You might want to grow up.
It’s been roughly a year since Toys ‘R’ Us closed own all of their stores. But that wasn’t the end of them; they had plans to come back to the retail space leaner and meaner. And that’s exactly what they’ve done.
The first of their two planned stores has opened: a 6,000 square foot store placed in Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, New Jersey. It not only has spaces dedicated to major toy brands like LEGO and Nerf (among others), it has dedicated space for kids to try toys out before a purchase is made. Moreover, there are screens scattered throughout the store, to allow shoppers to order something vi their website should the store be out of stock.
The second store is planned to open in the Galleria in Houston, Texas on December 7th. Their pan is to reach 10 stores by the end of 2020. So what’s the catch?
They’re, uh, actually not selling anything. At least, not in the traditional retail sense.
What they’re doing, rather, is providing a marketplace of sorts for these brands to sell their products directly. They basically lease out these spaces in the stores to these brands for that purpose. Moreover, none of their online presence stands on it’s own; the site is powered by Target, with links to redirect the purchase to Target.
There’s also the matter of an NBC report regarding sensors built into each store. b8ta, which partnered with Tru Kids in this new Toys ‘R’ Us venture, installed these sensors to “monitor traffic patterns and shopper cadence”. In essence, what that means is that they track what people are going for and how often they buy. How this is fair game in regards to kids is hard to grasp when you have YouTube screaming and spraying diarrhea on the walls over COPPA (not like that seems to be unusual for YouTube in general, but still), but I guess every such thing has different rules to follow. Then again, the data seems to be anonymous, so by virtue of that, they’re probably not violating any laws.
Regardless of the above, they’re definitely taking a strange approach to business this time around. Long gone is the store I bought Gunplas and “buy X get 1 free” games. But maybe this is what it takes to rise from the ashes.
Source: iO9
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