Toys R Us Officially Closing its Doors for Good
Davis Smedley
Davis Smedley
After years of competition at the hands of sites like Amazon and Ebay, longtime toy market Toys R Us is officially shutting down business permanently in all areas. In September 2017, the company had filed for bankruptcy protection, signaling bad roads ahead for the many workers involved with the franchise. Making things worse was the disastrous results for their holiday shopping season. Combine both with the infinite number of online competition, and it was the last straw for the company.
Retail expert Michael Dart commented, “They were at the intersection of so many challenging trends, and they were at the wrong end of those trends, all of these forces coming together fundamentally tipped them over the edge” (taken from nytimes.com). However, there may be another reason than just the rise of online markets. Hillgrove teacher, Ms.Blackmon, pointed out that the franchise mainly failed due to being “too specialized.” With the many options that stores like Walmart and Target provide consumers nowadays, it is definitely not hard to see where she is coming from. Whether or not anything involved with the franchise goes anywhere from here is unknown, but at this point, it looks to already be too late.
Founded in the late 1950's, the chain had been in the toy business for more than 50 years. However, with each passing year, the number of consumers had started a steady decline. For the past few years, the company had already been dealing with the problem of losing young customers to the influence of iPhones and tablets. Now that the franchise is finally shutting down, more than 30,000 jobs are on the line and all signs point to other store franchises being more successful than ever as a result.
Retail expert Michael Dart commented, “They were at the intersection of so many challenging trends, and they were at the wrong end of those trends, all of these forces coming together fundamentally tipped them over the edge” (taken from nytimes.com). However, there may be another reason than just the rise of online markets. Hillgrove teacher, Ms.Blackmon, pointed out that the franchise mainly failed due to being “too specialized.” With the many options that stores like Walmart and Target provide consumers nowadays, it is definitely not hard to see where she is coming from. Whether or not anything involved with the franchise goes anywhere from here is unknown, but at this point, it looks to already be too late.
Founded in the late 1950's, the chain had been in the toy business for more than 50 years. However, with each passing year, the number of consumers had started a steady decline. For the past few years, the company had already been dealing with the problem of losing young customers to the influence of iPhones and tablets. Now that the franchise is finally shutting down, more than 30,000 jobs are on the line and all signs point to other store franchises being more successful than ever as a result.