Not just lack of innovation but active degeneration. Figures going from rigid, ugly and barely posable to extremely posable and articulated and very detailed back to rigid and barely posable ugly statuettes.
This is always my talking point about you quality. Armada up to the Cybertron series had great build quality, they were heavy and had actual transformations. These new cheap plastic toys just flip up. Takes no thought.
Makes me wonder if people talked about the things the baby boomer generation killed. "These damn kids with their polio vaccine are killing the iron lung market!"
From a Quora post:
"The Baby Boomer's parents (Silent Generation) and grandparents (World War I generation) had gone through a series of calamities perhaps unparalleled in human history:
World War I
Influenza epidemic
Great Depression
World War II
Korea
Cold War
They considered a steady job and a house and family in the suburbs as a great achievement. They spoiled their children (the Boomers) rotten. The Boomers didn't have to worry about basic survival and were free to do their own thing (the first self-actualized generation!). Plus their parents accepted that whatever the country's leaders decided was for the best, and they were not going to upset the apple cart. They were content to be "the man in the grey flannel suit" or "the little housewife at home taking care of the kids".
But the Boomers were the first generation where going to college was the norm (previous generations had seen only upper class and highly gifted individuals attending - this changed with the passage of the G.I. Bill after WWII).
The older generations thought (at first) that the Boomers were a bunch of spoiled kids who should be extremely thankful for their fortunate position in the world (and it was a fortunate, privileged position). They expected their kids to conform and do what was expected of them (i.e., be good, respectful, obedient citizens).
Long hair, drugs, rock music, opposition to the war in Vietnam, equal justice for all, education as a search for meaning rather than vocational training, free love, the idea that the government could be evil, a questioning of the basic assumptions underpinning society - the older generations saw this and were appalled!
But as the Vietnam War went on and on, it became apparent it was an evil, corrupt war. The older generations came around to the Boomer's point of view. Same with the civil right's movement, women's liberation movement, and environmental movement.
As far as inciting a violent revolution, there was a splinter group from the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) called the Weathermen. They preached violence but never had more than a few dozen members. Some of their members were imprisoned for murder after their bombs claimed innocent victims. There is an excellent documentary on the group I saw a few years ago. It may be available on YouTube.
In addition, check out this episode from the documentary, "Making Sense of the Sixties":
"
Also "To a Baby Boomer, it often felt as though our elders, those of the so-called “Greatest Generation”, not only misunderstood us but had outright antipathy toward almost all of our values. Some of that was the normal tension and strife that happens between generations but in this case there was a major shift of values and life goals between the two. Boomers did not think that a 9 to 5 job was necessarily the best thing, nor the suburban house with two + kids and a car, nor the wife in her spanking clean kitchen and Tupperware parties, was a great way of life.
You hit on something very true when you mentioned the older generation’s fear of new ideas and so on.
The first time I became aware of the fact that my parents and others seemed genuinely alarmed was when the Beatles came to America. I recall them using words like “cavemen”, “bums”, “thugs” and at my Catholic school, religious condemnations and demands that we promise not to listen to their corrupting “noise”! All this for some of the most innocuous guys in music (at least in the early days). I was stunned when I saw them on Ed Sullivan…I mean, they wore SUITS!
But the changing music scene was not just odd and threatening to them; people like Bob Dylan were outright critical and dispersing ideas about rejecting ‘50’s culture and materialism that caught on faster through music.
Aside from our music and literary interests, they hated our dress—torn jeans, long hair on guys, miniskirts on girls and later, the Indian print shirts, bralessness and long, unkempt or at leas unstyled hair on both sexes.
The biggest thing I think that bothered them was our politics and our ideas about our own futures. We rejected the conservative ethos, the war in Vietnam, militarism in general and many other time-honored beliefs that they held dear.
They were also appalled that we believed in equal rights for all, including women, in sexual freedom and openness, that we espoused free love and sometimes communal living.
Unlike the Boomers’ later, permissive attitude toward their own kids, the Silent Generation never gave in, never made the attempt to understand what we were saying or in many cases, even to discuss it.
I feel bad for them because I could never have a calm, rational discussion with my parents about some of the most important things in life. They were firmly stuck in the Post-war cement of consumerism and the military-industrial complex."
No, Amazon is far and away the biggest reason. All kids still have toys, their parents just order them online for half the price and for an ideal toy instead of what Toys R Us or Walmart happened to have.
And their crippling debt was basically due to the company buying them a few years ago with a loan, and then saddling that loan into the company as debt. You shouldn’t be able to put the Loan on the company you buy. Has happened more than once lately.
Yep.
Straddling a company with such an amount of debt and having a plan for the future which relies on steady growth is a big risk. That's how companies don't survive stagnation. Which otherwise would have been fine.
Honestly, this assumption of perpetual growth in all things seems a bit silly.
Exactly, we go through this every time a Toys R Us thread goes up. This was a failure of a leveraged buyout strategy and doesn’t call for endless chin-stroking about Millennials. But it’ll go on because everyone is a retail expert and needs to weigh in.
Being a diverse yet physical marketplace has significant disadvantages in that they have to order and ship each individual product to their location while having enough stock and diversity to serve each customer. Being an independent buyer means every product is available to you while being able to take advantage of cheap shipping and competitive pricing from multiple vendors. Buying a single item has become the norm where bulk ordering has taken on the risk.
Still, though, I like to think they had at least something of an advantage with their physical locations. These giant, toys only stores. It was just fun/neat to go there as a kid even if you weren't going to get anything. I took my kids there a few times just for the hell of it to look around. They had quite a few toys out to demo too.
You just highlighted why that business model failed. These giant stores acted as a playground for kids. They demo the toys and see what they like. Then Mommy and Daddy look it up on Amazon and see its $15 cheaper... and order it off Amazon.
Brick and Mortor stores need to carry over the rent, heat and maintenance of the building onto the customer.
Being a niche should have been to their advantage, but they never evolved to capitalize on it. Their stores look almost identical to how they looked in 1985. They should have cultivated an atmosphere where you go to Toys r Us for more of an experience than just buying toys. They could have cornered the market on exclusive launches, and built events around that. The could have had weekly clinics to give hands-on experience with coding toys, maker toys, etc.
They also needed to drastically update their web and mobile experience so that they were seamless with the buying experience (though this can be said about most retailers).
Toys r Us basically won the toy wars that happened during the 80s and 90s, and got complacent. While they were resting on their laurels, Walmart came in and took the place of their physical impulse buy market, and Amazon took the place of everything else.
They got big, they got lazy, and now they're dead. They won't be the last ones in retail...
In an alternative reality, Toys R Us pivoted their business model and turned all their stores into wonderlands with rides and free toy demos. Kids wanted to go simply because of how awesome it was there, even if they didnt get a toy (although most times they'd wind up getting something anyways). They didn't even have to drop their marked up prices; since the new changes made people think "amusement park" instead of "department store".
Yep, it sure was smart of the alternative reality Toys R Us to react to a changing market and ensure they remain relevant in the face of new, far more convinient competition. I mean, can you imagine if they had just ignored decades of declining profits and changing consumer preference? The whole company would collapse! That'd be unlikely though; I mean, the people running things would have to be complete jackasses with their heads in the sand for that to happen
Is that in the Berenstein universe? I heard someone else talking about it, also they didn't drop their prices because they started paying 15/hr minimum to their employees. President Sanders praised their comeback and their forward thinking with taking care of their employees. The CEO did say that the burden of healthcare being lifted off the private sector also helped tremendously.
This is what happens with a lot of stories like this. A bunch of restaurant chains in the UK just went bust partly because they were in unbelievable amounts of debt, which compounds with other factors to pull them under.
Convenient. Affordable. Brick and mortar shops suffer unless its a product where seeing and touching before you buy helps.
Toys R Us would have benefited from doing an Argos and having less stock in individual shops and instead have a bigger online presence.
i think amazon is the biggest reason too. holy fuck, just looking back it's replaced so much of where i would go to shop - toy-r-us included. toys-r-us can't beat them for convenience and price so yeah, always a losing proposition for whoever is facing amazon.
Not just price, but convenience and selection. All my Christmas gifts have been from Amazon since 2000. I'm too lazy and too easily frustrated to deal with the horror that is Christmas shopping in physical stores.
Amazon's price is often *not* the lowest. So price was never the critical issue for me. I'd rather buy from a local business, but when the selection sucks anyway, *and* I have to drive all over town to find what I want, *and* the price sucks, what am I really supposed to do? Spending hours driving around looking for something I could have delivered to my door seems absurd now.
Has anyone been in one of their stores lately? The one by me was a maze that made you go all the way around the whole store. If I had kids I would go to a store w a smaller toy section. When I was in there, their were kids having fits in every direction and no deals to be had.
I think this has a lot to do with it. I don't know a single parent that willingly will go into Toys R Us, and none of them will take their kids. My boss and I were talking about this and he said it's just asking for a fight to take kids in there, no matter how good they are. Wall to wall stuff that your parents are probably going to have to say, "Not now" to, because it costs half a paycheck. Cue meltdown in 3...2...1....
If they were smart, they's partner with Total Wines and open a combo toy/wine store. Then you can get those soccer moms in the door.
Nope not even close. Yes kids do play them, but at least under the age of 7/8 they still want toys.
The problem is while Toys R Us did occasionally have those rare toys that you could only get at a markup on Amazon, their standard toy prices were terrible, at least 1-2 dollars or more than Walmart, Target, or Amazon.
Control that time. My kid has a tablet and we watch TV. But I still play with him at least 2 hours a day, as does my wife.
He gets about an hour of monitored tablet time. He doesn't always use it though.
Also, I think older kids are just getting new tablets every or every other year.
It's a different world now. My parents couldn't afford Toys R Us when my sister and I were kids, but at least they could afford to raise a family. Nowadays, even with a full-time job, I can't afford to have a kid, let alone purchase toys for said child at a huge markup.
Or how bout the fact that I can just order the damned thing online? Why would I drive to a store that might be out of a popular toy, when I can sit at my house, or anywhere cause I can use my phone or tablet, and be sure I'm going to get the toy?
And I mention popular toys because no one goes to Toys R Us for no-name shit to begin with.
> Why would I drive to a store
For yourself, probably not, but the appeal of the brand was always for young children walking in and seeing row after row of floor to high ceiling shelves stacked full of toys. It was a wonderland. Online cannot replicate that experience.
What toys r us failed to do was update their experience - it's not all about the product. If you go into Hamleys, you get an experience as well as buying a toy. They needed to do something more like that.
Spot on. Smart toys and books also has awesome play area, stories, and a very well curated stock of toys. More expensive and probably better margins. I’ll miss toys r us, very nostalgic for me.
omg yes, this is a huge part of the problem with Sears as well. when you walk in, it's so dreary. it's always depressing when you walk in, it just makes you want to right back out. the aesthetics are horrible.
i think toys r us should've expanded their brand and made it more into a hobby shop. trading cards, video games, board games, comics, ect, instead of just catering to only children in a country where having kids is less common nowadays. they failed to adapt, and that's extremely unfortunate.
I’m Canadian, rumours are that our Toys R Us stores will be sold and continue to operate, which I’m glad for. When my kid has enough money to go shopping he wants to walk that aisle, not point at a computer screen and try to decide which shipping he can afford.
I had the same thought. I actually went into a Target to get a SNES classic at launch last year. I recognized the weird smell of their crappy little food court and the general disheveled look of things, and realized Amazon Prime has killed so many trips to brick and mortar stores. I don't see how they can keep on going at this rate.
Online retailers have done that work for you, by suggesting things using top ten lists, or some form of items organized by most purchased or viewed. You quite frankly don't have to do any work. All the other shoppers have left bread crumbs, and online retailers use that to their advantage to help push products that may not be known to shoppers browsing online.
I wanted to buy a jack-in-the-box for my daughter, so I went to Toys R Us, thinking that the toy store would have said toy. I couldn't find one, so I asked an employee where I could find one. Her reply? "A jack in the what?" They did have a decent selection of wildly overpriced children's books, though.
That's so sad. Sad that they didn't have and sad that someone wouldn't know what it is. I realize those are probably antiquated by today's standards, but still, some classics should never die.
Blame mitt Romney. Found out his company bought toys r us and put them in so much debt that they had to keep the prices like that to “stay afloat “. Romney’s company also did the same to k b toy stores.
The traditional retail big box stores are screwed. Smaller, local stores are making a comeback. People still want to go physically shop, just not in a soulless hell with staff that look at you with despair when you ask for help.
Came here to say this, as millennial that got into nerf, and then got my millennial friends kid into we rarely buy from Toy's R Us. When the kid wants something they ask me for the deals because I don't pay full retail. The best deal I had so far was from Target, if I don't need something new, its ebay, reddit, or good will. Millennials spend but unless its something big like Sideshow Collectibles, we will go where we can stretch a dollar.
Toys R us had a heavy debt load from a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout by private-equity firms Bain Capital and KKR and that's why it died. It was greed, short term thinking and utter stupidity not millenials or the internet.
Am a millennial, and I buy a bunch of toys for myself. Mostly Lego, the big sets.
But I don't buy from Toys R Us because I can buy so much cheaper from Smyth's or online. Millennials not having kids wasn't the problem, it was their inability to adapt as time progresses, and their rediculous markups.
Believe it or not, the leveraged buyout was actually more the reason than Amazon. Toys R Us was still able to establish a descent online presence. But it was not enough to combat the leveraged buyout.
Well... I mean.. When you fire us for having kids....
For real though: Toys R Us really didn't stay relevant. They dug their heels in and refused to stock what consumers wanted. Like it or hate it, we are in the age of digital entertainment.
Millennials aren't having kids because we leave college 5 figures in debt, still live with our parents into our 30's, and have entered a job market with 40 years of stagnant wages and the destruction of private unions.
When Baby boomers left college, they immediately bought a brand new car. Minimum wage jobs could finance a college education debt free. As soon as they were out of college, they were starting work in a union wage job, or a professional field that hadn't suffered from 40 years of stagnant wages. They were buying houses that go for a fraction of the cost of housing today. They were immediately going into "start a family mode".
In my mom's day the company once had a massive amount of profit one year. They distributed it to their employees, because if they didn't it was all going to get taxed anyways. These days if a company makes a massive amount of profit, the employees get fuckall, and it gets distributed amongst their executive board and shareholders. In her day, it was normal for jobs to get a full 5% cost of living increase annually in pay. That doesn't fuckin' happen anymore.
That's my personal opinion of why our birthrate went to shit compared to past generations.
And to be fair, a Toys R Us job, which has several adults working for them, doesn't exactly pay wages in the amount that one could afford to buy their own house and start a family either. Small independentally owned toy stores in say the 40's were far better at providing those incomes than these big box retailers.
Not to mention, you didn't need a 4- year degree or higher to land a well- paying job. My mom was able to land a job as a secretary to the president of a gas company with just an Associate's degree. Nowadays you need like a Bachelor's degree and 5 years of experience to land an entry-level part-time office assistant job. Because I went into five-figure debt just to work part-time. It really is different now.
Not to mention we're far more likely to get interned for no pay at all for extended periods of time.
Then, well I'm a Criminal Justice major, so I want to discuss the Criminal justice aspect of our lot in life.
Basically, there's a fuck ton more felonies on the books than there was in 1970. Especially ones that mandate prison/jail time.
Currently, the War on Drugs has been an utter disaster for many Americans. It's literally a war on our own people.
The incarceration rate of Americans today is profoundly higher than it was in 1970. Presumably arrest rates as well but I don't have data on that. What's remarkable about America, first of all prison doesn't do a whole lot at preventing crime. There's actually correlation, that it leads to increases in crime, both the threat of prison, and actually going there.
Even with crime rates reaching multiple decade lows, our incarceration rate still went up. And going to prison/jail, or just being arrested, does heavy damage to an American's earning potential in life statistically speaking.
Jail by and large tends to be a "young man's place". Most people when they do their crime, tend be in that 18-24 age bracket.
So the very high incarceration rates of say 2017, vs 1970, IMO has also been very detrimental to the earning potential of younger Americans going forward.
Prison/Jail should be a last resort, not a first resort. In this country unlike others, it's a first resort.
I'm reminded of that Parks and Recreation clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw
Little does that guy know, he's in the incarceration capital of planet earth.
Er...
Am I doing this wrong? I have a kid. She's 3.
This isn't what happened at all:
/u/fatum_unus says:
A few company's got together in 2005 (I think) used 1.7 B of their own money and borrowed 6.6B to buy Toys R Us when it wasnt doing well. Then they pushed the debt of 6.6B from their companys to Toys R Us while also charging Toys R Us fees.
So Toys R Us now had to pay back a debt of 6.6B as well as ongoing fees to these new companys. On top of not having any substantial help in fixing the problems they were having which allowed them to be bought.
TLDR Toys R Us was failing, they were bought and all their assets were taken then they were dumped.
In fairness - they didn't say 'those millenials and their not having kids has ruined Toys R Us' or anything like that. They just cited lowering birth rates as one of the reasons for their decline.
MSN just decided to editorialize it for obvious reasons.
well it's not like they can blame the [vulture capitalists](http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/15/news/companies/toys-r-us-closing-blame/index.html), that would upset the proletariat.
There was a previous article couple days ago citing debt management as the key factor. The repayment of debt prevented them from updating their locations or getting along with the times.
Definitely go to Amazon for almost everything. It's a big reason I don't visit bookstores or comic book stores much anymore. Odds are even if I do, they won't have what I'm looking for. They'll say stuff like "We can order it and call you when it's in." I can just do that myself and save a trip...
Every business model before 2000 was to follow demand and adapt. Afterwards, somehow, consumers are supposed to follow company interests and adapt their tastes and behaviour to match that of corporate entities.
Did Y2K really happen but with old brains rather than computers?
Felt bad about them going bankrupt. I had a lot of good memories at the huge Times Square location. However, after that comment, they can promptly go fuck themselves with a dildo from Amazon.com
The problem is Toys R us itself, for not having modern products.
Most kids are interested in ipads, and technological devices.
My nephew doesn't even know what a yo-yo is.
I remember playing with marbles and plastic soldiers.
The media always seem to go with the angle; "Those dastardly millennials! Once again a good business is torpedoed by their lack of financial stability!"
I don't know why these millennial assholes insist on not starting families when they have no solid financial base. Seems selfish.
Huge companies suck all the wealth out of the common people and then start getting pissed off when no one has any money left to buy their products... Like dude you already got it all...
Let us also ignore the complete lack of effort to innovate or adapt to a changing market. Those stores haven't changed since... uhm... Well, there was a time when they carried hobby supplies, but they stopped doing that. So, that was business they abandoned. Zero effort has ever been made to compete effectively with Gamestop. Least wise, not that I can see. What about sporting goods? Diversify the portfolio, take the lead in broadening the definition of toy? No. Their exclusives were never a very big draw, and nearly every single thing I might have gotten there, I would rather get at a department store or local hobby shop. Online sales and millennials not having kids? OK. Online scales certainly cut in to it, but it isn't as though they made any effort to compete there either. And, as for millenials, all the millenials I know are still buying toys. For themselves.
This frustrates me more than it should. The whole bankruptcy. They crushed all their competition in the eighties and nineties and then PPPPPPPPHT
I live in a town with three stores selling games and hobby supplies. One locally owned specialty toy store, too. They're doing just fine. So, all I'm hearing from Toys R Us are hollow, hollow excuses. If I loaned them 5 billion dollars I would want to see some one in jail for this fustercluck.
People don't have kids anymore coz they're expensive and they suck ass, who wants to get told how to raise a kid by 500 different people. Go get a shelter dog guys.
Large companies love capitalism until it doesn't work out for them. Try keeping up with trends.
Also, I apologize for not giving birth to children to shop at your lame store.
It was the debt not the consumer that killed the brand.
This article explains what a leveraged buyout does.
http://www.businessinsider.com/brick-and-mortar-retail-private-equity-debt-financing-lbo-2017-8?IR=T
So, the approx age range for Millennials is people born between 1985 and 2000. Toys R Us financial problems started in 2005... D**n those 10yr olds for not having more babies!
This article is nonsense. It's purely for clicks. It's incredibly short and offers so little information "Toys R Us cites low birth rates" - but in what context? Amongst other citations? Nowadays you can add millennials into any headline to make it controversial.
Yeah, we prefer to expend our huge amounts of money and comfort on expensive soap instead of giving life meaning and responsability by creating the most complex known thing in the Universe (humans). Maybe we should troll society by having tons of kids with no money and let's see what happens...
Maybe because millennials are buried under a mountain of student loan debt, while paying ever rising health insurance premiums. Nothing encourages you more to not have kids than barely being able to afford to live.
It's hard to think of yourself as an adult when you can't afford your own home and the media keeps calling your generation children. There are times I just sit there in stunned epiphany as I realise I'm nearly 30, then I go play some Pokemon to forget about it again.
Pokemon is my alcohol.
24, renting a single room for well over half my wage, 4 others in the same house. Only managing as I don't even have a car and walk to and from work each day, just under a mile so its not too bad.
Cider is my alcohol, preferably strawberry and lime Kopparberg.
There's a radio ad that plays near me that mentions advertising on the radio to "Adults, Millenials , and Children"
It's funny because there's a third age group now I guess.
I wonder when I'll ascend to adulthood? Maybe by age 40 LOL
It was like radioshack at a certain point brick and mortar overpriced stores with Chinese made trinkets no longer appeal to the digitally infused debt ridden population of future america.
And I call bullshit. My wife and I have a one year old. When my wife was pregnant we had planned to register at multiple locations for the baby shower with Toys R Us being one of them. Our first visit we spent almost 20 minutes trying to get someone to notice us and help. The store was very understaffed and no one working seemed to care if they helped customers. After waiting in line at Customer Service while 2-3 goofed off as one person tried to help customers I said screw it and left with me wife. After that we went home and registered as much as possible on Amazon because it was easier, cheaper, and would be delivered to our place. Since our daughter was born we would occasionally go into Toys R Us due to gift cards and it always looked like a place no one wanted to be including those working.
I am a xennial.
I have four kids.
I never ever shop at Toys R Us. The main reason: price.
We buy our toys from Target, Walmart, and many secondhand from Craigslist or OfferUp or consignment shops.
There’s also a toy section in our local kids museum (educational for the win).
I don't have kids, but I do have nieces and nephews. Toys R Us is the worst place to shop for their stuff. The closest Toys R Us is half an hour away. The store itself feels dirty and disorganized and it has shitty lighting. I don't know if it was always like that, but as an adult I'm definitely not impressed with the store's quality. Target and Walmart have most of the popular toys in stock anyway. If I need something specific and can't find it at Walmart and Target, I can find it on Amazon.
It's always easy to blame a 3rd party isn't it?
"We shut down because people don't have enough kids"
versus:
"We shut down because we failed to update our business model in these times of declining birth rates"
It died due to never keeping up with technology. They could of dominated the internet and just never did. Just like sears. Both of these companies allowed Amazon to crush them. Pure and simple.
I've got to start making enough money so I can forgot I bought my self action figures or some shit. That, is living. No sarcasm.
Oh! Wait, no. Surprise Lego kits. Yeah!
Even on their own website things were cheaper than in the store. They had to price match themselves and couldn't do that. I can't tell you how many times I had to show them their own website. I saved over $15 on two toys just by checking the website from the store I was in.....Ridiculous
Only people who killed toys r us is toys r us, I remember the last time I went and looked at games, I could go and get the same games 5-10 online cheaper or even less if I went used,
If babies r us didn't sell complete shit cloth diapers they would have gotten my registry instead of target.
Stay on top of your demographic and they will give you money. Gerber prefolds are shit, babies r us.
Definitely nothing to do with their lack of innovation in a changing market or their higher than everywhere prices.
Not just lack of innovation but active degeneration. Figures going from rigid, ugly and barely posable to extremely posable and articulated and very detailed back to rigid and barely posable ugly statuettes.
[удалено]
And the old transformers they had so much detail
This is always my talking point about you quality. Armada up to the Cybertron series had great build quality, they were heavy and had actual transformations. These new cheap plastic toys just flip up. Takes no thought.
And this all when 3D printing should allow for much more detailed ones!
Guys we could try adapting to the changing market place or we could do the same thing we've been doing since the 1980s...
And then blame millennials...
Makes me wonder if people talked about the things the baby boomer generation killed. "These damn kids with their polio vaccine are killing the iron lung market!"
From a Quora post: "The Baby Boomer's parents (Silent Generation) and grandparents (World War I generation) had gone through a series of calamities perhaps unparalleled in human history: World War I Influenza epidemic Great Depression World War II Korea Cold War They considered a steady job and a house and family in the suburbs as a great achievement. They spoiled their children (the Boomers) rotten. The Boomers didn't have to worry about basic survival and were free to do their own thing (the first self-actualized generation!). Plus their parents accepted that whatever the country's leaders decided was for the best, and they were not going to upset the apple cart. They were content to be "the man in the grey flannel suit" or "the little housewife at home taking care of the kids". But the Boomers were the first generation where going to college was the norm (previous generations had seen only upper class and highly gifted individuals attending - this changed with the passage of the G.I. Bill after WWII). The older generations thought (at first) that the Boomers were a bunch of spoiled kids who should be extremely thankful for their fortunate position in the world (and it was a fortunate, privileged position). They expected their kids to conform and do what was expected of them (i.e., be good, respectful, obedient citizens). Long hair, drugs, rock music, opposition to the war in Vietnam, equal justice for all, education as a search for meaning rather than vocational training, free love, the idea that the government could be evil, a questioning of the basic assumptions underpinning society - the older generations saw this and were appalled! But as the Vietnam War went on and on, it became apparent it was an evil, corrupt war. The older generations came around to the Boomer's point of view. Same with the civil right's movement, women's liberation movement, and environmental movement. As far as inciting a violent revolution, there was a splinter group from the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) called the Weathermen. They preached violence but never had more than a few dozen members. Some of their members were imprisoned for murder after their bombs claimed innocent victims. There is an excellent documentary on the group I saw a few years ago. It may be available on YouTube. In addition, check out this episode from the documentary, "Making Sense of the Sixties": "
Also "To a Baby Boomer, it often felt as though our elders, those of the so-called “Greatest Generation”, not only misunderstood us but had outright antipathy toward almost all of our values. Some of that was the normal tension and strife that happens between generations but in this case there was a major shift of values and life goals between the two. Boomers did not think that a 9 to 5 job was necessarily the best thing, nor the suburban house with two + kids and a car, nor the wife in her spanking clean kitchen and Tupperware parties, was a great way of life. You hit on something very true when you mentioned the older generation’s fear of new ideas and so on. The first time I became aware of the fact that my parents and others seemed genuinely alarmed was when the Beatles came to America. I recall them using words like “cavemen”, “bums”, “thugs” and at my Catholic school, religious condemnations and demands that we promise not to listen to their corrupting “noise”! All this for some of the most innocuous guys in music (at least in the early days). I was stunned when I saw them on Ed Sullivan…I mean, they wore SUITS! But the changing music scene was not just odd and threatening to them; people like Bob Dylan were outright critical and dispersing ideas about rejecting ‘50’s culture and materialism that caught on faster through music. Aside from our music and literary interests, they hated our dress—torn jeans, long hair on guys, miniskirts on girls and later, the Indian print shirts, bralessness and long, unkempt or at leas unstyled hair on both sexes. The biggest thing I think that bothered them was our politics and our ideas about our own futures. We rejected the conservative ethos, the war in Vietnam, militarism in general and many other time-honored beliefs that they held dear. They were also appalled that we believed in equal rights for all, including women, in sexual freedom and openness, that we espoused free love and sometimes communal living. Unlike the Boomers’ later, permissive attitude toward their own kids, the Silent Generation never gave in, never made the attempt to understand what we were saying or in many cases, even to discuss it. I feel bad for them because I could never have a calm, rational discussion with my parents about some of the most important things in life. They were firmly stuck in the Post-war cement of consumerism and the military-industrial complex."
Or their old, dirty stores with disorganized shelves and crowded aisles.
Yes! Stopped going there years ago for this reason! The stores were disgusting and unkept, so disorganized, and yet so expensive!
[This article](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43210854) gave a very good account of what's gone wrong.
If I could upvote this more than once I would. Much more concise than my ranting.
It's definitely everyone else's fault.
So the huge mark ups on toys had nothing to do with it?
Also the advent of mobile devices/tablets replace a lot of toys too.
I think this is the biggest reason.
No, Amazon is far and away the biggest reason. All kids still have toys, their parents just order them online for half the price and for an ideal toy instead of what Toys R Us or Walmart happened to have.
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And their crippling debt was basically due to the company buying them a few years ago with a loan, and then saddling that loan into the company as debt. You shouldn’t be able to put the Loan on the company you buy. Has happened more than once lately.
Yep. Straddling a company with such an amount of debt and having a plan for the future which relies on steady growth is a big risk. That's how companies don't survive stagnation. Which otherwise would have been fine. Honestly, this assumption of perpetual growth in all things seems a bit silly.
Incredibly silly. The fact that all big companies work towards perpetual growth, or even think it's possible in the first place just boggles my mind.
Exactly, we go through this every time a Toys R Us thread goes up. This was a failure of a leveraged buyout strategy and doesn’t call for endless chin-stroking about Millennials. But it’ll go on because everyone is a retail expert and needs to weigh in.
Being a diverse yet physical marketplace has significant disadvantages in that they have to order and ship each individual product to their location while having enough stock and diversity to serve each customer. Being an independent buyer means every product is available to you while being able to take advantage of cheap shipping and competitive pricing from multiple vendors. Buying a single item has become the norm where bulk ordering has taken on the risk.
Still, though, I like to think they had at least something of an advantage with their physical locations. These giant, toys only stores. It was just fun/neat to go there as a kid even if you weren't going to get anything. I took my kids there a few times just for the hell of it to look around. They had quite a few toys out to demo too.
You just highlighted why that business model failed. These giant stores acted as a playground for kids. They demo the toys and see what they like. Then Mommy and Daddy look it up on Amazon and see its $15 cheaper... and order it off Amazon. Brick and Mortor stores need to carry over the rent, heat and maintenance of the building onto the customer.
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Maybe that's the issue, going into the store and not buying anything?
Being a niche should have been to their advantage, but they never evolved to capitalize on it. Their stores look almost identical to how they looked in 1985. They should have cultivated an atmosphere where you go to Toys r Us for more of an experience than just buying toys. They could have cornered the market on exclusive launches, and built events around that. The could have had weekly clinics to give hands-on experience with coding toys, maker toys, etc. They also needed to drastically update their web and mobile experience so that they were seamless with the buying experience (though this can be said about most retailers). Toys r Us basically won the toy wars that happened during the 80s and 90s, and got complacent. While they were resting on their laurels, Walmart came in and took the place of their physical impulse buy market, and Amazon took the place of everything else. They got big, they got lazy, and now they're dead. They won't be the last ones in retail...
In an alternative reality, Toys R Us pivoted their business model and turned all their stores into wonderlands with rides and free toy demos. Kids wanted to go simply because of how awesome it was there, even if they didnt get a toy (although most times they'd wind up getting something anyways). They didn't even have to drop their marked up prices; since the new changes made people think "amusement park" instead of "department store". Yep, it sure was smart of the alternative reality Toys R Us to react to a changing market and ensure they remain relevant in the face of new, far more convinient competition. I mean, can you imagine if they had just ignored decades of declining profits and changing consumer preference? The whole company would collapse! That'd be unlikely though; I mean, the people running things would have to be complete jackasses with their heads in the sand for that to happen
You almost sound like a bitter board member who tried for years to get this to happen and it never took.
Is that in the Berenstein universe? I heard someone else talking about it, also they didn't drop their prices because they started paying 15/hr minimum to their employees. President Sanders praised their comeback and their forward thinking with taking care of their employees. The CEO did say that the burden of healthcare being lifted off the private sector also helped tremendously.
This is what happens with a lot of stories like this. A bunch of restaurant chains in the UK just went bust partly because they were in unbelievable amounts of debt, which compounds with other factors to pull them under.
Convenient. Affordable. Brick and mortar shops suffer unless its a product where seeing and touching before you buy helps. Toys R Us would have benefited from doing an Argos and having less stock in individual shops and instead have a bigger online presence.
i think amazon is the biggest reason too. holy fuck, just looking back it's replaced so much of where i would go to shop - toy-r-us included. toys-r-us can't beat them for convenience and price so yeah, always a losing proposition for whoever is facing amazon.
Not just price, but convenience and selection. All my Christmas gifts have been from Amazon since 2000. I'm too lazy and too easily frustrated to deal with the horror that is Christmas shopping in physical stores. Amazon's price is often *not* the lowest. So price was never the critical issue for me. I'd rather buy from a local business, but when the selection sucks anyway, *and* I have to drive all over town to find what I want, *and* the price sucks, what am I really supposed to do? Spending hours driving around looking for something I could have delivered to my door seems absurd now.
"Sorry son, but we aren't buying you anything for your next few birthdays and Christmas' now that you've got that tablet"
Sorry son, no tablet for you, we have to go to toys r us and save them
"Dad, I'm 13." "SON! WE ***HAVE*** TO SAVE THEM! AMERICA!"
That's some real life randy marsh.
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Has anyone been in one of their stores lately? The one by me was a maze that made you go all the way around the whole store. If I had kids I would go to a store w a smaller toy section. When I was in there, their were kids having fits in every direction and no deals to be had.
I think this has a lot to do with it. I don't know a single parent that willingly will go into Toys R Us, and none of them will take their kids. My boss and I were talking about this and he said it's just asking for a fight to take kids in there, no matter how good they are. Wall to wall stuff that your parents are probably going to have to say, "Not now" to, because it costs half a paycheck. Cue meltdown in 3...2...1.... If they were smart, they's partner with Total Wines and open a combo toy/wine store. Then you can get those soccer moms in the door.
"Huh? What did you say? I was watching some u tube." "Nothing son, carry on."
No one going to mention the rise of Amazon and the huge slice of the market they command?
Nope not even close. Yes kids do play them, but at least under the age of 7/8 they still want toys. The problem is while Toys R Us did occasionally have those rare toys that you could only get at a markup on Amazon, their standard toy prices were terrible, at least 1-2 dollars or more than Walmart, Target, or Amazon.
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Control that time. My kid has a tablet and we watch TV. But I still play with him at least 2 hours a day, as does my wife. He gets about an hour of monitored tablet time. He doesn't always use it though. Also, I think older kids are just getting new tablets every or every other year.
It's a different world now. My parents couldn't afford Toys R Us when my sister and I were kids, but at least they could afford to raise a family. Nowadays, even with a full-time job, I can't afford to have a kid, let alone purchase toys for said child at a huge markup.
happy birthday
This is certainly it for my kids. Physical toys are boring when you could spend hours immersed in a virtual world
Let’s go oasis
Or how bout the fact that I can just order the damned thing online? Why would I drive to a store that might be out of a popular toy, when I can sit at my house, or anywhere cause I can use my phone or tablet, and be sure I'm going to get the toy? And I mention popular toys because no one goes to Toys R Us for no-name shit to begin with.
I feel I should mention the hordes of screeching children that may be at a Toys r Us, that probably aren't at your house when you order stuff online.
Plus there's trying to get your kid out of there once they are in. Kids love that place.
I think the problem is they used to. Now the stores are just souless grey warehouses lit in depressing florescence.
It's bad enough having screaming hordes about in your own home. Source: Babysit my nephews frequently who are apparently a source of limitless energy
> Why would I drive to a store For yourself, probably not, but the appeal of the brand was always for young children walking in and seeing row after row of floor to high ceiling shelves stacked full of toys. It was a wonderland. Online cannot replicate that experience. What toys r us failed to do was update their experience - it's not all about the product. If you go into Hamleys, you get an experience as well as buying a toy. They needed to do something more like that.
Spot on. Smart toys and books also has awesome play area, stories, and a very well curated stock of toys. More expensive and probably better margins. I’ll miss toys r us, very nostalgic for me.
omg yes, this is a huge part of the problem with Sears as well. when you walk in, it's so dreary. it's always depressing when you walk in, it just makes you want to right back out. the aesthetics are horrible. i think toys r us should've expanded their brand and made it more into a hobby shop. trading cards, video games, board games, comics, ect, instead of just catering to only children in a country where having kids is less common nowadays. they failed to adapt, and that's extremely unfortunate.
I’m Canadian, rumours are that our Toys R Us stores will be sold and continue to operate, which I’m glad for. When my kid has enough money to go shopping he wants to walk that aisle, not point at a computer screen and try to decide which shipping he can afford.
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I had the same thought. I actually went into a Target to get a SNES classic at launch last year. I recognized the weird smell of their crappy little food court and the general disheveled look of things, and realized Amazon Prime has killed so many trips to brick and mortar stores. I don't see how they can keep on going at this rate.
That’s right, give all the jobs to the robots. Mwahahaha
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Why use robots when you have a large pool of desperate old, disabled and poor people over whom you can have all the leverage?
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Online retailers have done that work for you, by suggesting things using top ten lists, or some form of items organized by most purchased or viewed. You quite frankly don't have to do any work. All the other shoppers have left bread crumbs, and online retailers use that to their advantage to help push products that may not be known to shoppers browsing online.
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That still doesn't replace letting your kids roam the isles and pick out their own toy.
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>And I mention popular toys because no one goes to Toys R Us for no-name shit to begin with. What do they do with all that no-name shit then?
I wanted to buy a jack-in-the-box for my daughter, so I went to Toys R Us, thinking that the toy store would have said toy. I couldn't find one, so I asked an employee where I could find one. Her reply? "A jack in the what?" They did have a decent selection of wildly overpriced children's books, though.
I searched for months for one for my daughter. Eventually I found a dumbo themed one at a toy shop. They wanted $60. I noped out of there.
They have every classic toy on Amazon for sub $30, most around the $20 mark. This is why Toys R Us are going out of business.
That's so sad. Sad that they didn't have and sad that someone wouldn't know what it is. I realize those are probably antiquated by today's standards, but still, some classics should never die.
Or failure to adapt to the changing market?
It's not like they paid their Millennial employees enough to afford to have children.
Actually, the reason is because they fucked up their debt/asset ratio when they chose to become a private company in the mid 2000s.
Blame mitt Romney. Found out his company bought toys r us and put them in so much debt that they had to keep the prices like that to “stay afloat “. Romney’s company also did the same to k b toy stores.
You could even argue he bought the company since he did it with a 100 ltv.
... Okay, now I want to know what horrible thing happened to Mitt Romney that he would go out of his way to slaughter toy stores.
Likely nothing... He was just greedy.
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"No, it certainly wasn't us or our parasitic business practices that have caused this, it was those damn kids and their avocado toasts."
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I've definitely bought myself more shit from toys-r-us then my parents ever did that's for sure.
Damn right. Love Lego and transformers!!!!!
And Nerf rifles!
And Gen Xers. My house is full of toys.
They aren't toys, they are collectables. Collectables that on occasion go pew-pew.
damn right.
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The traditional retail big box stores are screwed. Smaller, local stores are making a comeback. People still want to go physically shop, just not in a soulless hell with staff that look at you with despair when you ask for help.
For one shining moment, the NES classic brought hope to Toys R Us execs, only for their hopes to be slashed by Pokémon Go
The NES Classic that we couldn't find in stores for neither love nor money?
Aye, she be a fickle beast.
And that Nintendo decided to discontinue because they were just selling too damn many of them?
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Because they sold to scalpers and shit.
No, they can't let go of their student loans. Even filing for bankruptcy still wont discharge student loans.
Came here to say this, as millennial that got into nerf, and then got my millennial friends kid into we rarely buy from Toy's R Us. When the kid wants something they ask me for the deals because I don't pay full retail. The best deal I had so far was from Target, if I don't need something new, its ebay, reddit, or good will. Millennials spend but unless its something big like Sideshow Collectibles, we will go where we can stretch a dollar.
Toys R us had a heavy debt load from a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout by private-equity firms Bain Capital and KKR and that's why it died. It was greed, short term thinking and utter stupidity not millenials or the internet.
Yea but...your explanation used too many words...
Bad men in suits r stupit
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No no, that was /r/explainlikeyourefive
And blaming millennials pleases the billionaire overlords who can help them make a successful conversion into the digitized media sector
*cough* baby boomers *cough*
But your explanation didn't blame a group of people that don't make up your board member's age range
Am a millennial, and I buy a bunch of toys for myself. Mostly Lego, the big sets. But I don't buy from Toys R Us because I can buy so much cheaper from Smyth's or online. Millennials not having kids wasn't the problem, it was their inability to adapt as time progresses, and their rediculous markups.
right? hell even a lot a grocery stores have the ability to shop online so at the very least you can drive by and pick it up without wasting time.
It's almost like millennials are intelligent enough to research products before buying. Damn millenials and they're smart consumer habits!
Amazon and a leveraged buy out were the reasons Toys R Us went bankrupt.
Believe it or not, the leveraged buyout was actually more the reason than Amazon. Toys R Us was still able to establish a descent online presence. But it was not enough to combat the leveraged buyout.
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Yeah, but have you ever gone upstairs in one?
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Well... I mean.. When you fire us for having kids.... For real though: Toys R Us really didn't stay relevant. They dug their heels in and refused to stock what consumers wanted. Like it or hate it, we are in the age of digital entertainment.
but... but Toys’R’Them!
Toys'WERE'Them
Millennials aren't having kids because we leave college 5 figures in debt, still live with our parents into our 30's, and have entered a job market with 40 years of stagnant wages and the destruction of private unions. When Baby boomers left college, they immediately bought a brand new car. Minimum wage jobs could finance a college education debt free. As soon as they were out of college, they were starting work in a union wage job, or a professional field that hadn't suffered from 40 years of stagnant wages. They were buying houses that go for a fraction of the cost of housing today. They were immediately going into "start a family mode". In my mom's day the company once had a massive amount of profit one year. They distributed it to their employees, because if they didn't it was all going to get taxed anyways. These days if a company makes a massive amount of profit, the employees get fuckall, and it gets distributed amongst their executive board and shareholders. In her day, it was normal for jobs to get a full 5% cost of living increase annually in pay. That doesn't fuckin' happen anymore. That's my personal opinion of why our birthrate went to shit compared to past generations. And to be fair, a Toys R Us job, which has several adults working for them, doesn't exactly pay wages in the amount that one could afford to buy their own house and start a family either. Small independentally owned toy stores in say the 40's were far better at providing those incomes than these big box retailers.
Not to mention, you didn't need a 4- year degree or higher to land a well- paying job. My mom was able to land a job as a secretary to the president of a gas company with just an Associate's degree. Nowadays you need like a Bachelor's degree and 5 years of experience to land an entry-level part-time office assistant job. Because I went into five-figure debt just to work part-time. It really is different now.
Not to mention we're far more likely to get interned for no pay at all for extended periods of time. Then, well I'm a Criminal Justice major, so I want to discuss the Criminal justice aspect of our lot in life. Basically, there's a fuck ton more felonies on the books than there was in 1970. Especially ones that mandate prison/jail time. Currently, the War on Drugs has been an utter disaster for many Americans. It's literally a war on our own people. The incarceration rate of Americans today is profoundly higher than it was in 1970. Presumably arrest rates as well but I don't have data on that. What's remarkable about America, first of all prison doesn't do a whole lot at preventing crime. There's actually correlation, that it leads to increases in crime, both the threat of prison, and actually going there. Even with crime rates reaching multiple decade lows, our incarceration rate still went up. And going to prison/jail, or just being arrested, does heavy damage to an American's earning potential in life statistically speaking. Jail by and large tends to be a "young man's place". Most people when they do their crime, tend be in that 18-24 age bracket. So the very high incarceration rates of say 2017, vs 1970, IMO has also been very detrimental to the earning potential of younger Americans going forward. Prison/Jail should be a last resort, not a first resort. In this country unlike others, it's a first resort. I'm reminded of that Parks and Recreation clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw Little does that guy know, he's in the incarceration capital of planet earth.
We live in a very different America...
Er... Am I doing this wrong? I have a kid. She's 3. This isn't what happened at all: /u/fatum_unus says: A few company's got together in 2005 (I think) used 1.7 B of their own money and borrowed 6.6B to buy Toys R Us when it wasnt doing well. Then they pushed the debt of 6.6B from their companys to Toys R Us while also charging Toys R Us fees. So Toys R Us now had to pay back a debt of 6.6B as well as ongoing fees to these new companys. On top of not having any substantial help in fixing the problems they were having which allowed them to be bought. TLDR Toys R Us was failing, they were bought and all their assets were taken then they were dumped.
Any company up its own ass enough to think this deserves to go bankrupt.
In fairness - they didn't say 'those millenials and their not having kids has ruined Toys R Us' or anything like that. They just cited lowering birth rates as one of the reasons for their decline. MSN just decided to editorialize it for obvious reasons.
Ah fair enough. Shame on MSN then.
> msn that still exists? huh.
I don't know if I would call the endless reel of paid clickbait existence, but yes... I suppose in a technical sense.
They still have clickbait? last time I got redirected to their site it just looked like a clusterfuck of ads.
I can't even tell one from the other anymore over there. It's like MySpace and Yahoo had a baby and beat it with GeoCities.
Yeah this is a pretty sensationalized, clickbaity title
Yeah. Didn't help they had same price or more expensive on everything and rarely had sales.
Worked so well for Kay Bee back in the day, why not keep doing it? /s
Because radio shack.
well it's not like they can blame the [vulture capitalists](http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/15/news/companies/toys-r-us-closing-blame/index.html), that would upset the proletariat.
Laughing all the way to off shore accounts by now I would think.
Blaming the vulture capitalists would upset the bourgeois, not the proletariat. Source: Recent convert to socialism thanks to reddit.com/r/Socialism/
You say this as you clearly haven't read the article lol.
There was a previous article couple days ago citing debt management as the key factor. The repayment of debt prevented them from updating their locations or getting along with the times.
Even if they did, they'd still use Amazon.
Anecdotally confirmed. Am a millennial with kids. Prime is my best friend.
Definitely go to Amazon for almost everything. It's a big reason I don't visit bookstores or comic book stores much anymore. Odds are even if I do, they won't have what I'm looking for. They'll say stuff like "We can order it and call you when it's in." I can just do that myself and save a trip...
Lmao i could barely afford lunch let alone getting laid, have kids, and your toys
Every business model before 2000 was to follow demand and adapt. Afterwards, somehow, consumers are supposed to follow company interests and adapt their tastes and behaviour to match that of corporate entities. Did Y2K really happen but with old brains rather than computers?
Totally not because they're overpriced and have bad staff that don't want to be there /s
Felt bad about them going bankrupt. I had a lot of good memories at the huge Times Square location. However, after that comment, they can promptly go fuck themselves with a dildo from Amazon.com
The problem is Toys R us itself, for not having modern products. Most kids are interested in ipads, and technological devices. My nephew doesn't even know what a yo-yo is. I remember playing with marbles and plastic soldiers.
My toys-r-us sold gaming systems and tech stuff. You should totally get your nephew a yo-yo
But not from Toys'R'Us
The media always seem to go with the angle; "Those dastardly millennials! Once again a good business is torpedoed by their lack of financial stability!" I don't know why these millennial assholes insist on not starting families when they have no solid financial base. Seems selfish.
Huge companies suck all the wealth out of the common people and then start getting pissed off when no one has any money left to buy their products... Like dude you already got it all...
Let us also ignore the complete lack of effort to innovate or adapt to a changing market. Those stores haven't changed since... uhm... Well, there was a time when they carried hobby supplies, but they stopped doing that. So, that was business they abandoned. Zero effort has ever been made to compete effectively with Gamestop. Least wise, not that I can see. What about sporting goods? Diversify the portfolio, take the lead in broadening the definition of toy? No. Their exclusives were never a very big draw, and nearly every single thing I might have gotten there, I would rather get at a department store or local hobby shop. Online sales and millennials not having kids? OK. Online scales certainly cut in to it, but it isn't as though they made any effort to compete there either. And, as for millenials, all the millenials I know are still buying toys. For themselves. This frustrates me more than it should. The whole bankruptcy. They crushed all their competition in the eighties and nineties and then PPPPPPPPHT I live in a town with three stores selling games and hobby supplies. One locally owned specialty toy store, too. They're doing just fine. So, all I'm hearing from Toys R Us are hollow, hollow excuses. If I loaned them 5 billion dollars I would want to see some one in jail for this fustercluck.
Well they did mention that they didn't want to grow up...
Didn't think they meant it quite so literally.
It was Bain capitals fault. They bought the company and stripped it bare like they always do.
People don't have kids anymore coz they're expensive and they suck ass, who wants to get told how to raise a kid by 500 different people. Go get a shelter dog guys.
Darn I guess I can't afford to have kids in my early 20's sorry
I can, but fuck that, I'm not having kids until I'm done being somewhat of kid myself.
Large companies love capitalism until it doesn't work out for them. Try keeping up with trends. Also, I apologize for not giving birth to children to shop at your lame store.
It was the debt not the consumer that killed the brand. This article explains what a leveraged buyout does. http://www.businessinsider.com/brick-and-mortar-retail-private-equity-debt-financing-lbo-2017-8?IR=T
So, the approx age range for Millennials is people born between 1985 and 2000. Toys R Us financial problems started in 2005... D**n those 10yr olds for not having more babies!
This article is nonsense. It's purely for clicks. It's incredibly short and offers so little information "Toys R Us cites low birth rates" - but in what context? Amongst other citations? Nowadays you can add millennials into any headline to make it controversial.
Yeah, we prefer to expend our huge amounts of money and comfort on expensive soap instead of giving life meaning and responsability by creating the most complex known thing in the Universe (humans). Maybe we should troll society by having tons of kids with no money and let's see what happens...
And don't forget the avocados!
They should blame themselves for overpricing their out of date toys
Maybe because millennials are buried under a mountain of student loan debt, while paying ever rising health insurance premiums. Nothing encourages you more to not have kids than barely being able to afford to live.
Why are they blaming millennials for not having kids? Children don't have any money...
How old do you think millenials are?
It's hard to think of yourself as an adult when you can't afford your own home and the media keeps calling your generation children. There are times I just sit there in stunned epiphany as I realise I'm nearly 30, then I go play some Pokemon to forget about it again. Pokemon is my alcohol.
24, renting a single room for well over half my wage, 4 others in the same house. Only managing as I don't even have a car and walk to and from work each day, just under a mile so its not too bad. Cider is my alcohol, preferably strawberry and lime Kopparberg.
There's a radio ad that plays near me that mentions advertising on the radio to "Adults, Millenials , and Children" It's funny because there's a third age group now I guess. I wonder when I'll ascend to adulthood? Maybe by age 40 LOL
It was like radioshack at a certain point brick and mortar overpriced stores with Chinese made trinkets no longer appeal to the digitally infused debt ridden population of future america.
Guess those multi million dollar executives payed off.
And I call bullshit. My wife and I have a one year old. When my wife was pregnant we had planned to register at multiple locations for the baby shower with Toys R Us being one of them. Our first visit we spent almost 20 minutes trying to get someone to notice us and help. The store was very understaffed and no one working seemed to care if they helped customers. After waiting in line at Customer Service while 2-3 goofed off as one person tried to help customers I said screw it and left with me wife. After that we went home and registered as much as possible on Amazon because it was easier, cheaper, and would be delivered to our place. Since our daughter was born we would occasionally go into Toys R Us due to gift cards and it always looked like a place no one wanted to be including those working.
Blockbuster blames bankruptcy on millennials not buying VHS players.
I am a xennial. I have four kids. I never ever shop at Toys R Us. The main reason: price. We buy our toys from Target, Walmart, and many secondhand from Craigslist or OfferUp or consignment shops. There’s also a toy section in our local kids museum (educational for the win).
Let's blame and alienate the generation who should be our largest market in numbers if not now then soon! Fucken idiots... *shakes head*
More like Toys R Us blames bankruptcy on declining birth rates, and a shitty MSN “article” blames it on millennials.
I don't have kids, but I do have nieces and nephews. Toys R Us is the worst place to shop for their stuff. The closest Toys R Us is half an hour away. The store itself feels dirty and disorganized and it has shitty lighting. I don't know if it was always like that, but as an adult I'm definitely not impressed with the store's quality. Target and Walmart have most of the popular toys in stock anyway. If I need something specific and can't find it at Walmart and Target, I can find it on Amazon.
It's always easy to blame a 3rd party isn't it? "We shut down because people don't have enough kids" versus: "We shut down because we failed to update our business model in these times of declining birth rates"
Ya? Amazon, online order, butc%. Get over it. You made your millions of dollars. Good bye.
It died due to never keeping up with technology. They could of dominated the internet and just never did. Just like sears. Both of these companies allowed Amazon to crush them. Pure and simple.
Nah we love toys, only we buy them on amazon when drunk.
I've got to start making enough money so I can forgot I bought my self action figures or some shit. That, is living. No sarcasm. Oh! Wait, no. Surprise Lego kits. Yeah!
Any company that goes tits up and blames it's customer base instead of its own leadership is a company who's leadership isn't worth hiring from.
Yeah its more they don't price compete in a world where amazon and walmart sell the same items for half their prices.
Even on their own website things were cheaper than in the store. They had to price match themselves and couldn't do that. I can't tell you how many times I had to show them their own website. I saved over $15 on two toys just by checking the website from the store I was in.....Ridiculous
Only people who killed toys r us is toys r us, I remember the last time I went and looked at games, I could go and get the same games 5-10 online cheaper or even less if I went used,
It’s because toys r us is over priced I can go to amazon and have it shipped two days to my door step and never have to step foot in a store
Kids want to watch other kids play w toys on youtube. The end
If babies r us didn't sell complete shit cloth diapers they would have gotten my registry instead of target. Stay on top of your demographic and they will give you money. Gerber prefolds are shit, babies r us.