New York (AFP) – Global retailer Toys”R”Us, a fixture in post-war America’s booming toys market, said it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, strangled by heavy debt and a tough environment for bricks and mortar stores.
The chain, founded in 1948 and “the world’s leading dedicated toy and baby products retailer”, sells in the United States and 38 other countries and jurisdictions, with a 23-percent share of the global toy market.
It now joins other traditional retailers that are struggling to compete with the likes of Amazon.
The company will “restructure its outstanding debt and establish a sustainable capital structure that will enable it to invest in long-term growth and fuel its aspirations to bring play to kids everywhere and be a best friend to parents,” Toys”R”Us said in a statement late Monday.
It noted that operations outside the United States and Canada, “including its approximately 255 licensed stores and joint venture partnership in Asia,” are not part of the bankruptcy proceedings. read more
SNIP: Most of the Toys R Us I’ve been to or heard about should have their own “People of Toys R Us” meme. This is probably the only chain of stores I know of that has more shoplifting and muggings than sales during the Christmas rush.
We’ve a Toy’s R Us Express here in a mall. The phucking prices are ridiculous. Zero shopping from us.
If there is an alternative to being in crowds of suboids we will find it.
I see more retailers doing what Kohls just did.
Partner with Amazon and become part of the Virtual Mall of America.
Further details from the bankruptcy filing. Jeffery the Giraffe will be sold for medical research.
Jeffery would probrably rather hang with Ronald and The Big Boy anyways !
Amazon is sending many businesses into trouble. I both like and hate them, they’re convenient and your’re able to locate things you may not find locally but they can be slippery. Their rating system is a joke so you can have near as many boxes coming and going.
Not surprised. Took my little girl there maybe 3 years ago. Prices were ridiculous. I told her, “Not today honey”. Have not been back.
I dare you to find anything they sell that doesn’t include the Made In China label.
So glad my kids have given up on cheap plastic toys. I knew every time I bought one, it was just packaged garbage that ends up in the garbage 6 months later.
They should have morphed into “Smart Phones ‘R’ Us”. They might have had a chance.
I suggested to them a while ago that they should sell parachutes. Then the kids could pull the rip-off cord.
I raised three kids up through the Toy Years. I can count on one hand the number of times I went there, one finger the number of times I bought there. The Boomer-oriented business model is dead on the youngster end and dying on the other end with the old hippies.
BTW, Hobby Lobby has a nice little toy and hobby section, with a perpetual 40% off coupon for one item. If you can see your way past the racist fake cotton bolls.
I knew this little tidbit 5 years ago…any business that utters the word ‘sustainable’ is doomed. So fucking die already. And take your Kids with you.
Like a furniture store, they’ll be reborn as “Toys WR Us”
I haven’t been in a Toys R Us since we bought the grand kids bikes. The youngest just turned 18, the oldest is getting married in two months.
The new name is BrokeareUs.