Toys 'R' Us to file bankruptcy

[english si]

I wonder how many will blame Brexit. Given that the sort of people who do that are apathetic-at-best to the US, if not outright hostile (EU-nationalism stretching into EU-supremacy), they won't realise that it's a problem with the parent company too, due to a bad business plan to have big box stores out of town for toys - ie stuff for a demographic that can't drive, merely nag people to drive them.

[jeffandnicole]

Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us are expected to close up to 182 stores, with Store Closing sales starting in February.  Some planned closures may be reversed if the company can secure better rents/leases from the property owners.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2018/01/toys_r_us_to_close_up_to_182_stores_including_12_i.html#incart_river_home

The ones near me aren't on the list for New Jersey...not that I've been in either for at least a few years!

[LM117]

Shocking that Danville ain't on the list.

[1995hoo]

It's interesting, there's a Toys R Us cobranded as a Babies R Us near our house (I could walk there if I had any reason to go to a toy store) that has no indication of closing and isn't on the store closure list, but the property where it's located has a sign up about space for lease. The other store there is a La-Z-Boy that isn't expected to close any time soon. I wonder whether the landlord knows something that hasn't been publicized yet.

Last time I was in a Toys R Us was last month in Fort Myers looking for Christmas presents for our nephews and niece. Store was mobbed, but I guess that's to be expected in the days before Christmas. I noted both how cheaply made the toys seemed to be and how almost everything seemed to have some sort of movie or TV show tie-in. That is, obviously as a kid I had Star Wars toys, but we had a lot of things that were not related to movies or TV, especially stuff like Tonka trucks, and Lego wasn't all related to movies back then. Other than Nerf guns and such, there didn't seem to be a lot of non-movie stuff now. (We didn't find anything for our niece at Toys R Us, so later that day we stopped at an independent toy store in the area. Much nicer–higher-quality stuff, Brio trains, no movie tie-ins, no violent Halo-type video games–more like the kind of independent toy store my parents took me to when I was a kid, although we went to Toys R Us too for Intellivision cartridges.) It reminds me of how one of my teachers when I was a kid disapproved of movie-related toys because she felt they impaired your imagination by "letting someone else do your imagining for you." She would HATE today's versions of Lego.

[US71]

Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us are expected to close up to 182 stores, with Store Closing sales starting in February.  Some planned closures may be reversed if the company can secure better rents/leases from the property owners.

Fort Smith (erroneously listed as Ft Smith, OK) and  Little Rock  are closing in Arkansas.

Sears is closing this week, K-Mart has been gone 10 years. Fort Smith is slowly dying.

[KEVIN_224]

4 are closing in Connecticut, including the one which is closest to me: the Berlin Turnpike (US 5/CT 15) in Newington. Then there's one in Manchester and two others.

[cl94]

Ton of New York stores on the list. Most of the remaining Babies R Us stores (including those in Albany and Buffalo), Kingston, Queensbury, several others.

[US71]

Ton of New York stores on the list. Most of the remaining Babies R Us stores (including those in Albany and Buffalo), Kingston, Queensbury, several others.

Maybe the Babies R Us will grow up to be Toys R Us eventually

[Avalanchez71]

Tennessee has two on list.  One in Memphis and one in Nashville.

[kkt]

Ton of New York stores on the list. Most of the remaining Babies R Us stores (including those in Albany and Buffalo), Kingston, Queensbury, several others.

Maybe the Babies R Us will grow up to be Toys R Us eventually

[GenExpwy]

Full list

Fort Smith (erroneously listed as Ft Smith, OK) and  Little Rock  are closing in Arkansas.

Likewise, Williamsport PA is listed under New York. There's the problem – they didn't even know which state some of the stores were in.

[wxfree]

Ton of New York stores on the list. Most of the remaining Babies R Us stores (including those in Albany and Buffalo), Kingston, Queensbury, several others.

Maybe the Babies R Us will grow up to be Toys R Us eventually

I always heard they didn't want to grow up.

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us are expected to close up to 182 stores, with Store Closing sales starting in February.  Some planned closures may be reversed if the company can secure better rents/leases from the property owners.

Fort Smith (erroneously listed as Ft Smith, OK) and  Little Rock  are closing in Arkansas.

Sears is closing this week, K-Mart has been gone 10 years. Fort Smith is slowly dying.

Maybe an error? West Fort Smith, OK

[US71]

Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us are expected to close up to 182 stores, with Store Closing sales starting in February.  Some planned closures may be reversed if the company can secure better rents/leases from the property owners.

Fort Smith (erroneously listed as Ft Smith, OK) and  Little Rock  are closing in Arkansas.

Sears is closing this week, K-Mart has been gone 10 years. Fort Smith is slowly dying.

Maybe an error? West Fort Smith, OK

There's no Toys R Us there.  Just a stockyard.   https://goo.gl/maps/Ae1Ls3kiBZo

[Scott5114]

Two of them closing in Oklahoma: 1119 SE 66th St., Oklahoma City and 560 Ed Noble Pkwy., Norman. Both closures make sense–the OKC location is located near the now completely closed and dead Crossroads Mall (which went through a brief period of being open under the name Plaza Mayor), and the Norman location is on Ed Noble Parkway, which...yeah, it's Ed Noble Parkway, pretty much everything there is closed now.

[sparker]

The Toys R' Us store nearest my home and the one nearest my office are both closing up.  Outside of just before Christmas, I've rarely seen anyone in either of the locations.  Given their business model (year-round sales of largely seasonal items -- maybe they've been counting on the birthday-gift business), the closures are hardly surprising.  Except for strictly hobbyist items and patented video games, most merchandise they sell could be readily described as fungibles -- easy pickings for Amazon and the like. 

[slorydn1]

I see that the one on Golf Rd in Schaumburg IL is due to be closed. Sad. I spent so much time in there as a child. That's where I first got my hands on a demo Mattel Football II and was able to pester my parents so much that I got one for Christmas that year.

[ftballfan]

Toys 'R' Us is pulling out of Ann Arbor completely, closing both the Toys 'R' Us and Babies 'R' Us locations. However, both are on the bad side of town (which isn't bad compared to the bad side of most other cities) and/or have bad interstate access. I'd imagine if one of those were by Briarwood Mall, it would be staying open. For comparison, the Jackson Toys 'R' Us is staying open, despite Jackson being less than half the size of Ann Arbor.

Babies 'R' Us is pulling out of Grand Rapids and Lansing (Toys 'R' Us stores in both areas remain open), while a store in smaller Kalamazoo remains open.

Toys 'R' Us is also pulling out of Muskegon and Traverse City.

[jp the roadgeek]

(4) 2 are closing in Connecticut, including the one which is closest to me: the Berlin Turnpike (US 5/CT 15) in Newington. Then there's one in Manchester and two others North Haven.

Looks like Manchester and Waterbury have survived the chopping block.  The Newington one always looks dead.  One time when I went to Stew Leonard's, I saw notes on the door, and had to look to see if it was announcing a store closing.  It's close to the one in Corbin's Corner in West Hartford, which is the one I always went to as a kid.  North Haven is on Universal Drive. It's a relatively new store that replaced the Hamden location about 10-15 years ago, but like Newington, it is not near an indoor mall. 

[KEVIN_224]

Walking past it today...TOYS WERE US in Newington is open for now. Amazed how it hasn't done that well despite being along the busy Berlin Turnpike (US 5/CT 15). It's across the way from the Eversource electric headquarters.

http://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article/20180202/NEWS01/180209987

It now looks like two of the 4 Connecticut closures may come off that grand list. The Newington location is still closing.

[ftballfan]

Just saw that Toys 'R' Us could be closing ANOTHER 200 stores: http://fortune.com/2018/02/22/toys-r-us-may-close-more-stores/

Looks like they could go belly up before Sears!

[english si]

Toys R Us UK could be in administration by next weekend: http://metro.co.uk/2018/02/24/toys-r-us-brink-collapse-3200-jobs-risk-7338711/

[gonealookin]

Looks like they could go belly up before Sears!

Yes, as the US operation appears to be entering its final death spiral.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toys-r-us-liquidation-20180308-story.html

Toys R Us Inc. is making preparations for a liquidation of its bankrupt U.S. operations after so far failing to find a buyer or reach a debt restructuring deal with lenders, according to people familiar with the matter.

While the situation is still fluid, a shutdown of the U.S. division has become increasingly likely in recent days...

Toys R Us's U.K. unit put itself in the hands of a court administrator after discussions about selling the business fell apart. Its European arm is seeking takeover bids.

Talks are being held to offload the growing Asian business, the company's most profitable arm. It's not yet clear what will happen to the Canadian unit, which filed at the same time as the U.S. division.

[formulanone]

Knowing all this, we used up our remaining gift cards at the Huntsville location last week.

With the exception of the video game section, their shelves were quite full. But there didn't seem to be any amazing deals to wipe out existing inventory.

[LM117]

Our location has plenty of inventory, but no customers. I'm not too familiar with the retail history in Danville since I've only been living here 7 years (7 years too long but that's a different story), but the building looks like it hasn't been updated in at least 20 years.