I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us Kid!
either.
A little bit of sadness had hit me after hearing that the last semblance of a store that
catered to selling toys is about to shut its doors. No longer will we see aisles dedicated to
action figures, dolls, games, bikes, Lego’s, and baby items that Toys ‘R’ Us had done on
a grand scale for so many years.
Like the Kiddie City and Kay Bee stores from years ago, Toys ‘R’ Us will close around
800 stores in the United States due to financial woes that have plagued the company,
since the early 2000’s. They are also shutting down their United Kingdom division as
well.
I’m not going to go into a lot of detail why this happened, other than being lumped with a
ton of debt from their investors. I know the reasons, and that’s not what this blog is really
about. Having all that debt prevented the company from investing in new business
models or ideas, thus not allowing them to compete with the Walmart stores and ever
growing presence of online shopping,
I have a ton of memories shopping there from the early days of 80’s collecting. When I
had one of my earliest jobs in South Philadelphia, I would run over to Toys R Us, which
was only a two minute walk, while on my break or lunch to get the next Transformer that
was on the shelf. It was a spectacle to see all those different figures lined up and down in
one place! Along with Transformers, shelves were full of G.I. Joes, M.A.S.K.,
Thundercats, Star Wars, and other figures just to name a few. The scale of having so
many of these different lines always blew me away.
When I started my family, I adjusted my collecting a little bit. Now along with getting
Optimus Prime, diapers and baby wipes were in tow.
I remember as my son was getting bigger, we would check out the action figure aisle to
get the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures, which changed over to wrestling
figures, which changed over to Power Rangers, which moved over to the Game Boy
Pokemon games and trading card game. God knows how much I spent over the years
there.
One of my favorite memories was Toys R Us running the Pokemon trading card game
league. Kids from all over the area would meet at the store every week to play the game
against each other, trade cards with each other, and of course, buy more cards. I took my
son down for the weekly event, and we would always find ways to improve his game
strategy. I don’t think we ever walked out of Toys ‘R’ Us empty handed.
The employee that ran the league at our store was a neighbor, and she always made
events fun for the kids, so they would want to come back. Sometimes if the battles were
short a player, the employee asked me to jump in to play. Glad I knew how to play the
game. Eventually, Toys R Us stopped running the league, and took the employee off the
events. They tried other events, but the store eventually stopped all together. That was a
shame. I think it would have given the stores more foot traffic, had they continued these
type of events on a regular basis.
Another awesome memory was building a TechnoZoids Iron Kong with my son. It was a
great way for him to learn on how to follow instructions, and build things. The payoff
was getting my G1 Trypticon and having him face off against his Iron Kong to see who
could knock each other over first. Both toys had the motorized walking features, so it was
fun for both of us to have the figures fight. I think I actually video recorded one of the
fights…ha ha! Toys R Us had a ton of those TechnoZoids kits, so we would grab more
from there to build, and take on the motorized toy challenge again.
As my son got out of toys and card games, my daughter became interested in those
things. From my action figure collecting to playing Pokemon, she became another Toys
‘R’ Us kid along with her old man. Our times walking down to the mall together,
grabbing a lunch, and stopping off at Toys R Us to see what they had next will always be
cherished memories for me. I think it allowed me to connect with my kids on many
different levels, and it still carries over to this day.
When I look back on those days, I realize that stores today, whether brick & mortar or
online, will never really be able to duplicate what a toy store provided. Sure they sell
toys, maybe even at cheaper prices, but they lack any kind of atmosphere. Walmart and
Target are stores that happen to sell some toys. They only occasionally do some type of
promotional event when it’s tied into a movie release. Amazon is even less personal with
the item being available at your fingertips for convenience. I guess I’m a bit old
fashioned as today’s stores lack that personal touch.
One other thing that crossed my mind, toy companies will be vying for shelf presence,
once Toys R Us closes. Big companies like Hasbro and Mattel will miss all that shelf
space that helped them keep brand exposure. Smaller companies will look for other
venues to sell their items. Collector items will most likely be available at specialty shops
or online stores. Shelf space at the other chains will either be limited, or added space will
come at a premium, which will most likely raise costs, which in turn will be passed on to
the consumer. It sucks, but I think it will happen.
I also feel bad for the 33,000 employees that will be losing their jobs soon, most without
severance. Some of them are friends who knew me by first name, because my family
frequented the store so much. They worked there for many years, and few places are
going to hire or even offer the same pay rate to older workers, when they can higher
younger for the minimum. I’m really hoping most can rebound from this.
In my final thoughts on the closing, it’s the end of an era. Toy stores of this scale will be
a thing of the past. I wouldn’t be surprised if toy manufacturers jointly buy the Toys R Us
name and open a store at a slightly smaller scale, but just enough to push their brands. It
still won’t be the same. The next generation of kids, their families and future collectors
won’t get to experience all the things I enjoyed about Toys ‘R’ US.
As a kid, parent, and collector, thank you for the all the Transformers, Star Wars, G.I.
Joe, Spawn, Marvel Superheroes, Batman, Hulk, Spider-Man, Marvel Legends, DC
Universe, Godzilla action figures, stuffed animals, Pokemon, trading cards, video games,
diapers, baby formula, baby bottles, a couple baby strollers, all the employees I got to
know over the years (Jerri and Mike especially), and anything else I forgot to mention.
Toys ‘R’ Us will be missed by this kid who doesn’t want to grow up.
PC1
