9 ms·

It makes sense, the brand is still worth tons of money, just needs to be managed very differently in a post-Amazon world.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> the brand is still worth tons of money What is the value in the brand? They don't manufacture anything - the product all comes from third parties and they're just a middleman dumping it on a shelf for you to come and pick up. They don't do anything else. Where's the value?
- dpeck 7y ago
  They provide a curated experience in the purchasing of artifacts for the purposes of entertainment for generation alpha.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > They provide a curated experience You've got to be joking - it's was just a big cold warehouse in a cheap out-of-town location stocking whatever. It wasn't Hamleys.
    - jquery 7y ago
      There's no doubt that Toys 'R' Us could've been vastly improved, but it was a great idea in its time. It just got left behind as tastes and technology advanced. For many parents (such as myself) with fond memories of Toys 'R' Us, I would gladly take my child to a 2019 version of the idea.
- jmull 7y ago
  The brand isn't something tangible they do. It's the cumulative effect of the marketing, public relations and other experiences people have had with it (including actual shopping). After doing it reasonably well for decades we're at the point where for millions of people, when they think to themselves "I need some toys, where should I look?", Toys R Us is one of the top answers that occurs to them. If you can follow though by delivering a decent shopping experience, that's going to lead to a lot of money.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    But were't these things negatives for Toys R Us? Everyone joked about how desolate the stores were, and how they had fifty checkouts but only ever one open. My memory is of grimy miserable warehouses.
    - jquery 7y ago
      Some of your opinion seems dependent on the economic or social class you lived in growing up. My memory of Toys 'R' Us is in reading the front/back of every single "Seal of Nintendo" game available. As I kid I didn't know better options existed, and indeed probably did not exist where I grew up.
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        Maybe it’s regional then - everyone I know thought it was the worst kind of lazy retail and it was long overdue to take it out back with a shotgun.
        diminoten 7y ago
        A brand is a brand; the fact that you know what it is and you know what you're getting when you walk into the store is valuable, especially for Toys R Us who aren't actually making any of those toys they sell. Even if TRU has a bad association with the experience, no one is going to care where you got your Hot Wheels once you have them.
      - Jach 7y ago
        It's bizarre to me that people have memories of Toys R Us related to video games as I've never thought of it as a place for such... As a kid all my game-browsing memories were in one of the big stores with an Electronics department, or most commonly the various rental stores and chains (popularly but not exclusively Blockbuster) or rental sections of grocery stores where I could not just look at them but also sometimes get to rent one. Blockbuster even had a reasonably priced deal at one point when I was older that I convinced my mom to get me where you could rent "unlimited" (limited to 2 or 3 at a time) games for a few months, that summer was great for my gaming habit. The only thing Toys R Us has ever been to my mind is "well the electronics department and toy department of [current store] doesn't have [thing], maybe Toys R Us does?" And that could be solved with a phone call, or now, the internet. Product discovery was from ads in parents' newspapers (I suppose some of them may have been Toys R Us ads and it's possible some of my Extreme Dinosaurs figures originated there before being wrapped by Santa) and rarely from wandering the aforementioned department aisles.
- jquery 7y ago
  Curation is valuable. Amazon is a great utility, yes, but they aren't great at curation, nor do they offer the "physicality" of objects that is especially appealing with respect to toys. Toys are, by definition, "non-functional" goods, so being able to see/touch them offers more value than being able to see/touch a purely functional item.
  - silversconfused 7y ago
    Curation in particular seems to be Amazon's Achilles heel. They have no problem showing you pages of knockoffs when you are seeking a specific item. Then when purchased, you get to play comingle roulette!
neaden 7y ago
It's important to remember that Toys R Us was basically fine as a company, and was murdered by vulture capitalists who looted it. https://theweek.com/articles/761124/how-vulture-capitalists-ate-toys-r https://theweek.com/articles/761124/how-vulture-capitalists-...
verisimilidude 7y ago
Toys R Us went down due to private equity shell games. I’m not sure if they could’ve survived the Amazon era, but they never got the chance. For what it’s worth, we went to Toys/Babies R Us all the time when our daughter was born six years ago. When you’re out of diapers or the bottle breaks or you need a last-minute birthday present for a friend’s party, you need supply in 30 minutes; even same-day isn’t fast enough. The stores filled that role for my family. Amazon has struggled to launch their own line of diapers and baby products multiple times, they shuttered the Quidsi acquisition after they couldn’t make it work, etc. I don’t think it’s foregone that Toys R Us would’ve become another one of their victims.
- AgloeDreams 7y ago
  While this was 90% VC based, I will say that this is one of the good situations to show that competition isn't really that good for the consumer. Amazon's loss leading methods (helps) kill other companies whereas the companies killed might have filled important roles that are not directly filled by others. Another good example is tablets. Amazon pushed the tablet game down to $49.99 which created a nightmarish expectation in customers as to what the price of a tablet should be while at the same time showing customers a low quality product, thus throwing customers to neither pay for a high end product and believing that tablets are low quality, killing all competitor's sales.
  - bradknowles 7y ago
    And that is why Apple refuses to go bottom feeding on their iPad prices. Whatever you may think of iPad quality versus the competition, you can't argue with them deciding to keep premium pricing.
    - diminoten 7y ago
      iPads are like ~$300 now, they're definitely diving way deeper than they used to.
- Noos 7y ago
  There were other toy retailers, though. Kay-bee Toys comes to mind. Toys in general were hammered by the rise of discount retailers like Wal-Mart and Online

chrisseaton 7y ago

> the brand is still worth tons of money What is the value in the brand? They don't manufacture anything - the product all comes from third parties and they're just a middleman dumping it on a shelf for you to come and pick up. They don't do anything else. Where's the value?

dpeck 7y ago
They provide a curated experience in the purchasing of artifacts for the purposes of entertainment for generation alpha.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > They provide a curated experience You've got to be joking - it's was just a big cold warehouse in a cheap out-of-town location stocking whatever. It wasn't Hamleys.
  - jquery 7y ago
    There's no doubt that Toys 'R' Us could've been vastly improved, but it was a great idea in its time. It just got left behind as tastes and technology advanced. For many parents (such as myself) with fond memories of Toys 'R' Us, I would gladly take my child to a 2019 version of the idea.
jmull 7y ago
The brand isn't something tangible they do. It's the cumulative effect of the marketing, public relations and other experiences people have had with it (including actual shopping). After doing it reasonably well for decades we're at the point where for millions of people, when they think to themselves "I need some toys, where should I look?", Toys R Us is one of the top answers that occurs to them. If you can follow though by delivering a decent shopping experience, that's going to lead to a lot of money.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  But were't these things negatives for Toys R Us? Everyone joked about how desolate the stores were, and how they had fifty checkouts but only ever one open. My memory is of grimy miserable warehouses.
  - jquery 7y ago
    Some of your opinion seems dependent on the economic or social class you lived in growing up. My memory of Toys 'R' Us is in reading the front/back of every single "Seal of Nintendo" game available. As I kid I didn't know better options existed, and indeed probably did not exist where I grew up.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      Maybe it’s regional then - everyone I know thought it was the worst kind of lazy retail and it was long overdue to take it out back with a shotgun.
      - diminoten 7y ago
        A brand is a brand; the fact that you know what it is and you know what you're getting when you walk into the store is valuable, especially for Toys R Us who aren't actually making any of those toys they sell. Even if TRU has a bad association with the experience, no one is going to care where you got your Hot Wheels once you have them.
    - Jach 7y ago
      It's bizarre to me that people have memories of Toys R Us related to video games as I've never thought of it as a place for such... As a kid all my game-browsing memories were in one of the big stores with an Electronics department, or most commonly the various rental stores and chains (popularly but not exclusively Blockbuster) or rental sections of grocery stores where I could not just look at them but also sometimes get to rent one. Blockbuster even had a reasonably priced deal at one point when I was older that I convinced my mom to get me where you could rent "unlimited" (limited to 2 or 3 at a time) games for a few months, that summer was great for my gaming habit. The only thing Toys R Us has ever been to my mind is "well the electronics department and toy department of [current store] doesn't have [thing], maybe Toys R Us does?" And that could be solved with a phone call, or now, the internet. Product discovery was from ads in parents' newspapers (I suppose some of them may have been Toys R Us ads and it's possible some of my Extreme Dinosaurs figures originated there before being wrapped by Santa) and rarely from wandering the aforementioned department aisles.
jquery 7y ago
Curation is valuable. Amazon is a great utility, yes, but they aren't great at curation, nor do they offer the "physicality" of objects that is especially appealing with respect to toys. Toys are, by definition, "non-functional" goods, so being able to see/touch them offers more value than being able to see/touch a purely functional item.
- silversconfused 7y ago
  Curation in particular seems to be Amazon's Achilles heel. They have no problem showing you pages of knockoffs when you are seeking a specific item. Then when purchased, you get to play comingle roulette!

neaden 7y ago

It's important to remember that Toys R Us was basically fine as a company, and was murdered by vulture capitalists who looted it. https://theweek.com/articles/761124/how-vulture-capitalists-ate-toys-r https://theweek.com/articles/761124/how-vulture-capitalists-...

verisimilidude 7y ago

Toys R Us went down due to private equity shell games. I’m not sure if they could’ve survived the Amazon era, but they never got the chance. For what it’s worth, we went to Toys/Babies R Us all the time when our daughter was born six years ago. When you’re out of diapers or the bottle breaks or you need a last-minute birthday present for a friend’s party, you need supply in 30 minutes; even same-day isn’t fast enough. The stores filled that role for my family. Amazon has struggled to launch their own line of diapers and baby products multiple times, they shuttered the Quidsi acquisition after they couldn’t make it work, etc. I don’t think it’s foregone that Toys R Us would’ve become another one of their victims.

AgloeDreams 7y ago
While this was 90% VC based, I will say that this is one of the good situations to show that competition isn't really that good for the consumer. Amazon's loss leading methods (helps) kill other companies whereas the companies killed might have filled important roles that are not directly filled by others. Another good example is tablets. Amazon pushed the tablet game down to $49.99 which created a nightmarish expectation in customers as to what the price of a tablet should be while at the same time showing customers a low quality product, thus throwing customers to neither pay for a high end product and believing that tablets are low quality, killing all competitor's sales.
- bradknowles 7y ago
  And that is why Apple refuses to go bottom feeding on their iPad prices. Whatever you may think of iPad quality versus the competition, you can't argue with them deciding to keep premium pricing.
  - diminoten 7y ago
    iPads are like ~$300 now, they're definitely diving way deeper than they used to.
Noos 7y ago
There were other toy retailers, though. Kay-bee Toys comes to mind. Toys in general were hammered by the rise of discount retailers like Wal-Mart and Online