The script keeps repeating itself, but this time it hits closer to home for me. Many people will point to Amazon and the internet but the failure of Toys R Us is more complicated. I hope more news stories will mention the leveraged buy out that saddled the company with debt. I wish I knew more about the financial side and could share that with you, but this post is more of an emotional response.
While many will remember TRU from a child's perspective, I worked there during the 90's and it was one of my favorite jobs. TRU gave me purpose during a tough time and helped me acquire professional work habits. I started as third shift seasonal help and found a way to become the store manager. Retail was a great fit for me. My ability to empathize with others was a guiding principle in all my customer / client service jobs but it served me especially well at TRU. Merchandising was also a blast. It was professional Tetris with a flair for show and functionality. Retail is also in my blood. I had many extended family members who ran stores and it was something I was able to share with my Mom, as she was a craft ace at Michaels for +15 years.
I loved being the cool uncle who could score a rare Ninja Turtle. Every Christmas season there was a hot toy of the year. It was always a crap shoot on what toy it would be. We once had a whole aisle full of "Go-Go Walking Pups" as proof of guessing wrong.. Other years we would just get pestered with "When will you get that in?" "March" was never a good answer. Supply chain was pretty bad back then.. I ALWAYS loved the experience of opening a box full of new toys. The look of the flashy packaging and smell of the plastic was intoxicating. I did not care if it was Barbie, My Lil Pony, Transformers or Nerf Sports. It was all very cool.
Ironically, one of the things that hurt TRU was the grandness of their stores. The stores were just HUGE! This really was what made them so great compared to other retailers. It absolutely blew people away when they walked in the door. I could see the wonder in the eyes of the young and old alike. At other stores, the toys were in one or two aisles. There were also smaller toy stores like KB, Imaginarium and FAO Schwartz in my area. The very things that made TRU stand out (size and selection) just do not work today. Having a few thousand square feet of locally stored merchandise is just not ideal in the current environment.
Kids are different today. Traditional toys like Legos, Dolls & Action Figures are only hip for a short period of time and I think that amount of time is getting shorter. Kids just get into other things like sports and video games much quicker. TRU sold that stuff too, but they never differentiated themselves in those markets. Older kids and teens don’t want to go to TRU to buy their video games or sports gear. TRU is for kids...
Toys R Us will be missed and remembered fondly. I feel bad for the 30k employees and managers who dedicated so much of their life to that company. I have a lot of respect for people working in retail. Those can be tough jobs and it is not a very respected profession. I hope that those directly affected will be able to find good work in a growing business. Maybe the change now will be better than during a future recession? I have been very fortunate to leave jobs right before a buyout or major reorganization. I also lost my job during the great recession and it hurt... Badly. I quickly started networking and was lucky to find a lesser job. The only good thing was that the termination happened at the very beginning of the recession. It might have been much harder to get work a few months later.
I am not sure where this retail thing is going. As long as delivery is so much cheaper than commercial rent, then stores will keep closing. I used to think that food, drugs and hardware would not be affected, but I am not so sure. Now that delivery time is minimized - the retailers of these spontaneous purchase items will eventually be marginalized and fade away. As I get older and think about business , one trend is obvious: Never underestimate the lazyness of consumers. They will always go the easiest way — that requires the least effort. Easypass.. Netflix.. Amazon.. Autopaying your bills.. Do people go to restaurants or see live local music anymore? Some do, but for how much longer?
Cheers to all the great people who I met working at TRU! It is kind of odd that many toy shoppers will essentially be going back to catalog shopping. Instead of the Sears catalog, it is the internet. Many of us will remember what happened in the middle very fondly. It was great and now it is gone.