The Death of Toys R Us. This Is What Happened.
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Toys R Us has billions of dollars in debt
Dave: “So what’s your household income?”
Dave: "Beans and rice, rice and beans until we get a handle on this debt."
Toys r Us: We have $5.3 billion in debt
Dave: Who's the doctor or lawyer?!?!
Forget doctor or lawyer. With $5.3 billion in debt, who is the government agency? LOL
Lol 😂
"And what's your household income"
lolz
Hahaha!!
Sounds like Toys R Us needed to get on Everydollar and start on the baby steps
Who remembers K.B. Toys? (I think thats what it was called)
Mitt Romney remembers
I do. Favorite toy store as a kid at the mall.
Id buy all my marvel toys there.
Pepperidge Farms remembers...
Me
Toys “were” us 😣
I once heard Dave call it “Toys R Them”.
TheStyleAlert Hahaha good one !
no pity for Toys R Us. they put all of the smaller toy stores out of business. then once they cornered the market, they got lazy and made their store experiences absolutely horrendous. it's no surprise that people shopped elsewhere
Once my daughter was grown I never had a need to go back
Medic311 i remember my mum worked at a local toy shop when toys r us took a shop near by they told the local toy shop owner they had a budget to run at a loss for 2 years to put him out of business and they did.
Guess what comes around
Its funny I grew up in the 80s and was never allowed in a Toys R Us. Parents absolutely hated it and when I asked why I couldnt go it was always cause it was too expensive.
@@sunflower7766
Like walmart
Next Q: Who will rise up to disrupt Amazon towards bankruptcy?
Amazon was in debt for nearly 2 decades before rolling in profits.
They should have expanded their places to include play areas with play houses and such. If parents brought their kids in to play and the kids see the toys then they will have to buy the expensive toys. I think a lot of people are more into experiences now with kids always being on iPads and phones that parents now a days will more likely want to take the kids out for a fun night of play time rather than having them sit on their iPads all day. Give people an “experience” and people will keep coming for more. Maybe take a little lesson from Disney?
Prices hurt Toys R Us too. Cheaper similar toys are found at Target and Walmart. Prices are a huge factor.
20 years ago we could go to toys r us and bought toys without knowing we overpaid because we didn't have mobile phones with internet which we could immediately compare prices on Amazon or Walmart and Amazon was still selling books back then, so toys r us was like the only store that had huge selection of toys, but fast forward they failed to keep their customers satisfied, their prices are always much higher, the customer service is terrible, the building is old and the check out is slow, if they were able to transform into an online toys r us store and use the existing buildings as warehouses and distribution centers and match the prices with Amazon then I am sure that they will survive.
They charged way too much for their toys.
I refused to buy from them.
Chris chris I always bought from there, they price matched Wal-Mart and amazon
Toys are us means they sell toys Babies are us got to creepy for me
So u wont pay 20 dollars for toys at a store but u would buy a toy online for 14 dollars with 6 dollars of Shipping and handling
Nope! You pay $14 dollars and get free shipping - not sure what "handling" is - with Amazon Prime! It's the BEST! :D
lorddreams469 but you have to pay 100 bucks a year for that prime 😉
Toys R Us ran into the same problem Block Buster did. You have to grow with the times
It should be noted that private equity saddled Toys R Us with debt. This wasn't something that Toys R Us wanted to do on its own but PE bought the company with huge amounts of debt and took them private. The CEO wanted to renegotiate for better terms on the debt but the private equity firms said no. They wanted to kill it.
Toys R Us toys were ridiculously overpriced. Walmart and even Target had all the same toys for 1/2 the price. Amazon makes it too easy to order online as well. Nobody wants to waste precious time figuring out how to navigate their website to order and on top of that, wait a week for an overpriced toy.
Yea. I think that's what he just said.
Yeah... we saw the video too. 🤦♂️
Amazon didn't kill toys'rus the tablet did lol
Steve Jobs
Lol right
jose flores for real. Kids don’t want toys anymore. All they need is an X-Box PS4, Nintendo, or tablet.
It just goes to show you that flexible people/companies can adapt to changes and actually profit from it instead of folding like a lawn chair. Power to the adaptability and adjustment !
Easier said than done when you have billions in debt
They didn't have that debt until they were purchased by KKR -- the real problem here.
Stephan Wessels KKR also destroyed Bruno’s Foods.
its a shame...clicking on amazon or any site will never compete with bringing your kid to the toy store and them running up and down the aisle with excitement. .. i remember going to toys r us...anyone remember child world?
I remember Child World but it was Children's Palace in Texas
Never heard of child world. Where what is it?
working shlub I remember the toys r us we would go to had a section just for video games. With little stations to try them out. I'd lose my mind every time.
My siblings and I never went to Toys R Us as children or adults.
I went to s toys r us for the first time like 2016 or 2015 n I helped a kid grab a toy off the top shelf 😭 never will i get an experience like that again
Honestly I'm surprised toys r us survived as long as it did. About 8 years ago when I was little and toy buying age my father was a huge spender on toys and every other thing with a six figure income. We went toy shopping all the time and even we kinda stopped going and went to places like Target or Walmart instead
My local store was the exact same layout as when I was a child
Toys R Us was too expensive. I never shopped there. I don't know why anyone would.
Were sorry for the service we’ve given you over time Cake Gaming.. all we wanted to do was to make sure we had good service, and happy customers
Just another mismanaged overpriced super-chain dinosaur.
In their defense, they did price match. I did it lots of times. They gave me Amazon prices.
Exactly! My family was poor (and still are), so that's why I don't have the attachment to that store/company that a lot of people online from my generation do. It's because they and their parents were able to afford stuff from when they were younger, my family couldn't.
Toys R Us was NOT expensive. They were ALWAYS having clearance sales and price cuts! If you want to talk about expensive that would be FAO Swartz and American Girl stores! Both of those stores are astronomically expensive! Toys R Us prices were fine, like Dave said it was their online marketing website that went south and caused them problems.
I read that because Toys R Us is going out of business, it has had a trickle effect on toy manufacturers like Mattel and Hasbro by causing their stocks to go down. That is because without Toys R US, that is much less outlet and floor space for toys to be sold.
David Reynolds Mattel has already laid off 2200 people.
That debt from the leveraged buy out is what did them in.
Thanks to Sen Romney.
Preach Dave, Preach! Lol. This is everything! Thank you! I'm so glad my friend Erica shared this with me. We covered this topic a few weeks ago over on my Facebook live show and this ties directly into what we talk about all the time - keep it simple! Oh man, you don't know how much I truly love hearing this episode! 🙏🏼 Thank you!
Debt kills. The company I was with for almost 19 years, was spun off by their parent company a few years ago. The parent saddled a bunch of debt on to the subsidiary before the spin-off, which of course gave the exec's a huge chunk of change, among other things. The result was that layoffs started to happen, and eventually the now independent company was with was purchased by another huge conglomerate. After that purchase was finalized, it was less than three months before my long career ended in a layoff. Meanwhile again, the exec's got a nice wealth increase and bonuses as a result of the purchase. I think our CEO had a $6M payout when the purchase was complete. I, merely a middle-level manager, got a pink slip. It's a crazy world.
I stopped shopping there bc even the smallest of toys started with a price range of $40 unbelievable the cost they were charging for toys.
Here's my issue. While I agree that their stores are a cold warehouse setup and frankly some of the stores just don't even look CLEAN there's another issue. The PRICES! I'm sorry but I don't care if I get to say "I bought it at ..." if it's costing me 50% MORE there then it would somewhere else. They had a Dino Robot thing a couple years back. Online you could find it for just over 100 in their store it was 150! You want to make money? Sell your stuff at a competitive price! It doesn't' necessarily have to be the cheapest ever but if it's going to be more expensive it needs to be just high enough where they say "Ok I'll pay that extra for the convenience of getting it now". Not one of those things where someone laughs as they're walking out of your store.
I am reading this and realizing that the Murphy family lived on the land where the Sunnyvale store was running, and had a ghost named Johnny Johnson, Mr. Johnson had a crush on the boss's daughter Elizabeth Murphy. After the Murphy family sold the house, land, to the company that run Toys R Us, which is no longer running, Johnny Johnson haunted the store. Does he haunt the land? What company will buy the land, building? Amazon?
Their stores became horrible to shop in. Messy, disorganized, poor product quality, badly displayed. I don’t mind paying more for brick and mortar but only if they are enjoyable experiences, which they have not been for yeara
+Laura Nadel, unfortunately for retail you are in a minority. And if only a small % will do that, then you cant split the cost of RETAIL over the masses; which then makes RETAIL A LUXURY GOODS EXPERIENCE with the LUXURY PRICING.
Sounds like Walmart
Last time I was in a ToysRUs store, it was dirty, dark, and just a disorganized mess. I left buying nothing and never went back.
😘
Toys R Us: We are $5 billion in debt
Dave: sell your car.
Sad though I remember shopping for my kids when they were little and watching their cute little faces light up
Toys r us is demise is when Bain Capital loaded up with debt
Too expensive! Can get same toys at other stores or online at reasonable price! If they would've had reasonable prices we would've shopped there more.
Mrs. T is Going Debt Free Exactly I bought toys for my kids there about 4 years ago, look at my receipt realized it was to expensive and took all of them back.
+Mrs. T is Going Debt Free, and that is why RETAIL IS DEAD!!! People care more about the price than the service. And you can cut the price 20% to 50%+ buy killing off and cutting out retail level middle people. So "reasonable prices" = KILL THE STORES
Mrs. T is Going Debt Free Wal-Mart. Sells the same toys for Cheaper even while they are liquidating.
I don't want to grow up I'm Toys R Us kid.. on my phone comparing what I see to Amazon... pressing 1 click buy free delivery. Leaving Toys R Us without waiting in line.
Bain Capital is what happened to both companies you mentioned.. That’s where the “debt” they incurred came from.... and Mitt Romney founded it... you forgot to mention that...
Finally, somebody nailed it. Leveraged buyout out by Bain, meaning, it was purchased mostly with debt. Bain Capital sucks out most of the value as dividends and other "distributions", until all that's left is the debt. There were other problems, as many of the comments mention, but it's hard to fix anything when all profits go to servicing the debt.
Exactly
@@aspensulphate u7uuuj
@@duncancox7341l9uyzg1
Sorry Dave but they was ROBBED. Held up without a gun. KBR and Bain Capital. Now that's HIGH finance.
The world moves on and never stays in one position
Saw the sign today and I wouldn't had believe it 25 years ago.
Ikr, I used to work at Toy R Us back in the day.
Yeah I used to go to the huge Toys R us in times square all the time as a kid and it was sad when to it close a few years ago
“25 years ago” I went there as a kid and I’m not even 25 haha
Times change
Yeah man 25 years tends to change things. Crazy how that works.
Toys R Us was so deeply in debt because of a leveraged buyout.
I was thinking to myself, what else could be eating into their profit margin? It's not like they have huge competitors. But billions in debt? Good grief.
godsoloved24 they do have big competitors. You can buy all the exact same toys from Amazon, Walmart and Target for 1/2 the price. No reason to go to Toys R Us.
Destiny's Life maybe online, but I've never seen a Walmart or Target store have anywhere near the selection of toys that Toys R Us had. Amazon maybe, but there's something magical to kids about a store full of toys that a website just doesn't have. If they didn't have debt, I suspect they would easily be #1 in the toy market.
I suspect that your right. If they didn't have the debt they would have been fine for several reasons. They would have been able to maintain their stores and kept their prices competitive. It wouldn't feel like your walking into the worst discount store every.
Leveraged Buy Out
godsoloved24 eventually to enhance the experience of today with a modern version of store full of toys will be VR websites anyone can “walk” through.
Both iHeart and Toys R Us are Bain Capital-owned companies. That's the problem with the typical private equity approach of putting in minimum capital and loading the company up with debt. Guitar Center, another Bain Capital company, is next.
Good on you for not letting Dave get away with half of a story.
The debt created for Toys R US came from Bain Capital which used a leveraged buy out to take over the company, saddled it with debt, milked the company for all they could get out of it, and then sold it off to suckers. It was Bain Capital which destroyed Toys R US. It wasn't just debt, but debt created by Bain Capital which was siphoned off to the company before they left the bones.
It’s 2018 lol. I see plenty of kids holding their parents phone or with a tablet watching TH-cam.
^ This. Far more competition, both from the big box stores and online, and also the decline of kids actually playing with TOYS probably played into it as well.
True
Unfortunately that's true
Thats poor parenting. Kids shouldnt be online til they can take care of themselves a bit knowing right from wrong. Id rather be proud of my child getting into trouble and teaching them to not do it again learning real world skills vs the social media. Not hear a kid gone and shot up a school because of bullying thinking they can go and do it..
LTJuni0r I know, what a shame!
If they didn't have debt they could have also priced a little better u can find stuff easier on amazon but also 4 times cheaper
cheaper in price? or quality? Kitty
Charlene Ferguson Both, lol!
+kittycat0876, even with ZERO DEBT they could not compete on price. This is how it works:
RETAIL = someone designs it > someone makes it > someone distributes it > someone retails stocks it > you get it
ONLINE DIRECT WHOLESALE = someone designs it > someone makes it > someone distributes it > you get it
Because we are now at a point where you no longer need the RETAIL MIDDLE MAN only ones left in 20 years will be your MEGA STORES that are ONE STOP; like when he talked about 7/11, but for ToyRUS to do that they would have had to be better than Walmart on general stock and price, or they were still dead.
You know what is next?
3D-PRINT/SELF MAKE = someone designs it > you buy the means of fabrication > you get it.
So you last retail to close will be your Walmart, and Target, and Costco, and so on; but in the end, once you can get a like experience virtually WHICH WE ARE DONE CLOSE TO, you will just print it at home from the pattern. This is a slow-motion implosion that has been 20 years coming, and there is another one right behind it coming to clear out the rest. End of the day the end consumer has no desire on average to pay 15%+ more for extra middle people.
Amazon is not the answer. they are way too big of a company and already enslave us in online shopping by dominating the market. Being a prime member, especially while living paycheck to paycheck, is just flat out stupidity and so many people do it.
they were overpriced long before they started taking on such massive sent. always were
Amazon will kill ALL retail stores. You gotta change and adapt if you want to survive.
Walmart is the only one like Amazon... They have a little bit of everything
killed or helped. Now they can sell online without needing a store building just by opening an Amazon account.
Toys R Us was a magical time for me as a kid in the early 90's. walked in at 2017 and felt like this is how things used to look like.
This is good Dave!! Thank you!!
I work with children. Most kids care only about looking at a screen. Apps are the toys of today unfortunately. I have to teach children how to play.
Toy's R Us went bankrupt because of its parent owner, not because it wasn't doing financially well.
Thank you Dave Ramsey for explaining we all hope all kids will get better after this... back in the day we were the children’s dream land until this happened.. hopefully everyone will have great memories of us.. thank you.
- sincerely
Toys R Us
Every time I walk into a retail store, and get no help.....or get incompetent people who know less about the product they are selling than I do, I turn around and go back to online shopping. I'd actually pay a little more for something if there was some added value by buying in person, but more often than not, there isnt.
You can find items on amazon in half the time for half the price.
Their mistake was being too expensive. I would never shop there.
Toys R Us gave so many toys to our Police for needy kids at the Holidays. They paid their employees extra money to wrap the packages. In my area, they were very giving!
MrRamsy you got me out of debt just by listening to you on the radio going down the road,as iam a OTR truck driver,thanks a million.
My local store, the last thing I bought there was Super Mario 64 when it was brand new in 1996.
Dave, I usually agree with you on 99.9% of the stuff you say, but how can you say that iHeart radio is run well and there is nothing wrong, but they allowed themselves to build that much debt. The first thing you preach to the individual who is in deep debt is that you need to fix yourself before you can even begin to get out of debt. So why is iHeart operations any different. Is it the business affiliation?
Keith Moore I think he meant the everyday running of iHeartRadio. The individuals he works with and the running of the app and such. The only problem is that they got massively into debt and that's where the problem was.
Where iHeart radio got into so much debt is because they borrowed money to acquire all of their local radio stations under the iHeart brand.
I'll take a poorly run independent radio station than a iheart monopoly. Not good for capitalism nor speech.
If he burns down iHeart in public, they will not respond too kindly during the next negotiation.
Excellent commentary DR.
I am surprised he did not mention the role of KKR, Bain, and Vornado in 2005. They took the company private and saddled the company with debt.
And when the Realtors face the housing crash...... most of them will go back to their parents basement. Just like in 2008.
*Let's be honest. Dave really wanted to say Toys R US failed when they used a credit card.*
LOL!
Dave your kind & understanding & compassionate
I truly miss Toys'R'Us. I remember as a child having such a joyous time playing with legos, riding bicycles, and playing with HotWheels. I will always miss you forever love you and appreciate the memories you have given me.
Nothing lasts forever, not even big business, everything has an end.
I remember Lionel Play World..before Toys R Us. I must be old.
I remember Waldenbooks before Borders.
Great Video Dave!
Employees got no severance pay because of the bankruptcy. Sad.
the cost of letting someone else sign your check
I used to love the Sears Christmas catalog for kids toys!
'Toys R not really us' 😥
Mars TV by nikki bass . K B Toys is coming back.
Toys R us has very poor personnel management.
simon6071 And high prices. The shopping experience was pretty bad so it was a turnoff rather than a justification for the prices.
At least that how I felt when shopping for my nephews. I never bought anything in there, ever.
All my memories from being a kid was in Toys R Us. My mom and I would go in there and buy toys all the time. That place was heaven for me as a kid. Now Guitar Center is my heaven.
This is fascinating. I appreciate Dave's analysis of the situation, and other similar situations. I hear a lot of people saying that the cost of toys at Toys "R" Us was rather exorbitant. Food for thought for all of us: What other goods and/or services do we buy that have outrageous prices? Clothes? Shoes? Cars? Cheaper, good quality options are typically available...we just have to search for them.
Not the full story, Toys r Us was bought a private financial company that saddled it with the debt.
Thank you for trying to show the truth; maybe Dave will see this and acknowledge it. Don't forget to point out Mitt Romney's role.
Although buyouts by investment companies is generally bad, the complaints the customers had, pointed more to bad management.
Lower birth rate less customers. You can have all the supplies but without the demand you go out of business.
Are toy manufacturers also having the same financial trouble?
@@carultch Hasbro stock is booming!
I knew someone at toys r us IT department he said the old school management mentality was don't invest in IT because it was just something nice to have. They didn't want to spend the money it took to hire the right people who knew how to run a website.
For as long as I can remember(dating back to the late 70s, when there were fewer shopping options), they were always the most expensive. The only reason I bought my ColecoVision there in 1982 was because they were the only retailer that carried them. Avoided Toys R Us ever since.
Just a byproduct of business cycle.... Ppl dont shop in stores like they used to. Gotta keep up with the times and changing trends and cycles
k. rich
Yup.
Its more that people aren't buying toys anymore.
Except, DuPont invented Freon (12) in the early 1930s. Frigidaire’s early units used Sulpher Dioxide on the 1920s. Some are still running today.
I ended up hating toys r us, whenever Christmas came around and we'd go shopping for the presents it was a lovely festive feeling, then we'd have to go into toys r us.
It was like where happiness went to die,no staff,no feeling of excitement about any of the toys at which point stopped becoming fun toys and where just stock.
It was a depressing empty store and I avoiding spending a penny in there if I could, even if it meant driving miles out the way to buy what they stock in toys r us.
May have been just what they where like in our part of UK?
They could have easily invested maybe 10k to 20k for a decent website that wasn't clunky.
Darn right.
Netflix has around $30 billion in debt.
They’re the next to go.
Great commentary good job 👍👍
Toys R Us: we’re in 50 trillion in debt
Dave: sell your car. Rice and beans till 2078
Stopped shopping there when they changed the floor into play zones. It made it impossible to find anything. Stopped shopping at Walmart and Target when they added the Groceries. You can't find anything. Stopped shopping at Sears when they rearranged the stores into weird themed zones, couldn't find anything. Stopped shopping at Kmart when they broke up the floor plans into weird shaped display areas, couldn't find anything. These retail experts are always the death of good stores. Just put the items on the shelves, in an organized manor, and don't move them every couple of months, and don't hide the stuff. I always go to the Same grocery store (Publix), because I can always find what I need. Used to shop at Winndixie for the same reason, but they started doing weird renovations and are always changing the layout. Now I can never find what I want, so I don't ever shop there anymore. It's so simple. Too many "EXPERTS" who make way to much money and never shop, or go into stores themselves.
You can't just walk down an Isle to get what you need. Some idiot decided the stores need to be like a maze to make people browse more and impulse shop. But you can't freeking get to what you want to buy. I don't want to be in a store for hours. I want to walk in and buy what I came for.
I also had a bank that did that. They took out the service counter, got rid of the lines, and created little islands throughout the building, None of the Tellers or Bankers could handle cash, or documents, they had a cash dispensing machine on the wall that you had to go insert a receipt into to finish your transactions. There was no way to figure out who was next in line, or which employees could help you. It was total chaos. The only place a line formed was at the dispensing machine. Within about 2 months after the renovations, the bank location was like a ghost town because they made it impossible to accomplish anything. and they closed soon after.
Retail isn't that hard, but you need someone in each location, who understands the business, and who are engaged in the day to day operations. You can't manage retail businesses without ever stepping foot in one.
As far as toys r us's debt load, why have you not addressed the take over by Baines and the other private equity fund that saddled them with debt from the takeover?
Quit being disingenuous to you listeners!
Even as they are having bankruptcy sales, their prices are still outrageous. That is what killed Toys R Us.
Dave - you are normally spot on, but you missed it here. Dig deeper, where did the debt come from? Dig into Bain Capital loading up Toys R Us with debt. This crippled the company and left it strapped for assets to respond to changes in the marketplace.
Doesn't address why they went into debt in the first place.
silvermanemilard Private investment firm loaded it with debt by fooling lenders with hyped projections. Investment firm then took the loan proceeds out as special dividend to investors but leaving the debt on the company. The debt proceeds were not used to better the business and provide a superior shopper experience.
I stopped shopping there when I noticed security following me around. Good riddance.
modap3000 same here. Ridiculous
Had that too one time, "helpful" sales/stocking staff asking you a few times too often if you need any assistance. But they never look you in the eye, always at your hands and bag or jacket pockets.
modap3000 Good!
modap3000 Are you black?
@@frankricard3853 Or have a big purse, a baby carriage, or wear a big coat in warm weather? Those are the 3 big tip-offs that somebody might be shoplifting. I used to work at a Hallmark store; we had to watch anyone who came in with something they could easily use to hide merchandise. Baby carriages were a surprise to me, but I don't normally think like a shoplifter.
I read the same thing about K-Mart and their business model centered around the 50's style marketing. Even today, online shopping is very difficult and similar to what Dave described. I buy my pants from Kmart and could not find them on the website after a local store closed, a customer service rep was able to help me place an order over the phone.
Totally agree, I loved toys r us, I was just happy going through the store watching toys, but now that I have my own son, and I had to compare prices the website was super slow, and prices on some items were more than 30% more expensive, it sadden me but if they didn't want to change there was no hope.
One little toy will cost you $50 now.
Wondering how toy manufactures are doing I don’t see kids playing with toys any more they just play with cell phones I remember going to doctors office they had a toy box now if you go there give them the phone
After the 2008 housing market crash, families lost their homes, jobs disappeared. When consumers don't have money it's a big problem. Because their discretionary spending is gone, all that's left is basic necessities
This ignores how Toys 'R' Us got into the debt. A private equity firm bought the company and borrowed against the company. The private equity owners used the borrowed money to pay themselves large "management" fees and left Toys "r' Us to pay the debt off. Even in liquidating the company, the private equity firm paid itself a lot more in management fees than it paid for Toys 'R'Us. The management firm makes millions, the creditors are left holding the bag, the stores close and thousands of employees lose their jobs.
Forgot to mention most kids now rather have tablets than toys
Raquan Smith No they still play at Chuckie cheeses.
Even w/ their stores closing soon, they only give out 10% off on majority of products.
Hey, if ure new yorker, the sales tax is around 9% so basically toy'r us only save 1%. On top of that, all sales r final, theres no return.
Waste of time going there looking for products, i ma save my time to buy it online and at least i can return
I’m think the percentages off will increase later . . . maybe?
I remember getting my first bicycle from there and riding it all around the store. Also spending hours looking at the huge lego cities they had in the display cases
Whatever problems Toys R Us had, it was still KKR, Bain Capital, and Vornado Realty Trust that saddled it with debt and killed it with their leveraged buyout.
My family refused to shop there after the local store put up signs condemning legal carry of firearms.
Shopify website would have saved them. Cheap too.
This is an amazing story about the power of debt, timing, and disruption.
The business that eventually became the Southland Ice Company and later 7-11 ended up being bogged down with so much debt they couldn't survive the crash, and were eventually bought out by a Japanese company. Today, 7-11 and its parent Group is one of Japan's largest retailers.
I agree with all of the comments, and the reporting that Dave is reading. But, I don't agree with "toys are hard to sell in a cold, warehouse environment". (btw not Dave's words)
Does anyone remember in their youth how magical the trip to Toys R Us was? Back when it was what? A seemingly unending concrete warehouse full of toys. THAT is what they got away from. TRU forgot how they were successful in the first place: they were a destination. Years later, as a dad, I took my kids to TRU quite a few times, and I always thought what a shame it was - how far they distanced themselves from that original concept.