[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Moore

That’s a tougher thing to do. I lived thru numerous huge corporations closing, and those spaces are all eyesores. Circuit City, HH Gregg, Borders, Phar Mor, Comp USA. I suspect the same will happen here.

Yeah, same here. Those ended up getting torn down mostly and rebuilt into something new.

But I am hoping that some TRUs could be rehabbed, unlike some of the others that had such designer locations and shapes, TRU has been keeping a more open windowed front design that's more open to an internal redesign. But really, only select locations may be open to that kind of redesign. Some areas may not be as open to it or it may incur some excess other costs.

Do wonder what this does to any last minute exclusives orders though. Like now with Arcee and Grotusque, what's going to happen to any overstock of those or future outlets for them?

Quote:

Originally Posted by donmeca2020

Explain HOW it's not the same as other toy retailers biting the bullet? Why because there will be no stores just dedicated to toys ? You do realize walmart,target,even the disney store sells toys. How about BBTS, dorkside, entertainment earth? I could keep going but im sure you get my gist.

As others pointed out, TRU was open to more diverse selections whereas bigger retail chains that handle more than toys typically aren't.

For example the recent Robocop movie line was pretty much only at Toys R Us. And there are other lines like that too. And the fact TRU (locally at least) had started offering an imported goods section was also a godsend. Target and Walmart aren't going to have that same kind of impulse shopping selection. Or for that matter, the 3 foot tall Godzilla again when the other Godzilla movies come out.

I don't know about you, but I'm not looking forward to having to pay shipping on Titan class city formers from transformers, or those other bigger releases like the upcoming Predaking, let alone how much shipping on a 3 foot tall godzilla would cost since I missed it the first time around. That's also not counting the hype sales from things like Pacific Rim 2 or similar movies. Toylines that other stores may not carry and will be relegated to online or overpriced specialty shops only.

Toys R Us closing is a sad day for a lot of future toyline potentials that may not have the same kind of big backing a blockbuster or long established brandname could give it. Which will make it harder to create new top-tier brand names from the ground up, and will mean further toy shelf dominance by the main big 3 of Mattel, Hasbro, and Lego.

This kind of massive shift will also mean other shifts in toy dynamics. TRU was a backbone of a lot of material to get case orders into higher numbers to allow them to get made. So we will see a gradual shift as those numbers backtrack because of the lack of general audience sales. Which means higher rarity on items, and higher prices as less are produced. General public sales are what were offsetting a lot of production costs and that's gone now for many lines without Toys R Us.

The back saddled debt was the main issue even if sales had started to climb. They had some great store moves to try and bring things to consumers they may not have gotten otherwise, and personally, I was looking forward to more of that as well.

It's thanks to TRU that GI Joe regained prominence, and even in it's last legs as a franchise, it was thanks to TRU we got some of those last packs with some neat new characters. It's thanks to TRU we got those Transformers boxsets, and exclusives, it was thanks to TRU we had gotten marvel movie 4'' still in two-packs and how well it sustained through them managed to get Target to pick up the video game ones, and the wider releases of the movie 2 packs now. Direct market sales are a niche that aren't that sustainable, it's the general market sales that made so much attainable.