Toys R Us

[legios]

Dec 1, 2017 22:22:33 GMT The Doctor said:

Quarter of UK stores to close:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42204182

-Ralph

I can't say I am entirely surprised. The almost complete lack of footfall in the one here, even compared to the Smyths in the next bit of the same retail park tells a rather dark story. I'm kind of assuming that the Northampton store will be one of the ones on the closure list. The fact that there were only a handful of people in there this weekend, considering how close to Christmas we are and the footfall through Lidl and Aldi which are on the same retail park not to mention the Starbucks literally next door being packed does suggest that it is struggling badly.

At this point it does feel like The Entertainer, Smyths and TRU are busily fighting over a shrinking pool of customers.

Karl

[browny87]

entertainer and smyths do it right, knock a couple of quid off here and there, never really charge RRP and have offers on all the time.

TRU is very archaic and basically charges RRP for everything no matter what

[The Doctor]

I gave up on the Edinburger store as they don't tend to stock their own exclusives! A shame.

-Ralph

[primenova]

3 of my local branches are to close. They are keeping the loyalty points. so spend £300 on boys toys & you get £150 of girls toys vocuhers

[browny87]

a couple of stores close by are closing I wonder if stock will be discounted or just shipped elsewhere

[Philip Ayres]

Closure list: www.toynews-online.biz/news/read/toys-r-us-details-the-26-stores-to-close-as-of-spring-2018/049560

Aberdeen, Basingstoke, Belfast, Newtonabbey, Birmingham St. Andrews, Bolton, Bradford, Brislington (Bristol), Cambridge, Cardiff, Derry City, Doncaster, East Kilbride (South Lanarkshire), Exeter, Hayes (Middlesex), Kirkcaldy (Fife), Leicester, Livingston (West Lothian), Old Kent Road (south London), Plymouth, Scunthorpe, Shrewsbury, Tamworth (Staffordshire), Tunbridge Wells, Watford, York and Manchester Central Retail Park.

[Benn]

Odd that Derby is keeping both it's stores. The stock never really seems to shift in the town center one.

[Fortmax2020]

Unsurprised Manchester Central going. It is on a shopping centre that is like a ghost town of closed units and is only 15 mins walk from main station but in the opposite direction to anything else of interest to kids.

[Fortmax2020]

Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol and Cardiff to go. None left in that part of the country after?

[browny87]

York, donny and Bradford going round here, but wakefield and birstall staying by the looks of it!

[Philip Ayres]

Dec 5, 2017 15:31:28 GMT Fortmax2020 said:

Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol and Cardiff to go. None left in that part of the country after?

Cribbs Causeway, Bristol will be the furthest west. Then Gloucester and Swindon.

[The Huff]

Such a shame - I've worked at a few of those stores back in my Toys R Us days. Will miss Old Kent Road the most I think. (Not that I miss working for the company of course!)

[primenova]

Wakefield closes at about 4 on weekdays

[KnightBeat]

I've enjoyed visiting the Watford store during the past few years. I'd get the train from London to Bushey, wander around TRU and PC World trying to find something that I could afford, then walk up to Smyths and buy something in the sale.

Wait! Am I the problem?

[legios]

I'm actually quite surprised that the Northampton store isn't on the list to be honest. Not only is it competing with a Smyths literally three minutes walk away, but there is also an Entertainer in the shopping centre in the middle of town not much more than fifteen minutes away. It seemed like it was in fairly difficult territory, but perhaps not as much as I believed.

Karl

[drmick]

Dec 6, 2017 20:50:42 GMT legios said:

I'm actually quite surprised that the Northampton store isn't on the list to be honest. Not only is it competing with a Smyths literally three minutes walk away, but there is also an Entertainer in the shopping centre in the middle of town not much more than fifteen minutes away. It seemed like it was in fairly difficult territory, but perhaps not as much as I believed.

Karl

Yeah, I'm not sure of the logic either. They are closing three of the four Northern Irish ones. One of those is a city centre shopping centre one, which only just moved from smaller premises to a bigger unit in the same shopping centre. So I had assumed it was doing good business to justify the move.

[browny87]

I wonder if its more the volume of stores in an area that means theve closed them

[Fortmax2020]

Some interesting categorisations here:

toyworldmag.co.uk/news/toys-r-us-releases-fully-categorised-list-of-its-plans-for-stores/

[browny87]

that's really interesting actually!

[Philip Ayres]

That makes interesting reading.

I'm assuming it's limited to Warehouse stores, I don't see the smaller Kingston branch anywhere on the list?

I see Swindon lurking in the danger zone though.....

[Pinwig]

I'm stunned Portsmouth is a category one shop. It always seems to be the poor relation in terms of variety of stock compared to Poole and Southampton.

[legios]

Ah - so they are hoping to pull the "we want to only rent part of the unit, and we want you to charge us less rent for that" on the Northampton store. Hmm. It'll be interesting to see how that pans out. That part of the St James Retail Park already has one large empty unit (one of the two former BHS stores here), so the owners might be willing to negotiate rather than lose another entire unit.

Until I read that table I didn't even know that they had a mini-store out at Weston Favell. (Had no call to be out that way really, and getting there would involve passing through Bandit Country anyway.)

Karl

[Pinwig]

Bandit Country!!

[KnightBeat]

I'm not surprised to see the Stoke store on the loss making list. It's just moved into new premises and adopted a new open plan layout, but it's still empty most of the time.

[The Doctor]

Upon popping into a brand-new store today it was easy to see why the chain is struggling. As soon as I went in I wanted to leave. Shelves made of baskets, confusing and disorganised layout, loud music and strange islands of empty space. The decor was very plain and made the shop feel cheap and nasty. The shop was mostly empty. Couple of other customers.

Comparing it to likes of the layout of a Lego store in terms of lighting, layout and product display just shows how moribound TRU feels. They just don't have a welcoming feel to them.

-Ralph

[Bogatan]

Mine got shrunk down a couple of years ago. Considering they lost half the unit, it doesnt feel that much smaller, but the new layout doesnt feel user friendly.

[Philip Ayres]

TRU UK faces collapse: www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/18/toys-r-us-faces-collapse-with-loss-of-3500-uk-jobs

[Fortmax2020]

Causes panic among some who don't seem to be aware of the rise of other toy shops as alternatives

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/06/toys-r-us-christmas-toyshops-childhood

[legios]

Dec 18, 2017 23:49:54 GMT Philip Ayres said:

TRU UK faces collapse: www.theguardian.com/business/2017/dec/18/toys-r-us-faces-collapse-with-loss-of-3500-uk-jobs

Owch, Yeah, when the pension fund isn't willing to accept your CVA then that isn't a pretty situation.

TRU aren't the only store having issues mind you - the electronics shop Maplin has had it's credit insurance downgraded by several brokers and withdrawn entirely by one. Leading to one of its suppliers ceasing to do business with it because Maplin was unwilling to pay up-front for stock. Shades of the Comet-ary disintegration there...

Karl

[legios]

Dec 19, 2017 8:56:27 GMT Fortmax2020 said:

Causes panic among some who don't seem to be aware of the rise of other toy shops as alternatives

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/06/toys-r-us-christmas-toyshops-childhood

Fascinating how that writer sees Christmases as getting less special when one gets older, because one doesn't get as much cool stuff.

I'm pretty much the opposite - after a good number of years struggling with Christmas for personal reasons, I actually find that now that it is one of the few times in the year when my immediate family and I are likely to be convened altogether in each others company it is perhaps a more important time in the year than it was when I was a kid and primarily concerned with what presents I might get.

Karl