Demise of "Toys R Us"

"Toys R Us" is an American company, which was one of the world's leading retailers of toys, children clothing and baby products. It was founded in 1948 by Charles Lazarus which was then called "Bargain Town" and the name " Toys R Us" made its debut in 1957. It is a stylized version of the phrase " toys are us".

Over the next few decades after the company was started, it was dominant in toy sales market. By 1978, they were able to make profits of approximately $ 36 million that year. They were also expanding into international markets.

But during the late 90's they started experiencing competition from other big retailers like Walmart and a serious loss in court to Federal Trade Commission. In 2000's Toys R Us partnered with Amazon in a 10 year contract,to become the exclusive seller of toys and baby products on Amazon. But the company was completely reliant on Amazon for online sales and ignored the idea of building their own e-commerce business. Amazon also branched out and started working with competitors, which further hurt its market share and online sales.

Rising competition from internal retail giants such as Amazon and massive mounting debt, eventually forced Toy R Us to file for bankruptcy in 2017. The company ended up selling or liquidating and closing most of its retail stores in Asia and Europe in 2018. The last 2 stores of business in New Jersey and Texas closed in 2021.

In conclusion, Toys R Us failed because it didn't change. Instead they competed on price alone , relied on Amazon , had poor customer experience and focused on short-term.

Article by

Jacquiline P Benny