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The thing that's really lacking to me in online toy stores is, I guess, discoverability. Amazon can give you a list of all the Transformers, or all the Legos, i

The thing that's really lacking to me in online toy stores is, I guess, discoverability. Amazon can give you a list of all the Transformers, or all the Legos, in an instant, and with a bit of prodding it does an acceptable job of showing you the current top-selling toys, but it's impossible to walk down an aisle at Amazon and see something awesome that you've never heard of.

spockz 8y ago
VR could en a thing here for Amazon. Instead of seeing endless lists, just walk down the isles virtually. Maybe accompanied by some cheerful sounds of kids playing in the background to set the mood and incentive to buy.
sitepodmatt 8y ago
At least with books, Goodreads takes care of that.
krallja 8y ago
I went to our neighborhood Toys-R-Us to be a vulture, and discovered quite a few toys I wouldn’t have considered purchasing otherwise. Of course, the 40-70% discounts helped a lot.
- amyjess 8y ago
  Same here. I went there to soak in childhood nostalgia one last time before it closed, and I was surprised by a) all the things I saw there that I would have never heard of otherwise and B) all the random things I have vague memories from when I was a kid that are still around. And it made me feel profoundly sad that that experience will be gone forever soon. Soon, it'll just be the top brand names that anyone will have ever heard of and the random weird stuff will all be gone. I'm talking about the toys that you had growing up that you never knew what they were called but you had because your parents passed by it at random and went "ooh, that looks interesting, I bet [kid's name] will like this".
suresk 8y ago
Yeah, my wife and I are definitely disappointed they could find a way to make it work, largely because of discoverability. It definitely made it easy to find new toys, see how they would look/feel in person, etc. Others stores just don't have the selection they did and the experience on Amazon isn't as easy. Another thing is knowing the quality of stuff you are getting. Of course, plenty of cheap crap gets sold at Toys-R-Us and elsewhere, but some of the stuff on Amazon is in a league of its own in terms of poor quality and I suspect it will continue to get worse.

spockz 8y ago

VR could en a thing here for Amazon. Instead of seeing endless lists, just walk down the isles virtually. Maybe accompanied by some cheerful sounds of kids playing in the background to set the mood and incentive to buy.

sitepodmatt 8y ago

At least with books, Goodreads takes care of that.

krallja 8y ago

I went to our neighborhood Toys-R-Us to be a vulture, and discovered quite a few toys I wouldn’t have considered purchasing otherwise. Of course, the 40-70% discounts helped a lot.

amyjess 8y ago
Same here. I went there to soak in childhood nostalgia one last time before it closed, and I was surprised by a) all the things I saw there that I would have never heard of otherwise and B) all the random things I have vague memories from when I was a kid that are still around. And it made me feel profoundly sad that that experience will be gone forever soon. Soon, it'll just be the top brand names that anyone will have ever heard of and the random weird stuff will all be gone. I'm talking about the toys that you had growing up that you never knew what they were called but you had because your parents passed by it at random and went "ooh, that looks interesting, I bet [kid's name] will like this".

suresk 8y ago

Yeah, my wife and I are definitely disappointed they could find a way to make it work, largely because of discoverability. It definitely made it easy to find new toys, see how they would look/feel in person, etc. Others stores just don't have the selection they did and the experience on Amazon isn't as easy. Another thing is knowing the quality of stuff you are getting. Of course, plenty of cheap crap gets sold at Toys-R-Us and elsewhere, but some of the stuff on Amazon is in a league of its own in terms of poor quality and I suspect it will continue to get worse.