a crushing load that experts say hampered its ability to adapt to the growth in online shopping, among other consumer trends.
33,000 victims of a Leveraged Buyout (LBO) but I am sure the vampires made out like bandits.
Bain where have I heard the name before????
Mitt Romney was a founder of Bain Capital.
Amazon or Russians ? A run on legos ?? (just not barefoot)
I’m not helping the situation by buying toys on EBay and Amazon.
Wow. 26 years after Children’s Palace/ Child World.
There was a headline here in NJ: “Where will shoppers buy toys now?”
Probably where they’ve been buying them for years; that is why Toys ‘R Us is closing.
Mitt Romney killed Geoffrey Giraffe.
Clearly, they needed to grow their online presence significantly, and probably peel back on some stores - concentrating on the iconic stores like the one they had in Times Square. But I don't think that would have been enough. They needed to provide products difficult to get elsewhere, and needed to have lines of unique educational toys, and very affordable non-electronic basic toys - including being the place for timeless high-quality ‘retro’ toys that parents remember and kids would like.
Personally, I like buying from small local toy stores with unique toys and owners that are personally involved and who are passionate about selling toys. Toys R Us, the last time I was in one, tended to concentrate on bike sales (bigger ticket, higher profit), and all the plastic stuff (mostly made in China etc.) that was ‘thematic’, like Transformers. Anyway, they could have done better, and I'm sorry all those people will be losing their jobs. Hopefully someone will step up and salvage what is good and move forward with a more successful business model.
Toy R Us was very expensive compared to other outlets. I think they marked up a premium of 5% on all their inventory, including the video games.
Most of their stuff was made in China, by the way.
They deserve to go bankrupt. It’s called capitalism.
Well, Bye.
I am saddened for my children who always love to go to Toys R Us even if just to look around.
For my wife and myself the closing hurts a bit too. It’s corny but we have a lot of memories wrapped up in our local TRU. Shopping for baby stuff, seeing our little one eyes light up when we walked into the store and the yearly ritual of videoing them riding the Dino the Dinosaur coin op in the lobby (they totally think it is uncool now but still humor us).
Contrary to some opinions, I found it a decent place to shop. The staff at our store was always helpful and it was a great place to grab a birthday gift on short notice or to get something big like an electric scooter or trampoline. It also employed a decent number of young local kids who seemed to have good customer skills.
Our family will miss TRU and my kids were really shaken last night when we heard the final verdict.
$5 billion in debt. Wow! How much of that went to management bonuses secured in the LBO?
I understand how you feel. I felt that way about FAO Schwartz on 5th Avenue. Beautiful store now long gone.
Let’s thank God Mitt is not president...again!
Definitely; they were an expensive place to shop. They misunderstood the threat of Wal-Mart; it isn’t a store, but a mall unto itself.
Wonder how much of a role minimum wage hikes played in this....
Plus 1/2 of their customer base has been destroyed:
Millions of parents and teachers actually believe that all their dolls were evil for trying to force girls into adhering to outdated gender stereotypes, and all their boy’s toys encouraged toxic masculinity, and all their bouncy balls encouraged competitiveness, which of course leads having “Winners” and “Losers”.... Which leads to school shootings and wars.
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