9 ms·

The death of the brick and mortar toy store

165 points by speckx 6mo ago

JohnFen 6mo ago
In my area, while there are certainly fewer game/toy stores than there used to be, the ones that are left are doing great and are always busy.
moparts 6mo ago
I’m surprised physical toys are still a thing. We have a boutique toy store in our neighborhood. Expensive wooden things from Europe. I see lots of old people buying toys for grandkids. I hope they are well loved and not just tossed.
- greenavocado 6mo ago
  What dense urban core do you live in?
strict9 6mo ago
My experience in a large US city is surprisingly the opposite. The toy stores I visit are doing great. I suspect this is is because a large portion of their business is for birthday parties. I assumed many or most were gone because of Amazon. But after having kids and getting gifts for birthday parties, I've learned there are a lot of them and they are doing healthy business. Almost always a line on weekends. Many or most in line take advantage of free gift wrap because they're on their way to a party. In many ways it is more convenient than Amazon because you're going out anyway, why not get it at the last second with careful gift wrapping. But even a recent trip to the suburbs surprised me. The Lego store in the mall had a velvet rope and long line of kids waiting to get in. I had never seen anything like this and apparently it is usually this busy.
- conductr 6mo ago
  I have a 7 year old and for the past 3-4 years we make a weekly pilgrimage to a local boutique toy store specifically for birthday party gifts. It’s usually packed with others just like us doing exactly the same thing. They do provide the free wrapping service and they slap their story sticker on every box and it’s a good marketing strategy. But they also stock toys that are pretty unique and change the stock frequently, every kid we know practically has every toy you’d see at a place like Target. Their toy section seems to have been the same the entire time. Occasionally a new movie related toy comes and goes and a couple new big toy trends have entered but generally it’s all the same. Even the baby toys they sell are the same ones my kid had and has outgrown years ago. I’m not certain what their strategy is but it’s definitely not a good shopping experience for maximizing LTV of a childhood. We also have the Lego store with the velvet ropes and always queued in our neighborhood mall. Now the only observation I can say is this really only seems to work in affluent suburbs only. My neighborhood mall just so happens to be the top shopping mall in my huge city. It’s a destination for most of the suburbs and exurbs. The boutique toy story birthday present runs is usually around $50 per kid and we go to usually around 2 birthday parties a week during school year (on average). I don’t think most parents are allocating that type of budget for other people’s kids. I have 1 kid, many of my peers are doing the same for 2-3 kids and we all are varying levels of affluent by regional standards (expensive homes/cars, nannies, private schools, etc).
  - bombcar 6mo ago
    Part of the problem is that when Toys R Us bit the wax tadpole, Walmart jumped in and doubled or tripled the number of aisles dedicated to toys; so any "middle" suburb/city area with a Walmart already has an "easy source" of toys to grab, making it an uphill battle. Target did the same and now has more Lego than TRU ever had, for example, though their prices are often over MSRP. The key would be to market above both and aim for "different things" while making it a possible destination on its own.
    - ErigmolCt 6mo ago
      That's probably the trap: competing with Walmart or Target on "I need a LEGO set for a birthday party in 20 minutes" is almost impossible.
    - saghm 6mo ago
      I've never heard the phrase "bit the wax tadpole" before. From googling, it sounds like a reference to an urban legend about Coca Cola being poorly transliterated into Chinese? It's not clear to me if this is something commonly used as an alternative to "bit the dust" or if I'm missing another level of metaphor here.
  - gbear605 6mo ago
    > we go to usually around 2 birthday parties a week during school year That's honestly impressive, some 70 birthday parties a year, plus presumably some extra in the summer.
    - rationalist 6mo ago
      I think it's more scary than impressive. What kind of adults are all of those children going to grow up to and become, where multiple parties are the weekly norm?
      - conductr 6mo ago
        Maybe you can clarify because I don't understand your fear or what you think it means for these kid's future adulthood? The kids just see it as a fun 2 hour playdate with lots of friends in an interesting setting with dessert. It's the same friends they see at school, sports, etc. so it's their time to have some less structured play time, which - not sure if you've heard - is in rare supply for many children these days. When I was a kid, even at this age, I was roaming all over town on a bike with my friends, I basically had the Stranger Things childhood experience, and I feel very confident there was a lot more to fear in that timeline of childhood.
- gwbas1c 6mo ago
  I think it's hard to see the change in US toy stories looking at articles (and discussions) like this. There's always been turnover in retail; very few stores and chains last a lifetime. (I've always suspected it has to do with when key people retire or otherwise leave the business.) Compared to when I was a kid, there's no shortage of toy stores: There's always something at the mall, Target has toys, bookstores have toys that didn't have toys when I was a kid. (My daughter asked me to take her to a bookstore in town last weekend that was about 1/3rd toystore.) So, it's really hard to "blame" someone for a "demise" that, to me, looks like traditional retail turnover. Even if we didn't have Amazon, I'm sure older retail stores would turn over, and newer retail stores would eat them.
- Computer0 6mo ago
  My experience in tier-2/3 US cities they are dying, even the local small businesses, as well as in the suburbs of Tier 1 cities.
jmclnx 6mo ago
Yes, in the city were I grew up a single private toy store is hanging on. I think it is because they out right own the building they are in. But we all know their days are numbered. It is too bad, they were real good and carried items that could not be found elsewhere. Now seems all stores are the same. Edit: Looked it up, the store stopped selling toys all together last year. But they are still in business selling other items that were in a different part of the store.
kurttheviking 6mo ago
I own a reasonably well performing indie bookstore. I've noticed for the model to work you need a critical mass of other local shops clustered to make the trip an experience for families and diverse tastes. My working theory is that three of such small businesses are sufficient and could operate well with a common inventory strategy and manager (e.g. a bookstore, a toy store, and a tea or candy shop...nothing that spoils in the very short term). When I've got a bit more time I want to try that idea and see if it works as a way to revitalize otherwise charming old downtown areas with vacant retail space and communities wishing to bring back their main street. Giving this idea away in case anyone else has tried or wants to try sooner than me and report back.
- hnthrowaway0315 6mo ago
  I have seen bookstore (second-handed books) thriving near universities. Your idea is actually very interesting and remind me of the mall model -- the mall model worked because everyone in the family gets his/her own share of pleasure. Of course the traffic matters a lot, too. Hope you start that experiment soon and succeed!
  - ghaff 6mo ago
    The general theory of most malls was that you had anchor stores. My local one has a couple of stores adjacent to the mall (a local chain supermarket and and Home Depot) that are very busy, almost too much so. The mall itself is pretty much dead and has been on the market for ages. The anchor stores--JCPenney, Sears, and Macy's are all long gone. Haven't been in the actual mall in ages but I assume it's pretty sad and there seem very few cars in the lots. Oh, yeah, the Toys 'R Us in the complex is long gone too.
    - hnthrowaway0315 6mo ago
      It's pretty much the same in my place, too. The old malls are dying. There are new malls coming up, but I'm not sure how they are going to hold in the future.
skipkey 6mo ago
The Barnes and Noble bookstore I occasionally shop at has a second floor that is about half full of nothing but games, legos, puzzles. I honestly think they sell more of that than books these days.
- conception 6mo ago
  I rolled into a b&n and it had more toys than books 100%.
- Aboutplants 6mo ago
  Their strategy is now about 1/3 of the store dedicated to toys/puzzle/legos and I think it’s a brilliant strategy. I can walk into the store, browse books while the kid is exploring decently engaging toys. It’s a win for the store and myself as I can walk out with a book or two for myself, a good potentially educational toy, and a Lego kit for us to complete together. They got us good
alex_young 6mo ago
I live in a town of fewer than 8k people. Our local toy store is not only thriving, it’s central to the community. People would rather shop there than go online. Why? Because they are a part of the community. At every farmer’s market or community event they have a booth giving out free glitter tattoos to children, and they employ several teenagers part time to wrap gifts (of course this is free too), apply tattoos, and help out in the store. This isn’t a unique concept. Going the extra mile and doing seemingly unreasonably nice things wins you customers and loyalty.
- golem14 6mo ago
  It would be great to have a "rural revival" where it's worthwhile to go back to the howling old owl in the woods, hunting the horny back toad. Maybe the wave of AI layoffs can actually make that happen. We would need a visionary planner like maybe Christopher Alexander and then an administration to deeply care and support such a development. I suspect if I were forced to make such a move, I'd be initially very upset, but long term, I'd probably welcome the change.
  - Schlagbohrer 6mo ago
    The united states could spark a rural revival like you're talking about with investment into the healthcare and education infrastructure in those communities. That's what other countries do to prop up the rural economy- the steady lifelong jobs created for all the people who work at the schools, clinics, the library, provide an economic base for the town.
    - philistine 6mo ago
      That has never been a part of the American experiment. Structured development like that has yet to happen in the United States.
      - Schlagbohrer 6mo ago
        True, although the New Deal era came close. America's most socialist time when it did the most public investment, and we are STILL living off the benefits of that.
whenanother 6mo ago
[dead]
IG_Semmelweiss 6mo ago
this article feels 10 years late. Toys R us marked the end of the toy store. Its just a matter of time before other stores follow, except for the Lego flagship stores , or the ocassional anime store in a bigger city. Its sad.
jemmyw 6mo ago
There are no toy stores close to me in New Zealand any more, or even a long drive away. There used to be two small ones, they were both great but never really that busy. The local cash and carry also used to have a toy section - it was great because they had a deli where they also made coffee, a grocery section, bulk food section, and warehouse section that included toys. So we'd send the kids to the toy section, get a coffee, grocery shop. The building was a bit rundown, but that was part of the charm too. They upgraded it, it looks fancier but the toys are gone, the deli is gone, we only go for things like bulk flour now. I wonder if businesses like that have real trouble understanding loss leading sections like that.
zabzonk 6mo ago
Back when I was a kid in the smallish UK city of Lincoln, we had two big model shops (tools, balsa kits, aero engines, Airfix, etc.), one big toyshop (Scalextric, and toys for young kids) and one rather weird place that specialised in fishing gear, Meccano and 00-guage railway stuff. Now all are gone, and I do wonder how kids of today will be able (for e.g.) to experience building a glider (balsa, cutting out with a razor, tissue covering with paste) and launching the final product into the sky. We have lost something. BTW, if any of you or your children want to get into things aeronautical I can strongly recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Book-Kites- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Book-Kites-. Some string, a little bamboo or dowel, and a binbag and you are ready to go.
- NetMageSCW 6mo ago
  Here in a small city in the US we have two craft stores with hobby sections that provide access to those things.
- zabzonk 6mo ago
  Sorry, bad link to book. Use https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Book-Kites-Original/dp/0140041176 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Book-Kites-Original/dp/0140... It really is a great book if you have any interest in flying things.
The_Blade 6mo ago
There is a really cool place in Denver called Wizard’s Chest. I think they make good money off costumes, but also Warhammer 4k (and to a related lesser extent DnD). Nice people, too.
- imp0cat 6mo ago
  It's Warhammer 40k. But beware, this game is designed to suck your wallet dry! ;)
  - Schlagbohrer 6mo ago
    "Get your kids addicted to M:TG so they'll never have enough money for drugs" - good advice from a coworker of mine
    - Carrok 6mo ago
      "Getting your kids addicted to M:TG" should also include showing those kids how to order proxy cards for much cheaper.
      - Schlagbohrer 6mo ago
        The ultimate life lesson of learning how to forcibly open-source a beloved hobby!
- bigstrat2003 6mo ago
  Game stores tend to make money off Magic The Gathering, from my understanding. But yeah, The Wizard's Chest also has a decent miniature gaming community as well. And their board game selection is pretty good.
marcus_holmes 6mo ago
In the early 2000's I visited my sister's family in Australia. Hadn't seen them for a few years. I took the kids to Toys'r'us and gave them $200 each to spend. It was the best $400 I've ever spent in my life. They still talk about it. Somehow giving $200 of Amazon credit doesn't feel the same :(
- UberFly 6mo ago
  One of my daughters always asked to be taken to Toys-R-Us for one of her b-day presents so she could pick out something. Watching her walk around in wonder for an hour trying to decide was an even better present for me. I'm sad they're gone too.
- dylan604 6mo ago
  I can only imagine the sheer delight in a kid that had never been to a dedicated toy store like Toys'r'us because of online shopping to see one for the first time. Sadly, many kids will never get to experience a toy store like that. I remember thinking what I'd do if I ever won that shopping spree that kids won on whatever Nickelodeon game show where that was the prize. I'd actually practice by learning where the things I wanted were in the store to be as efficient as possible.
mattwad 6mo ago
I was surprised to find that Barnes n Nobles has a decent selection of quality toys for infants to toddlers. Toys have their own section at my store. I used to buy toy/book gifts at Target but the options are so much more limited.
perardi 6mo ago
I walk by a lovely local toy store every day. https://www.playtoysandbooks.com https://www.playtoysandbooks.com I live in the Andersonville neighborhood in Chicago, and it’s a small bit of joy to have a thriving boutique toy store to walk by as I go to the gym.
rhplus 6mo ago
Our local toy store is a member of marketing cooperative and yours might be too. They are wonderful and a perfect example of a local toy store - a wide variety, personal service and free gift wrapping on all purchases (a life saver for anyone with kids and a birthday party to go to seemingly every other weekend). A map of the network is here. https://stoysnetpartner.com/our-retail-clients/ https://stoysnetpartner.com/our-retail-clients/
throdjdidjfdik 6mo ago
My local toy store has a resident dog, and allows other dogs inside. That place serves as a dog toliet, and dog hair, saliva, oils and excrements are everywhere. I refuse to go near it, purchasing any contaminated toys is out of question! Last time we went there, owners assaulted my child and knocked it onto the floor!
diogenescynic 6mo ago
I miss toy stores, butcher shops, record stores, movie renal stores... everything moving online has really made culture so isolating and a lot harder to meet people. I remember when I was younger I could just go to a retail area and get some coffee, look at magazines/books, then go to a record store, then a video game store, a pet store, etc. Now everything is either a big box store in a giant parking lot or online. There are obviously exceptions, but I remember having so many more retail options and now they can't compete with Amazon and the rising cost of real estate and labor. Capitalism is strangling culture and making people more lonely and anti-social. They want us at home, buying subscription services, and getting taxis for our burritos so we don't have to actually go out and do anything or see anyone...
- Aerolfos 6mo ago
  > a big box store in a giant parking lot You know it's bad when stores don't even "have" parking lots, but are "in" them.
- JuniperMesos 6mo ago
  > Capitalism is strangling culture and making people more lonely and anti-social. They want us at home, buying subscription services, and getting taxis for our burritos so we don't have to actually go out and do anything or see anyone... People are choosing in large numbers to buy subscription services, order food online, stay at home, and avoid socializing with other people; and the market is supplying demand. This isn't something that some external power is forcing on an unwilling populace. Indeed, if you think that people are systematically making consumer choices that are easy and convenient in the short term but bad for the fabric of society in the long term (a common-enough complaint about human society), then the "they" who wants to force people to change their habits en masse is you.
  - diogenescynic 6mo ago
    Agree, it's almost entirely about profit and convenience but I just think there's something false about modern 'convenience' in that it actually isn't 'convenient' when you think about all the other things you lost. The tiny bit of friction exerted to actually go into a store is now gone, but now you lose the opportunities to meet other people into the same things as you... get tips from retail workers on interesting movies/music/video games. It's convenient in that one singular moment, but now you're lonely and have no friends or connections... I think that's why people are more depressed and on more depression medicine. There's a lack of just casual interaction and socialization now that we're replacing with 'social media' doom scrolling and it's clearly not making people more fulfilled--just more convenient. I would argue a lot of this could be changed by better zoning laws and better city planning. Big box stores should be relegated to the outskirts of city limits... let local and small businesses have downtown areas. Otherwise, everything is becoming one homogenous experience across the entire country.
jwrallie 6mo ago
Interestingly toy stores are still a thing in Japan. I took my 2 year old daughter to buy her birthday present this year. Her smile when I told her she could take the toy plush home was priceless. I asked her if she wanted the big or small version, she liked the small. Showing kids toys on a tablet is never going to replace the experience.
voidUpdate 6mo ago
What country are they in? The list of shops seems to suggest belgium/the netherlands. Because in the UK, I often go to toy shops with my partner. There's probably two shops in the same shopping centre you could call "toy shops", as well as a GAME which sells video games. All three of them sell lego, as well as quite a few other shops. There's also a Cex and a mini Cex if you want to buy video games and get ripped off. Also quite a few other shops tend to have a "toys" section, such as WH Smiths or B&M, though I wouldn't call them "toy shops" At least in my area, brick and mortar toy stores are very much alive and well
- xz18r 6mo ago
  The blog writer is in Belgium, just like myself. Can confirm that there are almost no brick and mortar toy stores left in my area (which from what I can tell is the opposite side of Flanders).
- Citizen_Lame 6mo ago
  GAME is bankrupt and was a shit for a long time, WH Smith is also closing lot of stores, B&M is selling tat and is half empty. But none of these are toy stores. Retail in the UK is very much dead, unless you need barber and vape shops.
  - domh 6mo ago
    Smyths toys is doing pretty well in my town, in an out of town centre retail park admittedly. It is situated in a fairly new retail park that got built exactly behind the old one where Toys R Us used to be. That got knocked down and replaced with warehouses. Must be cheaper to tear down and start from scratch than try to modernise after being vacant for a few years. Town centre is lots of barbers, vape shops and betting shops. Few new independent bars and restaurants seem to be breaking through thankfully.
  - voidUpdate 6mo ago
    As I said, I wouldn't call any of those three "toy shops". But all three of my local ones seem to be going strong, and sell toys or toy-adjacent things
epolanski 6mo ago
Capitalist efficiency ultimately makes shops barely able to compete on price and convenience with the few clicks needed to order and get stuff at home. My stepfather was a salesman/distributor, selling the most diverse things (mostly electronics and mobile-related, but not only) to shops in the entire Lazio region in Italy. 95% of the shops closed, even among those that didn't he often wonders why they keep buying from him rather than on Alibaba or Amazon where he often cannot compete on price. And same for those client's customers. It's hard to beat the convenience of online ordering for them, let alone the pricing. But this has major implications for the local economies, especially of smaller places. As shops start to disappear so do the services or restaurants/bars connected to them. Capitalism is brutal in its efficiency and there isn't much if anything that can be done to stop it, if people can get the same products at lower prices, they will.
- anonyfox 6mo ago
  well the worse it gets the closer the reset button comes. guillotine can and will end capitalism if people are affected too much, and they don't care about any logic when suffering is high enough. happend in history every single time, will happen again, and no one saw it coming or believed it would happen again. still, it did. and will. like always.
anal_reactor 6mo ago
Good riddance. I never really liked those small shops. Open Monday-Friday from 9 to 17 so a working person cannot really buy anything there. Prices usually 20% higher than online, minimal choice. It's not like they were selling something unique, they'd sell exactly same shit you'd see online, but at higher prices. The concept of "small shop being a part of the community" is completely foreign to me because what else you'd be doing in a shop other than walk in, buy, get out. Supermarkets on the other hand, that's a different story. I live in the Netherlands and here we have strict laws pretty much about anything, including supermarkets. The goal is to prevent megastores from coming to existence which usually suck up all economic activity from the area. I have to say that the model is relatively successful - there are lots of mid-size supermarkets, so wherever you live, you're likely close to one. But I have to say that it's another thing I miss from Poland. I fucking LOVED megastores. I could easily spend an hour walking through the cheese aisle and looking at all the products. For some inexplicable reason, despite the existence of megastores, the chain of small convenience stores Żabka is going through a renaissance - they're almost at every corner which means that if you're walking down the street and you're suddenly thirsty you're almost for sure close to Żabka. Another reason to go there is that they often offer products unavailable elsewhere - once I found sugar-free orange-vanillia coca-cola. I knew that god smiled to me that day. Oh, and typically they're open until 23:00.
TrackerFF 6mo ago
Many years ago I found myself unemployed, and had a year where I pretty much took any job I could find. One of these were in a sorting facility for one of the largest shipping / postal companies. On my first day, the very first thing I noticed was how a select few companies / online stores accounted for something like 80% of ALL the shipment that came through the facility: Clothes (with Zalando probably making up half of the shipments, just an endless stream of Zalando shipments...), make-up, and baby / kids toy stores. The last one kind of took me off guard, but then again, local toy stores have been dying for years.
- mavamaarten 6mo ago
  I'm honestly not really that surprised by that. All (except clothes) are prime examples of products where you don't really care who sells it to you and how it looks in the packaging. People want a certain product and want it the cheapest. Why would you go to a real store to look at that product inside of packaging you can't open, with the added cost of the person behind the counter? I mean a Lego set is a Lego set, whether you see the pictures on the box or online.
ErigmolCt 6mo ago
I don't think every old retail format deserved to survive unchanged, but towns without places where children can physically explore feel a little poorer (in a way)
AdrianB1 6mo ago
What I did not see in the article or comments is the fact that people dictate how things evolve. People vote with their wallets (or via local councils) in ways that directly or indirectly influence the outcome. The title can also be, and still correct, "We killed the brick and mortar toy store". This makes people think more than "it's raining", which is impersonal and somewhat inactionable.
Andy_Donner 6mo ago
My grandmother used to take me to Toys R Us for my birthday every year for exactly this reason — she didn't want to guess what I wanted, she wanted to watch me choose. Walking around that store and seeing what the toys looked like in person was something I looked forward to for days. You can't recreate that with an Amazon wishlist.
- emehex 6mo ago
  I still do this for my dog every year on his birthday. Funny that the Pet Store survived the Internet while the Toy Store did not...
  - jaccola 6mo ago
    I do the same! I’d guess one reason is that there has been no iPad/App Store/YouTube invented for dogs… I have a gut feeling there will be negative consequences for how much time developing minds spend consuming but in the absence of clear cut evidence it seems to be the default.
  - nothercastle 6mo ago
    Demographics play into the problem too. Massive decline in number of kids
- AdamN 6mo ago
  We still go to our local toy store - which is quite nice and only about 5 blocks away (in Berlin).
Schlagbohrer 6mo ago
Does the article mention that private equity killed off the still-profitable Toys R Us?
- abanana 6mo ago
  I opened this comments page wondering if anyone would point this out. The idea that all sales have moved to online is always trotted out as the main excuse, but the reality is that most of the big well-known UK retail failures were caused by private equity, asset-stripping and loading them up with debt until the interest payments are too high to be payable.
Freak_NL 6mo ago
The DreamLand bit seems off: > DreamLand: another toy store chain with venerable Belgian roots owned by Colruyt group that briefly had a fancy underground store near a new parking lot not even five years ago. Of course it had to go. […] The bigger store about 30 km away from us recently also closed down. The store chain is still alive as is their webshop, but for how long… There’s still a DreamLand nearby but no longer in the centre. DreamLand actually grew significantly in terms of physical stores due to their merger with ToyChamp, and is present in both the Netherlands and Belgium now. Of course, these huge (for European standards) stores tend to be located in malls and such; not in the historic city centres where toy stores used to be.
bartread 6mo ago
In the UK at least a big part of the problem for all high street retail is high fixed costs. High rents for "prime" locations that, given the trend over the last 25 years, are no longer very prime, coupled with high business rates set by central government make it incredibly hard to make any money. And that's even before thinking about staff, where cover is no doubt needed at a higher concentration per square foot than warehouse based businesses. Couple that with increases in minimum wage[0] and employer NI, and taking into account inflation and cost of living in recent years, and a lot of formerly workable retail businesses have simply been rendered non-viable. [0] Which, by the way, I have no quarrel with.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- lbriner 6mo ago
  I also think the UK are very tight with money (not sure about other countries). There are lots of people, according to our local Clarks shoe shop, who get their feet measured and then just buy their shoes online to save a few pounds. People do the same with anything they can try on in the shop and then order the same thing somewhere online for a bit cheaper. The things you said are definitely making things much worse and I suspect that even back in the day when everyone bought things from the local shop, most retailers were not making massive profits so anything cutting away at that will make it worse. Sad really.
- Theodores 6mo ago
  Another problem with the UK retail scene is the charity shop, of all things. It is hard to hate the charity shop as they are Mother Theresa and Bob Geldof in retail form, feeding the starving of Africa (name me one) and bringing us one step nearer to curing cancer (as if). But, after a while, the charity tends to perpetuate the problems that it seeks to solve. So you have what amounts to a business that has volunteers rather than paid staff (forget about minimum wage), the electricity bill is at a special rate and even the products come for free, from house clearances and people just getting rid of their 'empty gifts of capitalism' (plastic trash). The real hustle is with rent and business rates. Rent and rates gets paid but at a fraction of the cost. If the landlord kept the place empty then he would have to foot the rates bill, but get that charity shop in and the problem goes away. The landlord can then count on the value of his property going up because they don't make land any more and all capital ends up hoisting up property values, even if the crumbling 'property' was paid for aeons ago and is best demolished. What you have with a toy shop is specialist retail, where customers have expectations of service. The staff should know the availability of every product, stock levels and much else. It is not 'pile it high' as per the Toys R Us model. I worked in specialist retail and for a boss that despised charity shops. We were in a back alley, with a fraction of the footfall. Anyone visiting the town would see the usual row of useless charity shops but not our shop. We had bills to pay and they didn't. It was unfair. Nowadays the High Street doesn't just have the charity shop scams going on. There is the joy of money laundering. Imagine you have a fine cannabis operation going on and you are bringing in tens of thousands a week. What do you do with that money? How do you convert it to property? This is where the nail bar comes in to play. Or the 'barbers'. Or the 'vape shop'. Hire your immigrant labour to sell nothing all day, and you can put through all the money you want. Then we have the Wetherspoons pub, where they don't really make money from beer, the idea is to build a property portfolio. Another hustle. Then there are the naive hopefuls. Personally I would love to own a little shop that sold all my favourite toys that I was denied as a kid, so that would mean train sets. Or maybe I would love to own a little cafe that sells the healthiest food in town. With some lottery winnings or an inheritance, I could dive in, hire my best friends and have the grand opening. Narcissism would mean that all the warning signs would be ignored. Pride would mean that I would be in it until the house was mortgaged three times over, with half the suppliers demanding payment up front. Every day would be praying for rain, as in sales. I would be complaining and blaming the usual suspects such as the jungle store. There are many, many other hustles and it sometimes helps to explore a town with someone from 'the other side of the tracks'. Poor people get preyed on in ways you would not believe. For instance, cigarettes. If you went into one of those convenience stores and wanted a packet of cigarettes, it would cost you a vast fortune, I don't know how much, but probably around £20 nowadays, at a guess. However, for our special friends, they get the counterfeit ones at a ridiculously low price. If you were to ask for them then the owner would tell you where to go. However, if a special friend were to introduce you to the store owner, then you would be able to buy the £3 or £5 counterfeit items too. You can even pay by card, so long as you are in the club. A certain poverty mindset keeps people from 'my special world' going back to these convenience stores to buy food and drink items that have no nutritional value apart from calories. It is very sad but you would be amazed at how much money can be made from the seedier side of the High Street. The problem isn't with this strange underworld, it is with the people in charge. They don't have the 'speakeasy' code words needed to appreciate how it works and they haven't tried to give specialist retail a go. They are probably at a different level of criminality, with the rentier class that are the true parasites of Western society.
techdmn 6mo ago
For the last few years I've been working on a project, before I buy anything online I try to find it at a local retailer (ideally locally owned). If I do find it, I pay cash. I treat it like a game, it's a scavenger hunt. I'm putting money back into the local economy, helping local shops stay open. Makes it significantly more difficult for pervasive modern surveillance to track which items I look at or purchase. I don't get any emails about it later.
patwolf 6mo ago
Just last week, I was with one of my kids trying to kill some time before an appointment. I noticed a toy store in a strip mall, and I asked him if he wanted to check it out. His response was, "What's a toy store?" We did check it out, and he was pretty disappointed. Even though it was advertised as a STEM-oriented store, half of it was stress balls and jigsaw puzzles.
- SkiFreeWin3 6mo ago
  Recently in La Jolla, where presumably you have high wealth and IQs and tourism, and experienced the same thing—mostly fidget stuff, puzzles, and Lego resellers. The kids were so excited to go in but pretty quickly realized it’s effectively just a physical Amazon home page of mediocre plastic stuff.
  - nothercastle 6mo ago
    Toy production is down significantly too. Not a lot of cool toys out there.
wellpast 6mo ago
In Austin we have most notably Terra Toys and Toy Joy. Terra Toys is 50 years old, its space shows it. Hand-written recommendations and prices. The employees demonstrate and play with the toys, welcome you genuinely as you enter. The toys seem curated for actual fun not schtick. I went in last week and it was popping. It’s an experience. Does Main Street need to focus on experience to survive? If so, how does it monetize experience if selling items isn’t the first focus now?
amadeuspagel 6mo ago
I walked 20 minutes to a brick and mortar toy store to buy some bouncy balls recently. It was a chain store though. That's not sad to me, because I'm not emotional about whether chain or independent businesses do any better in a given industry.
warumdarum 6mo ago
I found it especially disheartening that the brick and mortar stores had to subsidize their own demise by paying taxes for roads that carry their competition who dont pay taxes.
- kazinator 6mo ago
  Roads carry customers to the brick-and-mortar location, as well as goods that they stck.
carra 6mo ago
I am surprised to hear this. In Spain there are plenty of physical toy stores. I can easily think of a few not too far from my home. Not only that, it's also common here to see entire aisles full of toys in some big supermarket franchises, like Carrefour.
econ 6mo ago
I think it should work like this: government buys everything zoned as a store, restaurant or pub at a deliberate unfair rate. Create A budget for maintenance. If you want to open a store you wait for a vacancy and apply. Citizens may vote for the applicants, the closer you live the more weight the vote has. Count the store visitors and set some reasonable minimum. They don't have to buy anything. To much traffic would give priority for a larger building. The first n square meters is free (smallest building). Low rent for anything above. People want a tea room but you can't survive doing that unless you price the hot water absurdity. You can have lots of small shops selling eye candy. They don't have to sell a lot of wooden dragons, as long as it attracts visitors it's good to have. It will be a town or city in the least boring percentage.
kazinator 6mo ago
I went into a Kaboodles in Vancouver a bunch of years ago. First thing my eyes landed on was an on-brand Rubik's Cube. Just days before that, I had seen the exact item for $10 less at Walmart.
linuxkernal 6mo ago
He forgot Toys RS.
sinoue 6mo ago
Retail is dead. Until crime and realistic lease rents are tackled I don't see it reviving. I do think there is a market for a store that sells new and used toys that uses customer service and local ownership to help their community. Similar to how some book stores have managed to survive. The key is to keep their costs low and to be small owner who is invested in their community.

165 points by speckx 6mo ago

In my area, while there are certainly fewer game/toy stores than there used to be, the ones that are left are doing great and are always busy.

moparts 6mo ago

I’m surprised physical toys are still a thing. We have a boutique toy store in our neighborhood. Expensive wooden things from Europe. I see lots of old people buying toys for grandkids. I hope they are well loved and not just tossed.

greenavocado 6mo ago
What dense urban core do you live in?

strict9 6mo ago

My experience in a large US city is surprisingly the opposite. The toy stores I visit are doing great. I suspect this is is because a large portion of their business is for birthday parties. I assumed many or most were gone because of Amazon. But after having kids and getting gifts for birthday parties, I've learned there are a lot of them and they are doing healthy business. Almost always a line on weekends. Many or most in line take advantage of free gift wrap because they're on their way to a party. In many ways it is more convenient than Amazon because you're going out anyway, why not get it at the last second with careful gift wrapping. But even a recent trip to the suburbs surprised me. The Lego store in the mall had a velvet rope and long line of kids waiting to get in. I had never seen anything like this and apparently it is usually this busy.

conductr 6mo ago
I have a 7 year old and for the past 3-4 years we make a weekly pilgrimage to a local boutique toy store specifically for birthday party gifts. It’s usually packed with others just like us doing exactly the same thing. They do provide the free wrapping service and they slap their story sticker on every box and it’s a good marketing strategy. But they also stock toys that are pretty unique and change the stock frequently, every kid we know practically has every toy you’d see at a place like Target. Their toy section seems to have been the same the entire time. Occasionally a new movie related toy comes and goes and a couple new big toy trends have entered but generally it’s all the same. Even the baby toys they sell are the same ones my kid had and has outgrown years ago. I’m not certain what their strategy is but it’s definitely not a good shopping experience for maximizing LTV of a childhood. We also have the Lego store with the velvet ropes and always queued in our neighborhood mall. Now the only observation I can say is this really only seems to work in affluent suburbs only. My neighborhood mall just so happens to be the top shopping mall in my huge city. It’s a destination for most of the suburbs and exurbs. The boutique toy story birthday present runs is usually around $50 per kid and we go to usually around 2 birthday parties a week during school year (on average). I don’t think most parents are allocating that type of budget for other people’s kids. I have 1 kid, many of my peers are doing the same for 2-3 kids and we all are varying levels of affluent by regional standards (expensive homes/cars, nannies, private schools, etc).
- bombcar 6mo ago
  Part of the problem is that when Toys R Us bit the wax tadpole, Walmart jumped in and doubled or tripled the number of aisles dedicated to toys; so any "middle" suburb/city area with a Walmart already has an "easy source" of toys to grab, making it an uphill battle. Target did the same and now has more Lego than TRU ever had, for example, though their prices are often over MSRP. The key would be to market above both and aim for "different things" while making it a possible destination on its own.
  - ErigmolCt 6mo ago
    That's probably the trap: competing with Walmart or Target on "I need a LEGO set for a birthday party in 20 minutes" is almost impossible.
  - saghm 6mo ago
    I've never heard the phrase "bit the wax tadpole" before. From googling, it sounds like a reference to an urban legend about Coca Cola being poorly transliterated into Chinese? It's not clear to me if this is something commonly used as an alternative to "bit the dust" or if I'm missing another level of metaphor here.
- gbear605 6mo ago
  > we go to usually around 2 birthday parties a week during school year That's honestly impressive, some 70 birthday parties a year, plus presumably some extra in the summer.
  - rationalist 6mo ago
    I think it's more scary than impressive. What kind of adults are all of those children going to grow up to and become, where multiple parties are the weekly norm?
    - conductr 6mo ago
      Maybe you can clarify because I don't understand your fear or what you think it means for these kid's future adulthood? The kids just see it as a fun 2 hour playdate with lots of friends in an interesting setting with dessert. It's the same friends they see at school, sports, etc. so it's their time to have some less structured play time, which - not sure if you've heard - is in rare supply for many children these days. When I was a kid, even at this age, I was roaming all over town on a bike with my friends, I basically had the Stranger Things childhood experience, and I feel very confident there was a lot more to fear in that timeline of childhood.
gwbas1c 6mo ago
I think it's hard to see the change in US toy stories looking at articles (and discussions) like this. There's always been turnover in retail; very few stores and chains last a lifetime. (I've always suspected it has to do with when key people retire or otherwise leave the business.) Compared to when I was a kid, there's no shortage of toy stores: There's always something at the mall, Target has toys, bookstores have toys that didn't have toys when I was a kid. (My daughter asked me to take her to a bookstore in town last weekend that was about 1/3rd toystore.) So, it's really hard to "blame" someone for a "demise" that, to me, looks like traditional retail turnover. Even if we didn't have Amazon, I'm sure older retail stores would turn over, and newer retail stores would eat them.
Computer0 6mo ago
My experience in tier-2/3 US cities they are dying, even the local small businesses, as well as in the suburbs of Tier 1 cities.

jmclnx 6mo ago

Yes, in the city were I grew up a single private toy store is hanging on. I think it is because they out right own the building they are in. But we all know their days are numbered. It is too bad, they were real good and carried items that could not be found elsewhere. Now seems all stores are the same. Edit: Looked it up, the store stopped selling toys all together last year. But they are still in business selling other items that were in a different part of the store.

kurttheviking 6mo ago

I own a reasonably well performing indie bookstore. I've noticed for the model to work you need a critical mass of other local shops clustered to make the trip an experience for families and diverse tastes. My working theory is that three of such small businesses are sufficient and could operate well with a common inventory strategy and manager (e.g. a bookstore, a toy store, and a tea or candy shop...nothing that spoils in the very short term). When I've got a bit more time I want to try that idea and see if it works as a way to revitalize otherwise charming old downtown areas with vacant retail space and communities wishing to bring back their main street. Giving this idea away in case anyone else has tried or wants to try sooner than me and report back.

hnthrowaway0315 6mo ago
I have seen bookstore (second-handed books) thriving near universities. Your idea is actually very interesting and remind me of the mall model -- the mall model worked because everyone in the family gets his/her own share of pleasure. Of course the traffic matters a lot, too. Hope you start that experiment soon and succeed!
- ghaff 6mo ago
  The general theory of most malls was that you had anchor stores. My local one has a couple of stores adjacent to the mall (a local chain supermarket and and Home Depot) that are very busy, almost too much so. The mall itself is pretty much dead and has been on the market for ages. The anchor stores--JCPenney, Sears, and Macy's are all long gone. Haven't been in the actual mall in ages but I assume it's pretty sad and there seem very few cars in the lots. Oh, yeah, the Toys 'R Us in the complex is long gone too.
  - hnthrowaway0315 6mo ago
    It's pretty much the same in my place, too. The old malls are dying. There are new malls coming up, but I'm not sure how they are going to hold in the future.

skipkey 6mo ago

The Barnes and Noble bookstore I occasionally shop at has a second floor that is about half full of nothing but games, legos, puzzles. I honestly think they sell more of that than books these days.

conception 6mo ago
I rolled into a b&n and it had more toys than books 100%.
Aboutplants 6mo ago
Their strategy is now about 1/3 of the store dedicated to toys/puzzle/legos and I think it’s a brilliant strategy. I can walk into the store, browse books while the kid is exploring decently engaging toys. It’s a win for the store and myself as I can walk out with a book or two for myself, a good potentially educational toy, and a Lego kit for us to complete together. They got us good

alex_young 6mo ago

I live in a town of fewer than 8k people. Our local toy store is not only thriving, it’s central to the community. People would rather shop there than go online. Why? Because they are a part of the community. At every farmer’s market or community event they have a booth giving out free glitter tattoos to children, and they employ several teenagers part time to wrap gifts (of course this is free too), apply tattoos, and help out in the store. This isn’t a unique concept. Going the extra mile and doing seemingly unreasonably nice things wins you customers and loyalty.

golem14 6mo ago
It would be great to have a "rural revival" where it's worthwhile to go back to the howling old owl in the woods, hunting the horny back toad. Maybe the wave of AI layoffs can actually make that happen. We would need a visionary planner like maybe Christopher Alexander and then an administration to deeply care and support such a development. I suspect if I were forced to make such a move, I'd be initially very upset, but long term, I'd probably welcome the change.
- Schlagbohrer 6mo ago
  The united states could spark a rural revival like you're talking about with investment into the healthcare and education infrastructure in those communities. That's what other countries do to prop up the rural economy- the steady lifelong jobs created for all the people who work at the schools, clinics, the library, provide an economic base for the town.
  - philistine 6mo ago
    That has never been a part of the American experiment. Structured development like that has yet to happen in the United States.
    - Schlagbohrer 6mo ago
      True, although the New Deal era came close. America's most socialist time when it did the most public investment, and we are STILL living off the benefits of that.

whenanother 6mo ago

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IG_Semmelweiss 6mo ago

this article feels 10 years late. Toys R us marked the end of the toy store. Its just a matter of time before other stores follow, except for the Lego flagship stores , or the ocassional anime store in a bigger city. Its sad.

jemmyw 6mo ago

There are no toy stores close to me in New Zealand any more, or even a long drive away. There used to be two small ones, they were both great but never really that busy. The local cash and carry also used to have a toy section - it was great because they had a deli where they also made coffee, a grocery section, bulk food section, and warehouse section that included toys. So we'd send the kids to the toy section, get a coffee, grocery shop. The building was a bit rundown, but that was part of the charm too. They upgraded it, it looks fancier but the toys are gone, the deli is gone, we only go for things like bulk flour now. I wonder if businesses like that have real trouble understanding loss leading sections like that.

zabzonk 6mo ago

Back when I was a kid in the smallish UK city of Lincoln, we had two big model shops (tools, balsa kits, aero engines, Airfix, etc.), one big toyshop (Scalextric, and toys for young kids) and one rather weird place that specialised in fishing gear, Meccano and 00-guage railway stuff. Now all are gone, and I do wonder how kids of today will be able (for e.g.) to experience building a glider (balsa, cutting out with a razor, tissue covering with paste) and launching the final product into the sky. We have lost something. BTW, if any of you or your children want to get into things aeronautical I can strongly recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Book-Kites- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Book-Kites-. Some string, a little bamboo or dowel, and a binbag and you are ready to go.

NetMageSCW 6mo ago
Here in a small city in the US we have two craft stores with hobby sections that provide access to those things.
zabzonk 6mo ago
Sorry, bad link to book. Use https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Book-Kites-Original/dp/0140041176 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Book-Kites-Original/dp/0140... It really is a great book if you have any interest in flying things.

The_Blade 6mo ago

There is a really cool place in Denver called Wizard’s Chest. I think they make good money off costumes, but also Warhammer 4k (and to a related lesser extent DnD). Nice people, too.

imp0cat 6mo ago
It's Warhammer 40k. But beware, this game is designed to suck your wallet dry! ;)
- Schlagbohrer 6mo ago
  "Get your kids addicted to M:TG so they'll never have enough money for drugs" - good advice from a coworker of mine
  - Carrok 6mo ago
    "Getting your kids addicted to M:TG" should also include showing those kids how to order proxy cards for much cheaper.
    - Schlagbohrer 6mo ago
      The ultimate life lesson of learning how to forcibly open-source a beloved hobby!
bigstrat2003 6mo ago
Game stores tend to make money off Magic The Gathering, from my understanding. But yeah, The Wizard's Chest also has a decent miniature gaming community as well. And their board game selection is pretty good.

marcus_holmes 6mo ago

In the early 2000's I visited my sister's family in Australia. Hadn't seen them for a few years. I took the kids to Toys'r'us and gave them $200 each to spend. It was the best $400 I've ever spent in my life. They still talk about it. Somehow giving $200 of Amazon credit doesn't feel the same :(

UberFly 6mo ago
One of my daughters always asked to be taken to Toys-R-Us for one of her b-day presents so she could pick out something. Watching her walk around in wonder for an hour trying to decide was an even better present for me. I'm sad they're gone too.
dylan604 6mo ago
I can only imagine the sheer delight in a kid that had never been to a dedicated toy store like Toys'r'us because of online shopping to see one for the first time. Sadly, many kids will never get to experience a toy store like that. I remember thinking what I'd do if I ever won that shopping spree that kids won on whatever Nickelodeon game show where that was the prize. I'd actually practice by learning where the things I wanted were in the store to be as efficient as possible.

mattwad 6mo ago

I was surprised to find that Barnes n Nobles has a decent selection of quality toys for infants to toddlers. Toys have their own section at my store. I used to buy toy/book gifts at Target but the options are so much more limited.

perardi 6mo ago

I walk by a lovely local toy store every day. https://www.playtoysandbooks.com https://www.playtoysandbooks.com I live in the Andersonville neighborhood in Chicago, and it’s a small bit of joy to have a thriving boutique toy store to walk by as I go to the gym.

rhplus 6mo ago

Our local toy store is a member of marketing cooperative and yours might be too. They are wonderful and a perfect example of a local toy store - a wide variety, personal service and free gift wrapping on all purchases (a life saver for anyone with kids and a birthday party to go to seemingly every other weekend). A map of the network is here. https://stoysnetpartner.com/our-retail-clients/ https://stoysnetpartner.com/our-retail-clients/

throdjdidjfdik 6mo ago

My local toy store has a resident dog, and allows other dogs inside. That place serves as a dog toliet, and dog hair, saliva, oils and excrements are everywhere. I refuse to go near it, purchasing any contaminated toys is out of question! Last time we went there, owners assaulted my child and knocked it onto the floor!

diogenescynic 6mo ago

I miss toy stores, butcher shops, record stores, movie renal stores... everything moving online has really made culture so isolating and a lot harder to meet people. I remember when I was younger I could just go to a retail area and get some coffee, look at magazines/books, then go to a record store, then a video game store, a pet store, etc. Now everything is either a big box store in a giant parking lot or online. There are obviously exceptions, but I remember having so many more retail options and now they can't compete with Amazon and the rising cost of real estate and labor. Capitalism is strangling culture and making people more lonely and anti-social. They want us at home, buying subscription services, and getting taxis for our burritos so we don't have to actually go out and do anything or see anyone...

Aerolfos 6mo ago
> a big box store in a giant parking lot You know it's bad when stores don't even "have" parking lots, but are "in" them.
JuniperMesos 6mo ago
> Capitalism is strangling culture and making people more lonely and anti-social. They want us at home, buying subscription services, and getting taxis for our burritos so we don't have to actually go out and do anything or see anyone... People are choosing in large numbers to buy subscription services, order food online, stay at home, and avoid socializing with other people; and the market is supplying demand. This isn't something that some external power is forcing on an unwilling populace. Indeed, if you think that people are systematically making consumer choices that are easy and convenient in the short term but bad for the fabric of society in the long term (a common-enough complaint about human society), then the "they" who wants to force people to change their habits en masse is you.
- diogenescynic 6mo ago
  Agree, it's almost entirely about profit and convenience but I just think there's something false about modern 'convenience' in that it actually isn't 'convenient' when you think about all the other things you lost. The tiny bit of friction exerted to actually go into a store is now gone, but now you lose the opportunities to meet other people into the same things as you... get tips from retail workers on interesting movies/music/video games. It's convenient in that one singular moment, but now you're lonely and have no friends or connections... I think that's why people are more depressed and on more depression medicine. There's a lack of just casual interaction and socialization now that we're replacing with 'social media' doom scrolling and it's clearly not making people more fulfilled--just more convenient. I would argue a lot of this could be changed by better zoning laws and better city planning. Big box stores should be relegated to the outskirts of city limits... let local and small businesses have downtown areas. Otherwise, everything is becoming one homogenous experience across the entire country.

jwrallie 6mo ago

Interestingly toy stores are still a thing in Japan. I took my 2 year old daughter to buy her birthday present this year. Her smile when I told her she could take the toy plush home was priceless. I asked her if she wanted the big or small version, she liked the small. Showing kids toys on a tablet is never going to replace the experience.

voidUpdate 6mo ago

What country are they in? The list of shops seems to suggest belgium/the netherlands. Because in the UK, I often go to toy shops with my partner. There's probably two shops in the same shopping centre you could call "toy shops", as well as a GAME which sells video games. All three of them sell lego, as well as quite a few other shops. There's also a Cex and a mini Cex if you want to buy video games and get ripped off. Also quite a few other shops tend to have a "toys" section, such as WH Smiths or B&M, though I wouldn't call them "toy shops" At least in my area, brick and mortar toy stores are very much alive and well

xz18r 6mo ago
The blog writer is in Belgium, just like myself. Can confirm that there are almost no brick and mortar toy stores left in my area (which from what I can tell is the opposite side of Flanders).
Citizen_Lame 6mo ago
GAME is bankrupt and was a shit for a long time, WH Smith is also closing lot of stores, B&M is selling tat and is half empty. But none of these are toy stores. Retail in the UK is very much dead, unless you need barber and vape shops.
- domh 6mo ago
  Smyths toys is doing pretty well in my town, in an out of town centre retail park admittedly. It is situated in a fairly new retail park that got built exactly behind the old one where Toys R Us used to be. That got knocked down and replaced with warehouses. Must be cheaper to tear down and start from scratch than try to modernise after being vacant for a few years. Town centre is lots of barbers, vape shops and betting shops. Few new independent bars and restaurants seem to be breaking through thankfully.
- voidUpdate 6mo ago
  As I said, I wouldn't call any of those three "toy shops". But all three of my local ones seem to be going strong, and sell toys or toy-adjacent things

epolanski 6mo ago

Capitalist efficiency ultimately makes shops barely able to compete on price and convenience with the few clicks needed to order and get stuff at home. My stepfather was a salesman/distributor, selling the most diverse things (mostly electronics and mobile-related, but not only) to shops in the entire Lazio region in Italy. 95% of the shops closed, even among those that didn't he often wonders why they keep buying from him rather than on Alibaba or Amazon where he often cannot compete on price. And same for those client's customers. It's hard to beat the convenience of online ordering for them, let alone the pricing. But this has major implications for the local economies, especially of smaller places. As shops start to disappear so do the services or restaurants/bars connected to them. Capitalism is brutal in its efficiency and there isn't much if anything that can be done to stop it, if people can get the same products at lower prices, they will.

anonyfox 6mo ago
well the worse it gets the closer the reset button comes. guillotine can and will end capitalism if people are affected too much, and they don't care about any logic when suffering is high enough. happend in history every single time, will happen again, and no one saw it coming or believed it would happen again. still, it did. and will. like always.

anal_reactor 6mo ago

Good riddance. I never really liked those small shops. Open Monday-Friday from 9 to 17 so a working person cannot really buy anything there. Prices usually 20% higher than online, minimal choice. It's not like they were selling something unique, they'd sell exactly same shit you'd see online, but at higher prices. The concept of "small shop being a part of the community" is completely foreign to me because what else you'd be doing in a shop other than walk in, buy, get out. Supermarkets on the other hand, that's a different story. I live in the Netherlands and here we have strict laws pretty much about anything, including supermarkets. The goal is to prevent megastores from coming to existence which usually suck up all economic activity from the area. I have to say that the model is relatively successful - there are lots of mid-size supermarkets, so wherever you live, you're likely close to one. But I have to say that it's another thing I miss from Poland. I fucking LOVED megastores. I could easily spend an hour walking through the cheese aisle and looking at all the products. For some inexplicable reason, despite the existence of megastores, the chain of small convenience stores Żabka is going through a renaissance - they're almost at every corner which means that if you're walking down the street and you're suddenly thirsty you're almost for sure close to Żabka. Another reason to go there is that they often offer products unavailable elsewhere - once I found sugar-free orange-vanillia coca-cola. I knew that god smiled to me that day. Oh, and typically they're open until 23:00.

TrackerFF 6mo ago

Many years ago I found myself unemployed, and had a year where I pretty much took any job I could find. One of these were in a sorting facility for one of the largest shipping / postal companies. On my first day, the very first thing I noticed was how a select few companies / online stores accounted for something like 80% of ALL the shipment that came through the facility: Clothes (with Zalando probably making up half of the shipments, just an endless stream of Zalando shipments...), make-up, and baby / kids toy stores. The last one kind of took me off guard, but then again, local toy stores have been dying for years.

mavamaarten 6mo ago
I'm honestly not really that surprised by that. All (except clothes) are prime examples of products where you don't really care who sells it to you and how it looks in the packaging. People want a certain product and want it the cheapest. Why would you go to a real store to look at that product inside of packaging you can't open, with the added cost of the person behind the counter? I mean a Lego set is a Lego set, whether you see the pictures on the box or online.

ErigmolCt 6mo ago

I don't think every old retail format deserved to survive unchanged, but towns without places where children can physically explore feel a little poorer (in a way)

AdrianB1 6mo ago

What I did not see in the article or comments is the fact that people dictate how things evolve. People vote with their wallets (or via local councils) in ways that directly or indirectly influence the outcome. The title can also be, and still correct, "We killed the brick and mortar toy store". This makes people think more than "it's raining", which is impersonal and somewhat inactionable.

Andy_Donner 6mo ago

My grandmother used to take me to Toys R Us for my birthday every year for exactly this reason — she didn't want to guess what I wanted, she wanted to watch me choose. Walking around that store and seeing what the toys looked like in person was something I looked forward to for days. You can't recreate that with an Amazon wishlist.

emehex 6mo ago
I still do this for my dog every year on his birthday. Funny that the Pet Store survived the Internet while the Toy Store did not...
- jaccola 6mo ago
  I do the same! I’d guess one reason is that there has been no iPad/App Store/YouTube invented for dogs… I have a gut feeling there will be negative consequences for how much time developing minds spend consuming but in the absence of clear cut evidence it seems to be the default.
- nothercastle 6mo ago
  Demographics play into the problem too. Massive decline in number of kids
AdamN 6mo ago
We still go to our local toy store - which is quite nice and only about 5 blocks away (in Berlin).

Schlagbohrer 6mo ago

Does the article mention that private equity killed off the still-profitable Toys R Us?

abanana 6mo ago
I opened this comments page wondering if anyone would point this out. The idea that all sales have moved to online is always trotted out as the main excuse, but the reality is that most of the big well-known UK retail failures were caused by private equity, asset-stripping and loading them up with debt until the interest payments are too high to be payable.

Freak_NL 6mo ago

The DreamLand bit seems off: > DreamLand: another toy store chain with venerable Belgian roots owned by Colruyt group that briefly had a fancy underground store near a new parking lot not even five years ago. Of course it had to go. […] The bigger store about 30 km away from us recently also closed down. The store chain is still alive as is their webshop, but for how long… There’s still a DreamLand nearby but no longer in the centre. DreamLand actually grew significantly in terms of physical stores due to their merger with ToyChamp, and is present in both the Netherlands and Belgium now. Of course, these huge (for European standards) stores tend to be located in malls and such; not in the historic city centres where toy stores used to be.

bartread 6mo ago

In the UK at least a big part of the problem for all high street retail is high fixed costs. High rents for "prime" locations that, given the trend over the last 25 years, are no longer very prime, coupled with high business rates set by central government make it incredibly hard to make any money. And that's even before thinking about staff, where cover is no doubt needed at a higher concentration per square foot than warehouse based businesses. Couple that with increases in minimum wage[0] and employer NI, and taking into account inflation and cost of living in recent years, and a lot of formerly workable retail businesses have simply been rendered non-viable. [0] Which, by the way, I have no quarrel with.

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lbriner 6mo ago
I also think the UK are very tight with money (not sure about other countries). There are lots of people, according to our local Clarks shoe shop, who get their feet measured and then just buy their shoes online to save a few pounds. People do the same with anything they can try on in the shop and then order the same thing somewhere online for a bit cheaper. The things you said are definitely making things much worse and I suspect that even back in the day when everyone bought things from the local shop, most retailers were not making massive profits so anything cutting away at that will make it worse. Sad really.
Theodores 6mo ago
Another problem with the UK retail scene is the charity shop, of all things. It is hard to hate the charity shop as they are Mother Theresa and Bob Geldof in retail form, feeding the starving of Africa (name me one) and bringing us one step nearer to curing cancer (as if). But, after a while, the charity tends to perpetuate the problems that it seeks to solve. So you have what amounts to a business that has volunteers rather than paid staff (forget about minimum wage), the electricity bill is at a special rate and even the products come for free, from house clearances and people just getting rid of their 'empty gifts of capitalism' (plastic trash). The real hustle is with rent and business rates. Rent and rates gets paid but at a fraction of the cost. If the landlord kept the place empty then he would have to foot the rates bill, but get that charity shop in and the problem goes away. The landlord can then count on the value of his property going up because they don't make land any more and all capital ends up hoisting up property values, even if the crumbling 'property' was paid for aeons ago and is best demolished. What you have with a toy shop is specialist retail, where customers have expectations of service. The staff should know the availability of every product, stock levels and much else. It is not 'pile it high' as per the Toys R Us model. I worked in specialist retail and for a boss that despised charity shops. We were in a back alley, with a fraction of the footfall. Anyone visiting the town would see the usual row of useless charity shops but not our shop. We had bills to pay and they didn't. It was unfair. Nowadays the High Street doesn't just have the charity shop scams going on. There is the joy of money laundering. Imagine you have a fine cannabis operation going on and you are bringing in tens of thousands a week. What do you do with that money? How do you convert it to property? This is where the nail bar comes in to play. Or the 'barbers'. Or the 'vape shop'. Hire your immigrant labour to sell nothing all day, and you can put through all the money you want. Then we have the Wetherspoons pub, where they don't really make money from beer, the idea is to build a property portfolio. Another hustle. Then there are the naive hopefuls. Personally I would love to own a little shop that sold all my favourite toys that I was denied as a kid, so that would mean train sets. Or maybe I would love to own a little cafe that sells the healthiest food in town. With some lottery winnings or an inheritance, I could dive in, hire my best friends and have the grand opening. Narcissism would mean that all the warning signs would be ignored. Pride would mean that I would be in it until the house was mortgaged three times over, with half the suppliers demanding payment up front. Every day would be praying for rain, as in sales. I would be complaining and blaming the usual suspects such as the jungle store. There are many, many other hustles and it sometimes helps to explore a town with someone from 'the other side of the tracks'. Poor people get preyed on in ways you would not believe. For instance, cigarettes. If you went into one of those convenience stores and wanted a packet of cigarettes, it would cost you a vast fortune, I don't know how much, but probably around £20 nowadays, at a guess. However, for our special friends, they get the counterfeit ones at a ridiculously low price. If you were to ask for them then the owner would tell you where to go. However, if a special friend were to introduce you to the store owner, then you would be able to buy the £3 or £5 counterfeit items too. You can even pay by card, so long as you are in the club. A certain poverty mindset keeps people from 'my special world' going back to these convenience stores to buy food and drink items that have no nutritional value apart from calories. It is very sad but you would be amazed at how much money can be made from the seedier side of the High Street. The problem isn't with this strange underworld, it is with the people in charge. They don't have the 'speakeasy' code words needed to appreciate how it works and they haven't tried to give specialist retail a go. They are probably at a different level of criminality, with the rentier class that are the true parasites of Western society.

techdmn 6mo ago

For the last few years I've been working on a project, before I buy anything online I try to find it at a local retailer (ideally locally owned). If I do find it, I pay cash. I treat it like a game, it's a scavenger hunt. I'm putting money back into the local economy, helping local shops stay open. Makes it significantly more difficult for pervasive modern surveillance to track which items I look at or purchase. I don't get any emails about it later.

patwolf 6mo ago

Just last week, I was with one of my kids trying to kill some time before an appointment. I noticed a toy store in a strip mall, and I asked him if he wanted to check it out. His response was, "What's a toy store?" We did check it out, and he was pretty disappointed. Even though it was advertised as a STEM-oriented store, half of it was stress balls and jigsaw puzzles.

SkiFreeWin3 6mo ago
Recently in La Jolla, where presumably you have high wealth and IQs and tourism, and experienced the same thing—mostly fidget stuff, puzzles, and Lego resellers. The kids were so excited to go in but pretty quickly realized it’s effectively just a physical Amazon home page of mediocre plastic stuff.
- nothercastle 6mo ago
  Toy production is down significantly too. Not a lot of cool toys out there.

wellpast 6mo ago

In Austin we have most notably Terra Toys and Toy Joy. Terra Toys is 50 years old, its space shows it. Hand-written recommendations and prices. The employees demonstrate and play with the toys, welcome you genuinely as you enter. The toys seem curated for actual fun not schtick. I went in last week and it was popping. It’s an experience. Does Main Street need to focus on experience to survive? If so, how does it monetize experience if selling items isn’t the first focus now?

amadeuspagel 6mo ago

I walked 20 minutes to a brick and mortar toy store to buy some bouncy balls recently. It was a chain store though. That's not sad to me, because I'm not emotional about whether chain or independent businesses do any better in a given industry.

warumdarum 6mo ago

I found it especially disheartening that the brick and mortar stores had to subsidize their own demise by paying taxes for roads that carry their competition who dont pay taxes.

kazinator 6mo ago
Roads carry customers to the brick-and-mortar location, as well as goods that they stck.

carra 6mo ago

I am surprised to hear this. In Spain there are plenty of physical toy stores. I can easily think of a few not too far from my home. Not only that, it's also common here to see entire aisles full of toys in some big supermarket franchises, like Carrefour.

econ 6mo ago

I think it should work like this: government buys everything zoned as a store, restaurant or pub at a deliberate unfair rate. Create A budget for maintenance. If you want to open a store you wait for a vacancy and apply. Citizens may vote for the applicants, the closer you live the more weight the vote has. Count the store visitors and set some reasonable minimum. They don't have to buy anything. To much traffic would give priority for a larger building. The first n square meters is free (smallest building). Low rent for anything above. People want a tea room but you can't survive doing that unless you price the hot water absurdity. You can have lots of small shops selling eye candy. They don't have to sell a lot of wooden dragons, as long as it attracts visitors it's good to have. It will be a town or city in the least boring percentage.

kazinator 6mo ago

I went into a Kaboodles in Vancouver a bunch of years ago. First thing my eyes landed on was an on-brand Rubik's Cube. Just days before that, I had seen the exact item for $10 less at Walmart.

linuxkernal 6mo ago

He forgot Toys RS.

sinoue 6mo ago

Retail is dead. Until crime and realistic lease rents are tackled I don't see it reviving. I do think there is a market for a store that sells new and used toys that uses customer service and local ownership to help their community. Similar to how some book stores have managed to survive. The key is to keep their costs low and to be small owner who is invested in their community.