Toys R Us might file bankruptcy in 2018 https://www.msn.com

>>6517626
Big Box retailers have been on the decline for about 16 years, why should Toys R Us be any different?

>>6517626
I hope you fucked your female coworkers

So where the fuck are we supposed to go for Nintendo shit now? Target & Walmart have dramatically reduced their sections, Toys R Us is closing, Amazon never has shit online, ToyWiz overcharges tenfold, and we never get any release dates when something actually does come out

I don't want to see them die, they are sometimes the only retailer that carries smaller or nicer toy lines.

However, they should really close stores earlier during the regular year. I think mine is open until 10 pm, and pretty much empty all evening. They should close at 7, no way they're getting enough walk-in sales in those final three hours to justify paying a half dozen employees to mill around in an empty store. Nobody's buying an Xbox or Power Wheels at 9:45 pm in a middle of nowhere small town tru in Jan-Oct.

>>6517648
I agree. Open at noon and close at 7.

That's plenty of time for what they do.

Sounds about right.

If it does go down at least we'll be able to take advantage of the going out of business sale.

>>6517682

A short-term benefit for a permanent loss.

>>6517648

Don't worry, there is always Amazon, home of the scalpers who can auto buy everything and just relist it at a 2x mark up.

>>6517648
All empires crumble.
Everyone bends the knee one day.
Death comes for all of us.
Enjoy the nightmare.

The ones in my area (Nashville TN) are pretty busy during the evening hours, but I don't normally go to town until the sun starts setting since I have shit to do. With that being said though, online shopping is killing department stores. It's easy to understand, buying marvel legends online saves the customer gas money and the trouble of going from town to town to get that last BAF part that the customer is missing. Looking for figures is fun and all, but personally, I'd rather spend my evening doing other things.

I'd hate to see TRU go the way of the Dodo bird, but it's understandable.

>>6517635
If and when TRU dies then maybe Walmart will expand their toy section. Probably wishful thinking.

>>6517626
TRU is overpriced anyways.

>>6517717
Didn't happen when KB died.

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>>6517736

Fuck, I miss KB. Shopping malls have never been the same since they went tits up.

>>6517717
The opposite would probably happen. If Wal-Mart is thriving with toy sections at their current levels, then there's no reason for them to risk taking on additional invetory. There's no reason to believe that other retailers will "pick up the slack" if TRU folds. The loss of a national retailer translates to one less buyer for toy companies, leading to decreased production, poorer QA, and fewer new product lines.

>>6517738
>I miss KB

You and me both. It kept that "find a cool new toy" vibe alive for a lot longer than it had any right to.

>>6517626
They are filing bankruptcy that does not mean that they will die (yet).

It just means that they are realigning and more than likely downsizing. And this will prevent them from being served with a new lawsuit while in their bankruptcy state.

>>6517635
>>6517648

Buy online.

>>6517738

KB where I lived in the 80's was always more expensive than TRU. And TRU was the only other place to get anything, and even then their prices were still high. Honestly not sad to see either of them go, especially in the age of one click buying, no muss no fuss. No employees setting shit aside for scalpers (which my local TRU did all the fucking time), no bullshit.

>>6517738
Ya know I always liked popping into KB and having a look around, but I never bought anything there because their mark up was atrocious.

KB was a magical place. It was the only store that I actually found RID Stormjet at as well as their Jhiaxus and Megabolt Megatron Exclusives. RID was the first Transformers line I ever 100% completed.

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>>6517691
>A short-term benefit for a permanent loss.
>>6517740
>The loss of a national retailer translates to one less buyer for toy companies, leading to decreased production, poorer QA, and fewer new product lines.
This.

The closing of Sam Goodys and Suncoast stores was a impact for many toy companies (and manga/anime/import companies).
KB was also a big blow against companies like Hasbro.

TRU going down and not being able to pay their debts to any of these toy companies is going to be huge.

No one here should be hoping for this to happen.

Also, remember when buying import toys was so much cheaper and easy to buy? Fucking EBs carried Love Hina, Front Mission, and Armored Core toys.

>>6517626
Same. Was there for 8 years. They've been delaying the inevitable for years now. Rumor before I left was 150 stores could go down between 2018 to 2019.

Unsold Star Wars crap and forced shipments of trash Mattel bull killed em

>>6517648
True
But I also like getting fucked up and then wandering into TRU at the last minute and buying a fuck huge lego set

>>6517626

Would make no difference at all in Canada

>toy store that sells mainly things that you can go get at Walmart or Target cheaper
I mean, I'm kinda surprised they lasted this long. If they branched out more into a specialty store than a store that was stuff you could go by somewhere cheaper then it'd be able to live.

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>>6517773
>no one here should be hoping for this to happen

Jesus this. If TRU were to close it would rock the toy industry to the bone and the golden age of action figures we live in will slowly die

Shit will get way more expensive and many lines will die

>>6517626
They never clearance anything off and they hardly ever have sales or mark anything down, even if it's been sitting on the shelf for years. They also charge more than Target or Wal-Mart does for the same stuff.

Well that sucks my TRU is always packed and has been my go to place when I'm looking for something. Good selection, always stocked and plenty of stuff marked down. I'm not sure if any other toy stores are left if that one goes.

As long as Star Wars and Mattel can be blamed I have won something.
Still sucks. Let's just hope that this makes toy manufacturers rethink of how they make their deals and design their lines. TRU might not clearance anything but some of the shit that reaches shelves is just unsellable

>>6517673
no... you have to consider the schedules of parents. housemoms/dads will be up in the morning and be out running errands before everyone gets off work. working moms/dads could still be in rush hour traffic at 6.

make it 10 - 8, and everyone will be covered. Brick and Mortar stores survive because they are convenient. make your customers work to find you and they will fuck off to Amazon.com

>>6517773
ugh... this reminds me of the anime crash of 2007. one of the large factors was Borders going under. they returned tons of books to publishers, which choked the shit out of many of them. Tokyopop, being the biggest one.

Target already tries to not carry many toys, and Walmart won't even fart in your face unless you sell them your product near cost. Too many companies would starve, or have to consolidate. having a few large producers is terrible for the economy and worse for the consumer

>>6518025
you're probably thinking about Sam Goody/Suncoast.

Borders didn't really start going under until 2011 or 2012.

Although they would never admit it, but them closing FAO Schwartz and TRU Time Square the same year was a hint into their financial trouble.

That's two flagship stores. Plus their price mark up too. I think it might just be a matter of time.

>>6517626
Bro what the fuck, they're literally the only place around me that regularly stocks anything new.

Have you guys looked around TRU recently, as in literally the last few months? To me it's no mystery why this is going on.

They have to cater to basically everyone, I understand, but at least my TRU has lost their shit and theres way too many fucking niche toys now that are neat to see, but that cost way too fucking much compared to online. And with shit like that, if you already are a nerd enough to want it then you're most likely up to date with prices of them enough to know TRU is charging too much.

TRU is like a 3D catalog for me, somewhere you can check things out in person before deciding to buy it online for $20 less. It's like "oh shit this Cowboy Bebop Pop is awesome, I'll get it on eBay for $9 when I get home, "oh sweet the new World of Nintendo wave is out, this is $5 cheaper on Walmarts website," "oh man this $60 figuarts kid Gohan is sweet, good thing it's $40 on Amazon right now."

IMO they need to stop overly stocking the overly expensive shit like giant $40 Deadpool plush dolls, the figuarts that are $20 overpriced of characters normal people don't know, the expensive as shit statues of stuff like dark crystal or nightmare before Christmas, and instead focus more on getting better versions of cheaper stuff people want (like actually fucking staying up to date with marvel legends stuff would make more money than putting 15 $40 anniversary Sonic dolls on the floor)

>>6517738
I stopped going to the local mall just because of KB going away. Fuck clothes shopping or seeing a movie, I want my fucking 3 for $10 deals.

eat shit, mitt romney

>>6518119
I hope I explained this alright, I'm kinda bad with words when I get excited but idk basically they keep shit stock of cheap stuff people actually want and always are fully stocked of "neat" niche stuff that is genuinely cool but that maybe 1/20 fan of that series actually might buy. I think they're trying too hard to cater to adult collectors but don't actually know how to and it's not working out too well.

Also they need to kill the used games, clear out the last gen shit, keep up with the Nintendo stuff but back off with the casual stuff. I always see a full fucking stock of every new game that comes out there and they literally never run out.

Honestly I wanted to say kill all the games other than Nintendo, not because I like Nintendo, because I currently don't own any Nintendo system myself, but because being on /v/ and /you/ has shown me there's huge fanbase that relies on TRU for that stuff.

Hardly anybody ever goes to fucking TRU on Tuesday morning to get the new Call of Duty anymore, they did when they had awesome preorder bonuses but they don't know as far as I can tell.

I'd say maybe sell all the systems, keep a little stock of current, relevant shit that comes out, and that's it. Don't have $14.99 resealed used xbox one Launch games out in 2017, like I fucking saw some regular DS shovelware the other day for $19.99 each.

>>6518096
THIS

If they could not afford the rent of their main advertising shop, it shows they are losing money fast.
As a whole they are inefficient and poorly managed.

>>6517694
in a similar note, what happened to KB toys?

just put more stores in Asia and China,the Chinese figure market is huge

>>6518134
>there's huge fanbase that relies on TRU for that stuff.
I used to work gaming retail and I really don't see how nintendo stuff is any easier to get at TRU than anywhere else.

Outside of their hardware shortages (which after the thirtieth time no one should believe is accidental) their stuff is super common.

>>6518096
>FAO Schwartz

I both felt enormous glee in finding out what this was and enormous pain in finding out it's already dead

>>6518119
TRU price matches all of those sites. You can still buy them there.

>>6518134
why would they drop obsolete systems like the Wii with the amount of people who still think it's a "money-scamming racket" to buy new systems?

>>6517626
I'm not surprised. Their stock has been abysmal for the past year or so and the way they marked up almost everything over MSRP completely deterred me from even setting foot inside the store. They couldn't even resist asking more than MSRP for their exclusives.

I'm hoping they don't die off completely but that's just my childhood talking.

>>6517635
>So where the fuck are we supposed to go for Nintendo shit now?
I didn't think the line was going to last much longer anyway, so TRU going out of business would just be the last organ failing on a dying line.

If the line does survive it'll probably be through stores like Barnes & Noble stepping deeper into the collectibles market to compensate for the slow death of paper media.

>>6517732

They price match you Neanderthal

>>6517773

No grandpa, no one remember that's jeez how fucking old are you

>>6518119

Y'all are too fucking dumb for your own good if you didn't know TRU price matched. Yea they may not price match ebay, but they will def do Walmart..

>Go to TRU
>Literally the absolute WORST place to buy ANY sort of trading cards, markup is enormous
>Aisles filled with shit that will not move ever (robolox, FNAF, Minecraft, Funko Pops)
>Huge amount of store space dedicated to older gen games and systems

Theyre too invested in fads that just sit there and rot. They try to cater too much to everyone and now theyre fucked. My local TRU has hundreds of Pops they dont know what to do with, and I just watch as the fad shit sits and rots.

The only thing TRU is good for anymore is because they never move alot of their stock, alot of that shit sits there so you can find older products sometimes.

>>6517738
I didn't have a K.B toystore in my area til 1999. It was cool because sometimes they'd have older stuff, like Playmates Earthworm Jim figures.

>>6517752
Really? Because my KB always has low prices and bogo/2 fir 1 deals

Soon to be ex employee here. Were constantly going through management layoffs. Saw this coming a mile away when consolidated our region.

>>6517977
>They also charge more than Target or Wal-Mart does for the same stuff.

Someone in my city bought all the WoN mario figures at walmart for $9, returned them to tru for $12. The local cimic store also dumps their excess marvel legends that way. They get the new wave and return a handful of old spidermans, jack the new wave up to $45 a figure.

My tru hardly would order any inventory. Usually get one shipment of neca, gi joes, etc and never see anything outside the peg warmers. Sure havehuge aisles for star wars and tmnt but never sell out of those.

Then their websites is constantly out of stock for everything. Tru also seems to skip over the adult collectors and that's the main income for toy sales.

Hard to sell toys when you dont stock toys. Most the stores are geared towards babies now. Its a wonder they held out for so long.

>>6517738

it was mitt romenys fault, i live close to the KB former HQ and we have no where for toys since KB left. pretty sure toys r us blacklisted the area long ago.

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>>6517626
NO DAMMIT. TRU is the reason i discover new places to hang out and restaurants to eat. without all that, we'd just go to each others' house and play vidya or just talk and smoke beer.

I just hope the worst thing that happens to TRU is that they close some locations. Express locations would be casualties id care less about, even though theyve really improved in the past year.

>>6517738
I remember going to this specific outlet between las vegas trips. They had a Toys Express there which turned out to be a KB Toys in disguise. I got things like Barnyard Commandos, those 8" sonic toys, clearanced He-man toys, and the last few Xevoz they had lying around. Now we just stop here for In-N-Out or going to the bathroom. the place just died further since that store left, and i dont know what the outlet is like now.

I haven't bought much from TRU in years, But they were the first store to carry the Power Rangers Legacy items and still have the first waves and a lot of exclusives.

Now that Bandai's schedule has slowed down... it would be awful if the line got the axe before they make it around to Space or some other fan favorites.

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>>6517773
The fact that OPs vid shows that major toy companies stocks like Mattel and Hasbro took a dip in value due to the news of just the restructure should tell you how dark things are going if they go under.

>>6518552
I breathe TRU and eat Gamestop. I am definitely very afraid.

>>6517952

Fuck, I hope not. Shutting down completely is one thing. But downsizing is another. I read stories on here about the closest TRU to some people being "10 miles away" and here I am with three of them 10 minutes away from me and I like it that way

they're taking LEGO with them. Lego just announced layoffs.

TRU actually closed a bunch of stores maybe two or three years ago. I had three in my rotation that I went to, and one of them closed. The one in my hometown also closed, and now they don't even have a TRU. The nearest one is like an hour away.

I'm sure there are plenty of issues, but honestly, their ridiculous markups over other retailers can't be doing them any favors. Its borderline scalping.

And while I know most people wouldn't agree with me, a lot of people find a big part of collecting the "thrill of the hunt." Not everyone orders shit online, and some people just don't want to deal with whatever random QC you may or may not receive. TRU has way more stuff than Target and Walmart and other retailers, but some of their practices are borderline shady as shit.

I'd honestly be sad to see them go, and really hope they don't, but I also wish they would get someone who actually makes competent decisions to run the place.

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>>6517626
Kids don't buy toys anymore. They all have tablets. It's just us now /toy/

>>6518141
>in a similar note, what happened to KB toys?
Literally collapsed because of Mitt Romney.

I could park a big blue dumpster outside my local TRU and fill it up with stuff from the action figure aisle that doesn't sell. RoBlox, Tube Heroes, Funko Pop, about half the role-play toys, fucking BB-8 headphones. I would suggest TRU fill up the empty space with at least stuff that I would buy, but then TRU would have to convince Mattel to make new MOTU, Hasbro to stop making shitty GI Joe movies and bring that back, MASK, team up with Takara or whoever and make Diaclone in larger number, etc. but that requires Gefforey to get out of bed before noon and not do business in his pajamas.

>>6517626
Battery stocks will plummet.

>>6517759
>>6517752
>>6518287
New stuff was always priced higher (now that's TRUs job) but they had good deals on older clearance/closeout type stuff.

>>6518211
>>6518255
Price matching is a pain in the ass.

>>6517626
I worked there long enough to know they deserve to fail.

>>6518794
Fun fact: Shit Romney's firm Bain Capital also owns Toys R Us.

>>6518138
It's like people don't know that Bain takes control of companies, takes out huge loans in their name to gorge themselves, and let's the company suffocate under that debt.

>>6518003
>but some of the shit that reaches shelves is just unsellable
Every time I see a non-toy junk trinket on the BBTS homepage or in their newsletter, I worry how deep they're digging that same hole. If you aren't doing well selling real toys, the worst move you can make is to dive into that type of irredeemable garbage. Good toys will eventually sell but you'll be stuck with She-Zow cufflinks and Lost in Space snap bracelets forever.

>>6518157
why would they pay full price for a figure their mom made a knockoff of in a factory that very same day?

>>6518546
how do you smoke a beer?

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>>6517626
I haven't been in a Toys R Us in almost two decades. Nearest one to me is somewhere in the Twin Cities (unless that closed?) from Duluth. I was forced to go online simply because there's nothing left locally. Target is 20 minutes away as a better option. Walmart is a freaking joke most of the time. A few hobby shops in Duluth carry some Gunpla but the markup is insane. $30 for a HGUC grunt kit? Seriously? Even Barnes & Nobel is slightly better than that. Too bad I don't care for Build Fighter kits.
I do miss our Toys R Us, though. Place was a gold mine to dream in and see what was out there.

>>6517740
Yeah. Just imagine how much worse toys would get if Walmart went from 1 of 4 to 1 of 3 big stores calling the shots on production costs and assortment contents. They can already kill a line by dropping it.
>>6519353
I know that feeling. Worthless licensed shit is the maker of broken dreams.
>search for a series name
>18 results, fuck yeah!
>scroll down
>it's all $7 keychains, $5 id card lanyards, and $3 mini notebooks
That shit will sit there until the end of time.

>>6517626
Whenever i go to a Toys R Us, it feels like a Zellers when they were about to die. Old-looking, ugly, with always the same shit everytime i go. I wouldn't be surprised if they close some stores.

>>6518546
The best thing about going to delaware on family trips as a kid was seeing the absolute insane shit the kbtoys had there.

>>6519265
>Price matching is a pain in the ass.
Have you ever tried to price match at TRU? It's the easiest system out of every store I've price matched at (I am a cheap motherfucker- do not judge me). I pretty much get all of my /toy/ related stuff at TRU just because if they don't have the best prices, they will price match to the best prices. They fucking price matched some third party seller on the Sears marketplace for me one time. NO ONE does that. I will be very sad when TRU goes out of business.

>>6517626

TRU is the only place that has full stocked shelves of basically EVERY Amiibo.

You can't even get them all online without paying $25 each from some random guy in Japan on Amazon.

>>6519696
Wow Zellers. That brings back memories. I remember seeing the Fin Fang Foom wave there for cheap as they were closing. I was only interested in Absorbing Man and Doc Samson. I should have bought them all.

TRU in Japan has a great selection of plastic model kits, better than anything I've found stateside. I wonder if the foreign locations will survive this.

I would use TRU more often if they stepped up their online game and offered better services that translated to bringing me into the store. As it stands their online store offerings are dismal and 90% of the time the item that I want is out of stock or just plain not listed. And they have the worst online search feature that is so insanely, comically bad. It prevents you from even finding stuff that should be easily found by name. I wanted some of those DST Gotham figures, and for a long while searching "Gotham" brought up nothing. They were listed under some obscure sub-tagline for that wave.

Their site is also shit for bringing you in-store by setting up store pick-up. That should be a heavily promoted and well machined feature for TRU, because it not only gets you buying a product from them, it also gets you into their store to do some miscellaneous browsing. EVERY FUCKING ITEM ON THEIR SITE SHOULD HAVE FREE IN-STORE PICK UP OR FREE SHIP-TO-STORE. Do they really not understand how much they need to draw people into their physical stores? It's like a joke to them.

restructuring is not going out of business, though it isn't good news.

There are companies that successfully come out of it very well. Of course then there's those that don't but even then look at K-Mart, it's restructured twice by now and yeah there's no saving it but it's been dying for ten years now slowly.

>>6517626
I have not been inside one in years. I bet they do not make it to Christmas 2019.

>>6519808

They don't have the infrastructure for free ship to store. The store where I work is used as a shipping hub to ship items out to people's homes during the holiday season. They don't even have dedicated warehouses for that shit, so they have to use store space to do it.

Also free in store pick up will only work if the item is in stock. We don't get extra stock for online orders, it's just picked off the floor by an employee from our regular shelf stock.

Did anyone actually read the article? They're saying drop off in diaper sales at Babies R Us thanks to cheaper alternatives like Amazon is largely responsible. If anything goes out of business it'll be Babies R Us. I think Toys R Us will be safe for the time being.

>>6517738
Every time I see someone mention KB, all I can think of is the sounds of random toys being demoed out in the front of the store (mall outlets). That flipping barking dog, that ball tumbling thing, the ferret chasing ball toy, and all sorts of random toys going off all at once.

>>6520087
Baby products is where most of the money comes from. 600 dollar strollers, 400 dollar cribs, 300 dollar monitors, these are what allow the stores to reach their sales goals, without them they'd be making a great deal less (outside if the holidays where toy sale is very significant). I don't think TRU could be around without BRU

>>6518450
Second time I've seen this. What did Mormon man do?

>>6519808
Hey at least it lets you buy individual figures, TRU down here in Australia doesn't list individual figures for most series on their site and lists them by assortments instead. If you order one of those they send you a random figure. And they're not the only big retailer to do that either.
Thank fuck Amazon is opening locally here in the next few months, local retail could really use a quick in the teeth to force them to modernise.

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>>6517738
Damn. Reminds me of the KB toys in Lincoln Park, MI in the Sears mall (that's closing also). It was so gigantic on the inside. God I remember all the ToyBiz spiderman stuff, all the X-Men stuff, all the Gundams they sold in the toy section. It's where my sister and I bought our first bikes, our videogames. All until we were 10 or so, I think. I hardcore miss it.
I just remember the clerk area being this massive circle that was encompassed by little trinket toys, erasers, finger toys, etc. Right side of the store was boys section, left was girls. Shit man.

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>>6520244
Agreed. Just because you (and me and probably the rest of 4Chan actually) don't use baby products doesn't mean they're not huge sellers. Parents, especially first time parents who don't just happen to have the old stroller from Kid 1 lying around, are huge huge huge huge huge HUGE spenders. It's insane.

>t. employee in baby section of a luxury department store
People are out here buying onesies that cost more than my outfit. Pic related is $350. Insane. Adorable, but insane.

>>6519744
>Have you ever tried to price match at TRU?
Nope. And I work there. I just assume it's a pain and buy shit elsewhere.

I don't really want to contribute to the gloom, but the local TRU here has all kinds of cool shit, I just wish I had more money to dump into it.

I only ever see maybe two employees there any time I've gone. They're nice and helpful, but it makes the store feel empty even when there's a solid handful of customers milling about. That said, I always do marvel at all the cool, hard-to-find stuff I tend to find there. ALL of the fucking amiibos, pretty much every Nintendo game available even when Gamestop can't stock a fucking shelf half the time, a bunch of high-end model stuff I'd never expect to find there, and all those BIG damn things I'd never want to pay to ship anywhere.

Maybe parents are just getting thriftier, maybe they're just ordering their stuff online, but it feels like a shame. But I know what would really help me want to keep going there would be if I could check online to see if they actually have what I'm looking for before I make the trip out there. For all the stuff they've got, it's frustrating to find that the one thing I went there to get isn't in stock.

If they go out of business do I still owe them money on my credit card?

>>6521594
When TRU goes out of business, someone buys up all their assetts.
That includes their credit card shit and you will have to pay up almost everything right away.

>>6521608
good thing i use paypal :D

Makes me wonder how toy companies will adjust to the death of big box retail carrying their stock. Kids don't want toys any more past the age of four. Supermarkets wil only carry a tiny sliver of their inventory.

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>>6521627
>Kids don't want toys any more past the age of four.
>kids still make up the majority of all toy sales
>toy market is a 26 billion dollar per year industry in the US alone
FYI, video games are 19 billion in the US. Kids being video game fanatics reached its saturation point since the 90s. Almost all growth in the video game market came from adults since then (kids who grew up with video games continue playing video games into adulthood).

>>6521583
>I only ever see maybe two employees there any time I've gone.

That's because the company doesn't want to pay employees more than they have to. If less people can do more, so be it.

The managers at our store used to adjust people's times so they wouldn't get overtime, too. TRU hated paying overtime.

>>6520239
Haha, holy crap you made me nostalgia without even needing to post a picture! I know exactly what you're talking about! I remember walking by the KB store front and seeing the assault of my eyes of animated, and audible mechanized products

I patronized my local TRU today just because.

I bought a ML Blade.

Yeah some of their practices may be shit what major retailer isnt but i bought there today because id have to see market competition shrink even further.

>>6521662
Man, those action figure-related stats are sad to see. I wonder how a company like Hasbro would fare if they drastically upped the quality of lines like Legends and Black Series priced them in line with Japanese figures, refused to sell them to retailers like Wal-Mart and distributed them directly through an online storefront and maybe to specialty/high ticket stores?

>>6521856
Its a moot point because you're basically asking what their numbers would be if they made something entirely different. a non-retail, $40 Marvel line probably wouldn't be anything like the current MArvel Legends line. Keep in mind the Japanese figure lines you refer to largely aren't based off entire franchises or universes, they mainly take the most popular characters of a franchise, sometimes just one or two representations. There's some extended lines like SHF Kinnikuman, but otherwise they succeed on only taking very popular characters. Marvel and Star wars revolve around doing a bunch of B/C-listers in addition to the big name characters, as well as more niche representations of characters. No one is going to buy a $40 D-man figure or what have you, even if its excellent quality, unless it hits clearance.

>>6519908
Well much like KB - Sears bought up Kmart and is using it and it's locations to liquidate assets, get insurance, and close stuff. Romney and his ilk started this trend - and atm TRU, Kmart and Sears are suffering the same fate as many other stores where the brass dont care and want to jump out with a golden parachute of money.

>go to Five Below
>see wheelbarrows full of Lego Dimensions sets for $5
>check Hollar
>Lego Dimensions sets being sold for as low as $2.25
>same sets showing up at dollar stores
>sets being clearanced at other stores
>go to TRU
>still being sold with 20% markup

If TRU is going to survive bankruptcy, they need to scrub the "only game in town" attitude from their boardroom. It's as if they're still asking consumers in 2017, "Where else you gonna go?" There is some money to be made being known as the place of last resort, but it's a gambit and not a business plan.

>>6521856
>how fast would Hasbro die if they went from selling millions of action figures every year to a couple hundred thousand
Gee, i dunno.

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>>6517633
Toys R Us unlike ANY other retail job I've had the amount of sex between coworkers was pretty intense.

>>6521856
I hate to say this, I really do, but they would crash and burn. Collectors now are fucking cheap beyond belief. It doesn't matter that you or I would pay more, what matters is that 20 others would just drop out. That's an exponential curve.

I collect both ML/SWB and Figuarts. While I like Figuarts, I don't know that they're worth triple the price and they certainly aren't the end-all-be-all of action figures. Collectors like to shit all over the Hasbro 6-inch lines but the reality is that they're mostly very good figures. Even the nobodies. They could dump the BAF and plow the savings into cleaner paint apps (edges, in particular) and be spectacular. But they won't because that fucking BAF is what entices the autists and flippers into buying entire waves, sales desperately needed to offset the ocean of poorfaggotry surrounding them.

>>6520244
this my sister was a Manager at TRU up until a couple years ago and she repeatedly talked about how the baby stuff was most of the profit for the store she worked at

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>>6517626
Fuck, I work there.

>>6521673
>TRU hated paying overtime
Almost every fucking day i worked at Toys R Us we had to work overtime. Sometimes i even had to left the store two hours after it closed since we were only two guys working in the 500 so reshopping took a shitload of time.

>>6520244
>>6522082
Many of the pickups i had to do were for baby stuff like car seats(especially them), strollers, etc... One time we received like 60 boxes of car seats in one truck.

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My Toys R' Us closed 14 years ago, and the nearest one is an hour and half away.

I feel an odd mixture of apathy and sorrow

Do we just blame video games for this? Lego has the fucking minecraft license and megablocks has COD and Halo.

Do kids just not like toys anymore?

>>6522144
Too expensive

>>6522144
and there are some video game action figures around so toy companies are not stupid but no one is buying them

>>6522144
Kids today are too busy on their phones. The toy is now obsolete to the kid today, thinking some assbackwards amish kid plays with them only. I went to a rodeo and saw a kid watching a spiderman Elsa video, so it's practically gone to these kids. They'd rather watch other people unbox it then play with it themselves

>>6521897
They're losing out because everything is so fucking expensive. I would even go to the actual manhattan lego store to get stuff rather then TRU because they were cheaper! Those bastards raise the prices by 10 dollars and often lose out on them. Missed out on some good shit as well because my tru always had the most recognizable stuff and barely the sets you'd want

>>6522144
See, I don't know about that. My nephews like playing video games but they love playing with toys, too. The older one really enjoys fiddling with my Transformers toys and my younger one goes fucking apeshit to play with all my Amiibos (because you see, he loves video game characters but is awful at playing them, because he's 4).

More than what the KIDS want, it's more of a problem of what their parents are willing to buy them. Remember, kids don't generally have their own credit cards.

>>6520430
Parents these days are also crazy about getting everything NEW NEW NEW. I don't know if it's from shill parenting blogs or urban legends, but it's now apparently """ unsafe""" to use anything more than 2-3 years old. Like you will get fucking botulism from a structurally sound 4 year old crib or babby seat, or something. So you make sure your baby won't get its humors unbalanced, and throw a giant mountain of usable goods into a landfill. America, fuck yeah!

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I blame the corporations themselves. They want more profits, sell their products at higher prices, and pay their workers less and less. Workers have families and can't afford toys.

The rich are effectively ruining this country for a few extra pennies and then complaining that no one else has money to buy their crap.

As some one who is not of the us that go to TRU almost twice every week (the Flagship store in the country is just down the street from work) .

I don't know how strong strong the store is doing. There is almost no one besides Korean/Chinese/Hong Kong/Japanese tourists browse the store during weekday and even that are few in number.
Doing the weekend the store is pack with kids, but I don't know if that translates into actually sales
The price are horrible. They sell gunpla at almost 50% higher than mom and pop store, same with anything else new transformers, action figures. forest friends...
When they have a sale, the price usually only come down to what everyone else have been selling at.
Then you head to their online shop, the function and stock are shit.

>>6522297
don't forget parents who will reject a toy if the box is slightly dented, even if it's a hard to find item or a last minute gift they need by today
or opening a box "to make sure it has everything" then asking for an unopened one

Good. Their selection sucks. It's sucked for the last 20 years and their employees in the Orlando area are some of the most bitter and unknowledgeable people you'll ever meet.
It's TOYS-R Us yet their toy selection was all shit. What the fuck happened to gunpla, transformers and their RC selection? Maybe if they got in some better toys and hired some better people they wouldn't be headed for a seat next to K B Toys. A good R&D department wouldn't hurt either. Instead of pushing certain toys in regional areas give everyone the toys they want. Orlando area Toys R Us's after 2004 stocked next to nothing good, most of the crap they'd try to hock was targeted at babies or young kids while ignoring the older crowd that actually had disposable income. I had to go to shit places like Spencers to find things, and even that didn't work as well as it should have.
Face it, with Amazon dominating the shopping arena and having a HUGE selection there's no way Toys R Us is even going to be able to touch them.

>>6520087
BRU makes at least half of the company's profit, if not more. Why do you think so many remodeled/opened as side by side TRU/BRU's on the late 00's early 2010's? Because the baby market is what has been keeping them afloat. But now they're getting hit hard by competitors like BuybuyBaby on that front too.

>>6521873
>>6521900
Yeah, but they're going to have to do things differently if there's no retailers any more to carry their inventory.

These companies are going to have to adapt or die. The only people who care about action figures at this point are crusty old fucks like us.

>>6517626
The one in my town is always empty, even on weekends.

But after seeing how they completely fumbled trying to compete with Gamestop and Best Buy on video games, I'm honestly surprised this didn't happen sooner

>>6517633
>>6521920
Well shit, I passed up applying there a year ago when they had a position open...

>>6522349
My area has a BRU/TRU cross store and it gets more profits from the BRU department. Nobody really cares about TRU anymore

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>>6522397
>Go to empty tru years ago
>section of scooters and bikes
>one of the razor bikes wasn't turned off
>decide to ride it
>have a blast on this small scooter for 25 minutes at 8pm in November

And that was when I was in college. The store didn't give a shit at all. That's the only beauty of having a tru empty

>>6517626
I work with kids and the only toys they buy anymore are Shopkins. Few months ago it was fidget spinners and Roblox toys. Before that it was anything pokemon or Five nights. Before that it was Minecraft. Also legos. But the point is kids dont play with toys anymore. They watch youtubers and play shitty smartphone games and thats about it.

>>6522334
>>6522348

Speaking of gunpla, if toysrus did carry gunpla again in the u.s. it would immediately fail and it would probably spook bandai AGAIN. There is absolutely no way anyone would buy it at their reg price given that the price at toysrus is naturally higher, and veryone would price to match for amazon.

>>6522647
I can confirm this. Had an ex with a spoiled brat of a child (possibly some sort of autistic, but that's my unprofessional diagnosis) and she was initially obsessed with Lego so I bought her most of the Mixels (probably one of the most original lines they've done in years), but by the time wave three came out, I only got her two of the tribes because it was like pulling teeth to get her to even open them, let alone build the fucking things. She became obsessed with Minecraft along with the other fads that kids were shitting their pants about. She even stopped playing Minecraft to watch some uninteresting jackass play it on Youtube. Whenever she was around, the TV was immediately controlled solely by her and that meant I just put my headphones on and did my own thing on my computer. Once her mom and I broke up, she asked why she never got the third tribe and I told her that I realized she didn't care about them and didn't bother wasting my money. I hated that fucking little shit. I learned a number of valuable lessons from that whole ordeal.

>>6522144
kids like imaginext and lego about on par with tablets and handheld consoles

electronics don't replace toys, they're just another option

>>6522811
I dont think its necesaarily a replacement, but a substitute for activity that give fun. Time is split between games and toys, when in our childhood days it was mostly dominated by toys

>>6522734
but what were the lessons

>>6522868
Never date a single mother.
Never have kids.
Don't even associate with children for any longer than you have to.
Vapers are just as shitty as cigarette junkies.
Just because it was a decent lay, doesn't mean it will be a worthwhile relationship.

Your results may vary.

All joke aside, I have suspicions that in this day and age, most kids seem to suffer from some form of autism or ADD or something. Probably a combination of all the chemicals that get put into their favorite sugary snacks and soda, bad parenting with the parents planting the kids in front of the TV/Video Games/Tablet to keep the little shits occupied while mommy has a little bit of "medicine" from the bottle and Daddy's out fucking mom's hotter friend.

Kid's interests are so fleeting and fickle these days that they absolutely HAVE to have whatever is the hottest and coolest toy on the market right now, then next week they forget it even exists and are onto the next shiny little trinket.

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>>6519467
You pack it in the bowl of your beer bong, duh.

Then after you hit a load you inject a marijuana

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>>6517626
I wish they'd promote sales more. The ones I go to rarely ever have sales, and if they do it barely meets MSRP. They usually have a good movie/misc. toy area, but the rest of the stuff barely moves it seems like. They stock really well during Christmas so I know it's not an issue of availability.

Also all their stuff is usually a few dollars more than it should be, assuming they have what you're looking for. For a specialty store you'd think the items would be cheaper, right? I'm not a business person so maybe I'm wrong.

The only reason I've been in a Toys R Us at all this year is because I got a gift card for $100. I've only bought Lego Minifigures and an Xbox keyboard attachment. If I didn't have that card, I probably wouldn't step foot inside. It's not that I hate the place, I just have no reason to go inside other than this gift card.

>>6522900
>some form of autism
Do yourself a favor, and actually do some research on mental illnesses. Your use of the word autism implies you know nothing about it, like most of this board. Autism has become a buzzword, and more and more people *think* they are using it correctly. Most of the symptoms people here call autism are actully forms of OCD behavior.

>>6522948
>Also all their stuff is usually a few dollars more than it should be, assuming they have what you're looking for. For a specialty store you'd think the items would be cheaper, right? I'm not a business person so maybe I'm wrong.

That only works if you profit from bulk sales. Which doesn't happen in the toy industry anymore.

Instead, it's Walmart and Amazon slashing prices, because they can profit from selling non toy shit.

If TRU dies, watch. Those 2 will raise prices on everything.

>>6522881
>Vapers are just as shitty as cigarette junkies.
very true

>>6519623
>>it's all $7 keychains, $5 id card lanyards, and $3 mini notebooks
>That shit will sit there until the end of time.
they need to partner with loot crate or one of those gimmick loot box companies, they have so much crap that fits well in them boxes. They can even create their own loot box service that comes with some autistic shit like dlc for a mobile phone game that kids play
boom I just saved the company

>>6522734
I've seen this happen. It's sad when the kid dictates shit. You feel like you've lost when the media like YouTube takes your kid and their controlled to get shit. Remember chew on this? That book explained how brand recognition got into the kids minds, and often would dictate their choices. We are experiencing this at such an extent that could make these kids not even human, but almost like a machine with no mind or free will

>>6522948
Lemme guess, you live in some place that doesn't have many people? Where I go, the shit that's worth something often isn't there. You need to be there at store opening just to get that one thing you'd want. At least I don't go on Black Friday. That'll fuck you up even more around here

>>6518592
Weren't they looking for an plastic substitute?

>>6519696
>>6519750
I brought my first sega genesis and game boy color at Zellers was kinda sad when Target took over later it closed down now it's a Canadian Tire store

>>6518592
I see nothing wrong with this since it's fucking overpriced

>>6522900
how's it feel to use the same broken arguments your grandparents fell back on?

i work with kids with autism, and you don't know shit.

>>6517626
>>6518592
So...this...is...the power...of...American Capitalism

Whoa

>>>/fa/12740701

>>6523768
I know kids with autism are horrible and annoying to deal with. You can have them all.

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>>6519623
>I know that feeling. Worthless licensed shit is the maker of broken dreams.
A thousand times this. Who thought this was a good idea?

>Go to local TRU this afternoon
>Actually pretty populated, feels like it used to back when I was a kid
I think what anon said earlier about them needing to cut their hours down might be a good plan, they probably do a lot better in the midday range.

Also, maybe this whole thing is less a problem of just how the company's run and more a systemic issue about how wages haven't been rising to meet inflation. Shit costs more but people aren't getting more money to pay for it.

>>6523777
Yes, if you have a shit business plan and no one wants your crap then you will fail.

They're the only place I can reliably find new Transformers, so this would seriously suck.

>>6523777
It's not from capitalism. It's from idiots rather going online to buy stuff then to a store. The idea of a store is dying because of amazon and yahoo

>>6523948
I don't go to often, but they just look dead. The bru is more active then them though

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>>6517626
Can't say I'm terribly supprised I remember playing with my toys back in the day and using clay and lego to make things I didn't have.now the only toys I see kids with are fucking spinner toys or technophobe parents with children who understand what a toy is. I feel like toys are going the way of plate armor completely obsolete and only the lovers of it care anymore. But hey maybe the toy companies will realize that only collectors are buying toys now and we will see more collector quality stuff come out albeit at a slower rate

Slowly the internet will kill all retail stores.

Eventually everything will be online I'm sure.

>>6524236
I still go to stores believe or not I can't afford to pay shipping and handling

>>6522647
Might as well add my own little story. I have a niece that came over for 4th of July, my dad (her granddad) took her to the story and she got a giant Barbie doll. What does she do most of the time she was here? Play on his phone (nearly clogged the thing with app games). Told him not to buy the doll, but dude has a big heart. (I was also able to get him to pry her away from fnaf by explaining that the story deals with child murder, so there's that).

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>>6523823
I'm surprised that isn't an 80% off "bargain" on Hollar.

>>6517626
Who fucking cares?
Retail stores are a dying breed.
Fuck em, and good riddance.
Also, deus vult.

>>6517691
Why don't you take your dumbass over to Amazon.com and fulfill your pathetic life there and waste mommy's shekels.

>>6524540
Time to get out of the basement, Christina.

>>6517626
TRU doesnt have a weekly ad again. im worried

>>6524632
You know they raise the price on things days before an ad comes out, right?

You never actually save money. They just change things to make you think they do. Doing price changes every week was a bitch.

>>6522881
>Never have kids
No, have your own kids

>>6523001
There was nothing wrong with the context he used it in, you triggered faggot

>>6522147

This. Give yourself a $50 budget and go to TRU and try to find a decent amount of cool shit you wouldn't mind getting destroyed in a sandbox through robust play.

I can get a lot more mileage raiding MOC/MIB 90s Star Wars toys from downsizing collectors and the kids don't like them any less. A $2 Darth Vader is still Darth Vader, and nobody cares if a $2 stormtrooper spends a summer outside and gets yellow.

>>6522147
TRU purposely makes itself too expensive.

>>6524907
>No, have your own kids
>My own special little snowflakes will be inherently better than the other little sheep.

No, NEVER have the little shit factories. They're wastes of space.

>>6525173
I find a good compromise is to have a trustworthy sibling that has them. My nephews are great but the littlest one can be a pushy motherfucker when he wants to be, so having to only spend a limited amount of time with them tends to be best. Also makes all my toys seem like cool rarities to them so they appreciate them more.

>>6521856
I think they'd do amazing with mail order but you just can't trust them not to cheap out and pull a Matty.

>>6522900
That doesn't sound any different then when I was a kid and I'm in my fucking thirties.

>>6524283
Gas prices alone make it pointless for most states.

>>6525178
> tfw you rely almost entirely on sarcasm and ridicule that you simply can't even communicate with children.

>>6523806
All kids are horrible and annoying to deal with.

>>6524129
Funny how you made the leap from wages not following inflation to capitalism. That's actually what's happening. The growing wealth gap is leading to alot of decisions being made by people totally ignorant of their effects on people who aren't billionaire shareholders.

>>6525428
except the reason wages aren't going up is because there are more people looking for jobs than there are jobs. Wages increase when there is more jobs than people looking for them that's why where I live that has a less than 1% unemployment rate the starting wage at Taco Bell ($14 an hour) is nearly twice the minimum wage that's capitalism

>>6522900
no that's how all kids are always and have been. the difference is 100+ years ago they had to help with the everyday tasks that families had to do to survive or they just ran around keeping themselves occupied. Hell when I was 6-7 I was outside playing, climbing trees and doing stuff all the time. Long as I stayed on our block parents were fine with it Now you let your kid outside unsupervised the cops get called on you for child endangerment

>>6525590
wages weren't going up relative to similar periods of employment levels before the recession.

Wage stagnation has been an issue for nearly thirty years now.

>>6525590
Well when a billionaire who doesn't work turns five jobs into one job and doesn't see the issue (because they've never worked 8 hours a day, let alone 40 hours in 8 hours), of course there will be fewer jobs than people looking for jobs.

Oh, and we still have businesses crying that they can't find workers. How would that happen if there was a surplus of workers? Oh, right, they're looking for astrophysicists to serve coffee three hours a day twice a week at $7.15 with no benefits.

I mean, I get this from my mother all the time. She think that because she can drag 40 folders from her C drive to the recycle bin in 30 seconds, a person in real life can move 40 cartons of documents to the shredder in 30 second too. It doesn't work that way. But when you are totally divorced from physical labor, time restraints, and the need to budget income that doesn't overwhelm your bills like space Marines vs a paintball club, reality and your perception of it start to part ways.

>>6525173
yeah, a doctor would probably agree that you specifically shouldn't reproduce

>>6525243
>That doesn't sound any different then when I was a kid and I'm in my fucking thirties.
YEP!

Fucking nothing changes, even teenagers who think they're better than younger kids.

>>6524907
Yeah, add to the 7.5 billion population and force a being into existence! Great idea!

>>6522144
I remember years ago during the Holidays, I was watching TV and a news reporter asked a kid what he wanted for Christmas and he responded a bling-bling. A fucking bling-bling WTF and he was like 6-8 years old.

>>6522326
This apply to everything now days DESU

>>6522144
kids are constantly asking for no-brand things they've seen on youtube like slime or squishies

>>6519328
Oh boy

>>6526192
*AND* Guitar Center.

Why does that matter? Look at their condition now. Not good either.

>>6519328
It's over then. Bain Capitol will allow TRU to die under the weight of unpayable loans while the people at Bain will get cash out of it. Just like KB Toys.

>>6524899
they had like 30% of the mega bloks and the imaginext toys last week. i guess they hike when it's BOGO, and some toys between sales are like 3$ more, but saving like at least 3$ or more is still a good incentive.

You know, on the nostalgia side, it's sad to consider life without Toys R Us existing.

On the other hand, it gives me an excuse not to go inside them looking for transformers toys and just end up wasting my time when they don't have anything worth getting

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I'm not surprised saw figures like this in target and Disney toys etc at JCpenny ever since 2007

>>6517626
I feel like its a bad storm of a lot of things. A lot of what anons have said about TRU is true, but a lot of toy sales tie into movies and the movie industry is hemorrhaging with old, shit tier remakes ie SW, Ghostbusters, etc. and distributors like Mattel and Hasbro have been cutting back on quality so yeah. All that clogs up pegs and they dont sell. Collectors go to TRU, see the same shit over and over and stop going and order online. Its not looking pretty for TRU unless they remodel. If I were them Id restructure them so their video game selection is up to date, include models, jap fig toy lines, and limit the amount of gimmick shit they tend to buy like Star Wars Airhogs and such.

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Fuck, I'm a Poortuguesefag and TRU is literally the only retail chain exclusively selling toys around here. How the fuck am I going to get Transformers now?

>>6517626
fucking hell