Most book stores have been stocking more toys/games. My local Books-A-Million is now looks like some combination of a toy store, Hot Topic/Spencers, coffee shop, and books.
This sucks. I know everyone seems to say that Amazon will pick up the slack, but there's something to say about walking into a store with my kids... Having them look at a bunch of toys and taking one home that day. Shopping online with them isn't the same because sometimes you just don't know what you're looking for.
Ugh. This Saturday is my son's birthday. I'll probably have to take him over there, but it's sad that it'll be one of the last times he could go into a toy store.
+5
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Re: the retail experience
Toys R Us
Sports Authority Guitar Center
Burlington Boat Factory
Michaels
Drug Mart
Dollar General
Dollarama for our friends of the North
Gymboree
All stores owned by either Bain or KKR
Add their “restaurants”:
Dennys
Bad Dominos
Dunkin
Also Bain bought AMC and KKR Regal Cinemas
I mean I’m detecting some pretty clear patterns of facility and customer experience strategies here...
So, I didn't know about Guitar Center and wondered to myself, "was this purchase made about the time the company service started to drop like a fucking rock?" Yes, yes it was. Used to be able to go into the local store and get some decent service. Now it's a pain in the ass to get anyone to help you regardless of what you're there for.
Toys R Us was a big deal for me as a kid. Significantly less so for my kid. Target has served her toy needs just fine. Well, that and video games have replaced some of her play time. The wife and I would only shop at Toys R Us once a year to buy toys for Xmas and our daughter's birthday. Both events are close enough together that we'd just take one big trip and then divide the toys between the two gift giving occasions. Location was part of the reason we didn't go much. Both of the stores in our city were a 20-30 minute drive. Target, Meijer, the LEGO store are all significantly closer.
It's still a bummer to hear and read about. Also, this gutting of retail by people looking to do nothing but line their own pockets and fuck everyone else really bothers me. After a certain point, don't they have enough money?
amazon is going to be the biggest monopoly we've ever seen, but we effectively don't have a government to regulate things anymore, so we're in for hard times employment wise
Amazon will outcompete business like walmart and sears, sure.
But it won't be the death of brick and mortar for a good long time. Millennials do love amazon, but they also love shopping experiences too.
Amazon will replace large-area and outlet stores like Sears, TRU, Wallmart, and so on. Their entire business plan is giving customers a large selection and cheap prices, and Amazon has a much larger selection at much cheaper prices.
What Amazon will not replace is smaller specialized stores, where you can get specialized products, expert advice, and experience. Specialized products are harder to find online (especially without getting slammed by shipping fees), and not everyone can understand spec sheets or find reliable sources online. And live experience always wins out over sitting in front of a computer screen.
Game stores are already adapting. Board games are the best example: board game cafés give you access to a range of obscure games you won't find at Walmart and TRU, experts who've played them and can guide you to the good games in your favourite genre, and the café portion allows you to sit down and play the game before you buy it while sipping a beer with friends (along with experts to explain the rules to you). Amazon's got nothing on that.
Except that after you are done playing the game at the cafe you go home order the game on Amazon and you don't go back to the cafe until you are looking for a new game.
People are actually more loyal than that most studies show. Its why independant bookstores and game stores are actually doing well. People say they showroom a lot more than they actually do.
amazon is going to be the biggest monopoly we've ever seen, but we effectively don't have a government to regulate things anymore, so we're in for hard times employment wise
Amazon will outcompete business like walmart and sears, sure.
But it won't be the death of brick and mortar for a good long time. Millennials do love amazon, but they also love shopping experiences too.
Amazon will replace large-area and outlet stores like Sears, TRU, Wallmart, and so on. Their entire business plan is giving customers a large selection and cheap prices, and Amazon has a much larger selection at much cheaper prices.
What Amazon will not replace is smaller specialized stores, where you can get specialized products, expert advice, and experience. Specialized products are harder to find online (especially without getting slammed by shipping fees), and not everyone can understand spec sheets or find reliable sources online. And live experience always wins out over sitting in front of a computer screen.
Game stores are already adapting. Board games are the best example: board game cafés give you access to a range of obscure games you won't find at Walmart and TRU, experts who've played them and can guide you to the good games in your favourite genre, and the café portion allows you to sit down and play the game before you buy it while sipping a beer with friends (along with experts to explain the rules to you). Amazon's got nothing on that.
Yup I followed up that post with basically what you're saying here.
We're going to see a rise in different types of stores I think.
I welcome the return of good book stores, I tell you hwat.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
And, as Jesus said, it's easier for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Also, according to John 4:27 you totally can take it all with you.
amazon is going to be the biggest monopoly we've ever seen, but we effectively don't have a government to regulate things anymore, so we're in for hard times employment wise
Amazon will outcompete business like walmart and sears, sure.
But it won't be the death of brick and mortar for a good long time. Millennials do love amazon, but they also love shopping experiences too.
Amazon will replace large-area and outlet stores like Sears, TRU, Wallmart, and so on. Their entire business plan is giving customers a large selection and cheap prices, and Amazon has a much larger selection at much cheaper prices.
What Amazon will not replace is smaller specialized stores, where you can get specialized products, expert advice, and experience. Specialized products are harder to find online (especially without getting slammed by shipping fees), and not everyone can understand spec sheets or find reliable sources online. And live experience always wins out over sitting in front of a computer screen.
Game stores are already adapting. Board games are the best example: board game cafés give you access to a range of obscure games you won't find at Walmart and TRU, experts who've played them and can guide you to the good games in your favourite genre, and the café portion allows you to sit down and play the game before you buy it while sipping a beer with friends (along with experts to explain the rules to you). Amazon's got nothing on that.
Except that after you are done playing the game at the cafe you go home order the game on Amazon and you don't go back to the cafe until you are looking for a new game.
Amazon is actually surprisingly mediocre for board games, and is only getting worse since their disinterest in dealing with game counterfeiters is beginning to scare away publishing companies.
And, as Jesus said, it's easier for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Also, according to John 4:27 you totally can take it all with you.
...is that the right passage? Because I googled it and it has nothing to do with money
amazon is going to be the biggest monopoly we've ever seen, but we effectively don't have a government to regulate things anymore, so we're in for hard times employment wise
Amazon will outcompete business like walmart and sears, sure.
But it won't be the death of brick and mortar for a good long time. Millennials do love amazon, but they also love shopping experiences too.
Amazon will replace large-area and outlet stores like Sears, TRU, Wallmart, and so on. Their entire business plan is giving customers a large selection and cheap prices, and Amazon has a much larger selection at much cheaper prices.
What Amazon will not replace is smaller specialized stores, where you can get specialized products, expert advice, and experience. Specialized products are harder to find online (especially without getting slammed by shipping fees), and not everyone can understand spec sheets or find reliable sources online. And live experience always wins out over sitting in front of a computer screen.
Game stores are already adapting. Board games are the best example: board game cafés give you access to a range of obscure games you won't find at Walmart and TRU, experts who've played them and can guide you to the good games in your favourite genre, and the café portion allows you to sit down and play the game before you buy it while sipping a beer with friends (along with experts to explain the rules to you). Amazon's got nothing on that.
Except that after you are done playing the game at the cafe you go home order the game on Amazon and you don't go back to the cafe until you are looking for a new game.
Amazon is actually surprisingly mediocre for board games, and is only getting worse since their disinterest in dealing with game counterfeiters is beginning to scare away publishing companies.
Board games at least have strong small business showings from stuff like TCGs that encourage physical space. And the service aspect is nice when you can chat up the staff, demo games, etc.
I don't think it translates well to other categories so much though.
amazon is going to be the biggest monopoly we've ever seen, but we effectively don't have a government to regulate things anymore, so we're in for hard times employment wise
Amazon will outcompete business like walmart and sears, sure.
But it won't be the death of brick and mortar for a good long time. Millennials do love amazon, but they also love shopping experiences too.
Amazon will replace large-area and outlet stores like Sears, TRU, Wallmart, and so on. Their entire business plan is giving customers a large selection and cheap prices, and Amazon has a much larger selection at much cheaper prices.
What Amazon will not replace is smaller specialized stores, where you can get specialized products, expert advice, and experience. Specialized products are harder to find online (especially without getting slammed by shipping fees), and not everyone can understand spec sheets or find reliable sources online. And live experience always wins out over sitting in front of a computer screen.
Game stores are already adapting. Board games are the best example: board game cafés give you access to a range of obscure games you won't find at Walmart and TRU, experts who've played them and can guide you to the good games in your favourite genre, and the café portion allows you to sit down and play the game before you buy it while sipping a beer with friends (along with experts to explain the rules to you). Amazon's got nothing on that.
I welcome the return of good book stores, I tell you hwat.
Little indie book stores seem to be doing better. They provide a curated service, and don't need to stock every book in print to do that.
The same for indie toy stores. There's a little one nearby that I use a lot, and I figured out (after going there for years) that there's nothing branded from a movie or toy show in the entire place. Just good toys. It's a nice theme. You can get a "princess crown" but you can't get a Princess Sophia crown. It *is* more expensive than Amazon, though.
Toys R Us Canada appears to be doing just fine and some people are maybe looking to buy it. Hopefully this doesn't go down like the Blockbuster situation where the american version took the Canadian version down with it despite the Canadian stores being profitable.
This in general matches with my experience, which sound nothing like the americans talking about Toys R Us. Here it's no more expensive then anywhere else and places like Amazon.ca are way way way less useful for picking up stuff because neither the selection nor the prices are good enough to be retail destroying. The closest competition would be Walmart and on that front the two are pretty similar, with Toys R Us generally having a better baby section and having the benefit of not being Walmart. Babies R Us is very useful. That's a competitive store on both prices and selection.
Also at least young kids (preschoolers and the like) play with toys all the time, so that market seems fine overall.
This just reads like "Amazon Canada is lagging behind". This isn't a description of a healthy market - its a description of a place where the Eye of Bezos has not yet cast it's gaze. It's crazy to me to hear someone say that Amazon's selection is less than "somewhere between exhaustive and encyclopedic". From my experiences trying to ship items we've purchased in the US up to our Canadian offices, import duties are also helping a lot as it's quite expensive to just get across the border. Likewise, as soon as something enters Canada delivery seems to slow down by 1-2 days (not to mention the 2-5 days sitting at the border) over expected delivery times to a similar distance in the USA.
I guess what I'm saying is that the reason TRU Canada is competitive has little to do with TRU and a lot to do with artificial, external conditions that are preventing competitors from destroying them.
Is that so? Based on what exactly?
Maybe it's simply that Amazon can't drive their prices down as much in the Canadian market, if we assume that's even the main driver behind TRU's problems.
One of the things mentioned in a lot of the stories about the Canadian version, which is managed completely seperately as far as I can figure out, is this:
“Toys “R” Us Canada is a good business,” said MGA CEO Isaac Larian in a brief emailed statement.
“They run it efficiently, and have good leadership. At the right price, it makes economical sense.”
And, as Jesus said, it's easier for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Also, according to John 4:27 you totally can take it all with you.
...is that the right passage? Because I googled it and it has nothing to do with money
No, I'm being facetious.
Jesus actually said that it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
And you certainly can't take it all with you and nowhere in the Bible does it say you can; I pulled John 4:27 out of my ass.
I can't believe Babies'r'Us is going down with them. The one near me always seems busy, and I got most of my baby stuff there.. But I guess baby registries are going online now, too.
I did all of mine on Amazon, they offer a lot of perks and it's easy for friends/relatives to use.
For all that they say online shopping is not a big factor... I think it is. At least, it weakens the big box stores enough that hostile buyouts etc mean they can't recover.
I'm waiting for the death of Barnes and Noble - my daughter adores toy shopping there and they have a really large toy section, as well as a huge kids book section. Prices aren't noticeably worse than Amazon either. But I still buy stuff from Amazon when I want something specific, as opposed to having her choose.
I also prefer online shopping over retail, I've never enjoyed shopping as an experience.
I vastly prefer online shopping over B&M when I know exactly what I want.
But when I just want to browse and wander the aisles looking at stuff until something catches my eye? When I want to pick up a book and feel it's heft and skip to the middle to read a page or two... You can't do that on Amazon.
I can't believe Babies'r'Us is going down with them. The one near me always seems busy, and I got most of my baby stuff there.. But I guess baby registries are going online now, too.
I did all of mine on Amazon, they offer a lot of perks and it's easy for friends/relatives to use.
For all that they say online shopping is not a big factor... I think it is. At least, it weakens the big box stores enough that hostile buyouts etc mean they can't recover.
I'm waiting for the death of Barnes and Noble - my daughter adores toy shopping there and they have a really large toy section, as well as a huge kids book section. Prices aren't noticeably worse than Amazon either. But I still buy stuff from Amazon when I want something specific, as opposed to having her choose.
I also prefer online shopping over retail, I've never enjoyed shopping as an experience.
But when I just want to browse and wander the aisles looking at stuff until something catches my eye? When I want to pick up a book and feel it's heft and skip to the middle to read a page or two... You can't do that on Amazon.
That's where little indie book stores come in. You want something to read... but you don't know what. So a indie book store, which stocks only the really good books, probably chosen by its bookworm owner, is just what you want.
amazon is going to be the biggest monopoly we've ever seen, but we effectively don't have a government to regulate things anymore, so we're in for hard times employment wise
Amazon will outcompete business like walmart and sears, sure.
But it won't be the death of brick and mortar for a good long time. Millennials do love amazon, but they also love shopping experiences too.
Amazon will replace large-area and outlet stores like Sears, TRU, Wallmart, and so on. Their entire business plan is giving customers a large selection and cheap prices, and Amazon has a much larger selection at much cheaper prices.
What Amazon will not replace is smaller specialized stores, where you can get specialized products, expert advice, and experience. Specialized products are harder to find online (especially without getting slammed by shipping fees), and not everyone can understand spec sheets or find reliable sources online. And live experience always wins out over sitting in front of a computer screen.
Game stores are already adapting. Board games are the best example: board game cafés give you access to a range of obscure games you won't find at Walmart and TRU, experts who've played them and can guide you to the good games in your favourite genre, and the café portion allows you to sit down and play the game before you buy it while sipping a beer with friends (along with experts to explain the rules to you). Amazon's got nothing on that.
Except that after you are done playing the game at the cafe you go home order the game on Amazon and you don't go back to the cafe until you are looking for a new game.
You go home?
You buy it on your phone for $15 less right there at the table, and if you're lucky you just tell them to drop it off at your doorstep while you have one more drink. Then you go home and play around 2 at your house.
And, as Jesus said, it's easier for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Also, according to John 4:27 you totally can take it all with you.
...is that the right passage? Because I googled it and it has nothing to do with money
No, I'm being facetious.
Jesus actually said that it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
And you certainly can't take it all with you and nowhere in the Bible does it say you can; I pulled John 4:27 out of my ass.
Oh, that does make more sense. Because the actual passage is " Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”"
Incidentally, it's just before the passage about Jesus healing that crippled guy
Toys R Us Canada appears to be doing just fine and some people are maybe looking to buy it. Hopefully this doesn't go down like the Blockbuster situation where the american version took the Canadian version down with it despite the Canadian stores being profitable.
This in general matches with my experience, which sound nothing like the americans talking about Toys R Us. Here it's no more expensive then anywhere else and places like Amazon.ca are way way way less useful for picking up stuff because neither the selection nor the prices are good enough to be retail destroying. The closest competition would be Walmart and on that front the two are pretty similar, with Toys R Us generally having a better baby section and having the benefit of not being Walmart. Babies R Us is very useful. That's a competitive store on both prices and selection.
Also at least young kids (preschoolers and the like) play with toys all the time, so that market seems fine overall.
This just reads like "Amazon Canada is lagging behind". This isn't a description of a healthy market - its a description of a place where the Eye of Bezos has not yet cast it's gaze. It's crazy to me to hear someone say that Amazon's selection is less than "somewhere between exhaustive and encyclopedic". From my experiences trying to ship items we've purchased in the US up to our Canadian offices, import duties are also helping a lot as it's quite expensive to just get across the border. Likewise, as soon as something enters Canada delivery seems to slow down by 1-2 days (not to mention the 2-5 days sitting at the border) over expected delivery times to a similar distance in the USA.
I guess what I'm saying is that the reason TRU Canada is competitive has little to do with TRU and a lot to do with artificial, external conditions that are preventing competitors from destroying them.
Is that so? Based on what exactly?
Maybe it's simply that Amazon can't drive their prices down as much in the Canadian market, if we assume that's even the main driver behind TRU's problems.
One of the things mentioned in a lot of the stories about the Canadian version, which is managed completely seperately as far as I can figure out, is this:
“Toys “R” Us Canada is a good business,” said MGA CEO Isaac Larian in a brief emailed statement.
“They run it efficiently, and have good leadership. At the right price, it makes economical sense.”
amazon is going to be the biggest monopoly we've ever seen, but we effectively don't have a government to regulate things anymore, so we're in for hard times employment wise
Amazon will outcompete business like walmart and sears, sure.
But it won't be the death of brick and mortar for a good long time. Millennials do love amazon, but they also love shopping experiences too.
Amazon will replace large-area and outlet stores like Sears, TRU, Wallmart, and so on. Their entire business plan is giving customers a large selection and cheap prices, and Amazon has a much larger selection at much cheaper prices.
What Amazon will not replace is smaller specialized stores, where you can get specialized products, expert advice, and experience. Specialized products are harder to find online (especially without getting slammed by shipping fees), and not everyone can understand spec sheets or find reliable sources online. And live experience always wins out over sitting in front of a computer screen.
Game stores are already adapting. Board games are the best example: board game cafés give you access to a range of obscure games you won't find at Walmart and TRU, experts who've played them and can guide you to the good games in your favourite genre, and the café portion allows you to sit down and play the game before you buy it while sipping a beer with friends (along with experts to explain the rules to you). Amazon's got nothing on that.
Except that after you are done playing the game at the cafe you go home order the game on Amazon and you don't go back to the cafe until you are looking for a new game.
You go home?
You buy it on your phone for $15 less right there at the table, and if you're lucky you just tell them to drop it off at your doorstep while you have one more drink. Then you go home and play around 2 at your house.
This is not a common feeling in the US, yet.
I live in a decent sized city that literally was built around being a transport hub (3 different interstates and another handful of state and US routes all meet), and we don't get Prime Now or anything like this. We're only now starting to get pickup/delivery on groceries, mostly thanks to Wal-Mart and Hyvee and a few other companies. Despite there being multiple distribution centers in Illinois, there's still a 2 day lag to get anything here (less than a couple hours away). Now extend that for people in rural areas...
Now, on the larger discussion, board games aren't a good analogue anyways because they are a social event. You need to experience the games with someone else, on some level, be it online or in person. Game shops cater to this. Books are generally not a social experience, beyond conspicuous consumption. But toys? Toys is something I feel fits in the middle, where people need to see what they are buying (and make sure it is appropriate) and then they can impulse buy. IF we ever get nation-wide doorstep delivery, then I can see that being the death knell of brick and mortar for the toy industry. But again - the bigger problem was the leveraged buyout hurting the experience and feel (and raising prices), not necessarily the arrival of Amazon... yet.
it blows my mind that leveraged buyouts like this are still permitted.
In a leveraged buyout, the rich make money. The banks make money. The corporate friends of the rich make money. The only losers are the employees and America. And I think it's been clearly demonstrated for the past 50 years that the rich, the banks, and corporate leadership care nothing for employees nor America.
While I remember going to Toys R Us as a kid and being in awe, in recent years every time I've gone it's been either a bad or neutral experience.
When I worked there it was always dusty or dirty, with my main job being to find loose toys not where they were supposed to be and put them where they belonged. I was originally hired to be a cashier in the electronics department because I "knew video games" and my "mentor" never actually trained me and was generally a scumbag who gladly told me about how he got games for next to free by abusing TRU's Buyer Protection Plan. About a week later I was quietly shifted over to the floor.
Everything about the store was, in one word, stale. The air, the lighting, the stock in the aisles. It never changed, everything remained where it was until a hurricane of a child swept down the aisles and knocked everything askew. Not that many people bought the toys, because just comparing prices with the Target right down the street I saw how ridiculous TRU was being. The only things "safe" from the TRU tax were video games, but not their accessories. And this showed, because outside the holidays there was no one inside besides listless cashiers manning empty queues.
As a kid Toys R Us was a magical experience of wonder and excitement. As an adult I just saw another dusty toy store death marching towards inevitable oblivion.
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
I can't believe Babies'r'Us is going down with them. The one near me always seems busy, and I got most of my baby stuff there.. But I guess baby registries are going online now, too.
I did all of mine on Amazon, they offer a lot of perks and it's easy for friends/relatives to use.
For all that they say online shopping is not a big factor... I think it is. At least, it weakens the big box stores enough that hostile buyouts etc mean they can't recover.
I'm waiting for the death of Barnes and Noble - my daughter adores toy shopping there and they have a really large toy section, as well as a huge kids book section. Prices aren't noticeably worse than Amazon either. But I still buy stuff from Amazon when I want something specific, as opposed to having her choose.
B&N has been on a downward slope due to poor management for years but they're in a death spiral now. Fired nearly all of their full time employees earlier this year. I'd be surprised if they make it to 2019.
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Toxic ToysAre you really taking my advice?Really?Registered Userregular
I have, well soon had, 2 Toys R Us about 20 minutes away. It was really 2 different stores in the feeling. The one to the east of me was just sad. Old dim lighting, dusty shelves, and a musty smell. You could tell it was an old store. I would only go there if I was in the area and desperate. I mean even free Lego events wouldn't get me over there. The store to the west of me had to be newer. It was bright and inviting inside. It was clean and well organized. I have been there many time for Lego events or when I was looking for a cool toy for presents. Every time I went I did get something, even if I paid a few buck more because I was in the mood to spend money. I was also able to find Amiibo there with out paying crazy scalper prices during that craze. The east store was part of the shut down back in Sept. and I don't know if it's still open. I'm going to miss my Toy R Us when it closes. I have Amazon Prime, but nothing beats just walking into a store just to look round and find that 1 item you didn't know you needed til you saw it.
3DS code: 2938-6074-2306, Nintendo Network ID: ToxicToys, PSN: zutto
I can't believe Babies'r'Us is going down with them. The one near me always seems busy, and I got most of my baby stuff there.. But I guess baby registries are going online now, too.
I did all of mine on Amazon, they offer a lot of perks and it's easy for friends/relatives to use.
For all that they say online shopping is not a big factor... I think it is. At least, it weakens the big box stores enough that hostile buyouts etc mean they can't recover.
I'm waiting for the death of Barnes and Noble - my daughter adores toy shopping there and they have a really large toy section, as well as a huge kids book section. Prices aren't noticeably worse than Amazon either. But I still buy stuff from Amazon when I want something specific, as opposed to having her choose.
B&N has been on a downward slope due to poor management for years but they're in a death spiral now. Fired nearly all of their full time employees earlier this year. I'd be surprised if they make it to 2019.
I hate when companies use the "It's standard" when giving out golden parachutes. I'm sorry everyone is losing their job but the Executive needs his $2.8 million retention to guide us through this trying time.
"He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
I can't believe Babies'r'Us is going down with them. The one near me always seems busy, and I got most of my baby stuff there.. But I guess baby registries are going online now, too.
I did all of mine on Amazon, they offer a lot of perks and it's easy for friends/relatives to use.
For all that they say online shopping is not a big factor... I think it is. At least, it weakens the big box stores enough that hostile buyouts etc mean they can't recover.
I'm waiting for the death of Barnes and Noble - my daughter adores toy shopping there and they have a really large toy section, as well as a huge kids book section. Prices aren't noticeably worse than Amazon either. But I still buy stuff from Amazon when I want something specific, as opposed to having her choose.
B&N has been on a downward slope due to poor management for years but they're in a death spiral now. Fired nearly all of their full time employees earlier this year. I'd be surprised if they make it to 2019.
Shit, really? Dammit.
I worked at B&N a few years ago and that's not surprising to hear. They put a lot of stock into the Nook and that didn't take off like they wanted. Plus they still don't price match and their prices are ludicrous compared to basically anywhere else.
I can't believe Babies'r'Us is going down with them. The one near me always seems busy, and I got most of my baby stuff there.. But I guess baby registries are going online now, too.
I did all of mine on Amazon, they offer a lot of perks and it's easy for friends/relatives to use.
For all that they say online shopping is not a big factor... I think it is. At least, it weakens the big box stores enough that hostile buyouts etc mean they can't recover.
I'm waiting for the death of Barnes and Noble - my daughter adores toy shopping there and they have a really large toy section, as well as a huge kids book section. Prices aren't noticeably worse than Amazon either. But I still buy stuff from Amazon when I want something specific, as opposed to having her choose.
B&N has been on a downward slope due to poor management for years but they're in a death spiral now. Fired nearly all of their full time employees earlier this year. I'd be surprised if they make it to 2019.
Their overall plan sounds like shifting to a smaller store footprint and carrying less stock. Which is a good idea... if they had done it two years ago. At this point I don't think they can be saved, and likely will be the next big name to go out. Well, maybe Sears; at least B&N has, you know, *some* customers.
amazon is going to be the biggest monopoly we've ever seen, but we effectively don't have a government to regulate things anymore, so we're in for hard times employment wise
Amazon will outcompete business like walmart and sears, sure.
But it won't be the death of brick and mortar for a good long time. Millennials do love amazon, but they also love shopping experiences too.
Amazon will replace large-area and outlet stores like Sears, TRU, Wallmart, and so on. Their entire business plan is giving customers a large selection and cheap prices, and Amazon has a much larger selection at much cheaper prices.
What Amazon will not replace is smaller specialized stores, where you can get specialized products, expert advice, and experience. Specialized products are harder to find online (especially without getting slammed by shipping fees), and not everyone can understand spec sheets or find reliable sources online. And live experience always wins out over sitting in front of a computer screen.
Game stores are already adapting. Board games are the best example: board game cafés give you access to a range of obscure games you won't find at Walmart and TRU, experts who've played them and can guide you to the good games in your favourite genre, and the café portion allows you to sit down and play the game before you buy it while sipping a beer with friends (along with experts to explain the rules to you). Amazon's got nothing on that.
Except that after you are done playing the game at the cafe you go home order the game on Amazon and you don't go back to the cafe until you are looking for a new game.
You go home?
You buy it on your phone for $15 less right there at the table, and if you're lucky you just tell them to drop it off at your doorstep while you have one more drink. Then you go home and play around 2 at your house.
This is not a common feeling in the US, yet.
I live in a decent sized city that literally was built around being a transport hub (3 different interstates and another handful of state and US routes all meet), and we don't get Prime Now or anything like this. We're only now starting to get pickup/delivery on groceries, mostly thanks to Wal-Mart and Hyvee and a few other companies. Despite there being multiple distribution centers in Illinois, there's still a 2 day lag to get anything here (less than a couple hours away). Now extend that for people in rural areas...
Now, on the larger discussion, board games aren't a good analogue anyways because they are a social event. You need to experience the games with someone else, on some level, be it online or in person. Game shops cater to this. Books are generally not a social experience, beyond conspicuous consumption. But toys? Toys is something I feel fits in the middle, where people need to see what they are buying (and make sure it is appropriate) and then they can impulse buy. IF we ever get nation-wide doorstep delivery, then I can see that being the death knell of brick and mortar for the toy industry. But again - the bigger problem was the leveraged buyout hurting the experience and feel (and raising prices), not necessarily the arrival of Amazon... yet.
My version of this looks like four different companies competing to bring me groceries to my house, within 2 hours, for about $4 more than it would cost me to spend 2 hours getting them myself.
Prime now is transformative, and I absolutely, unquestionably welcome it. Big box stores are environmentally harmful, promote waste, deceive customers, and soak wealth out of the economy. They pay their employees terribly, treat them worse, and their business model is built around a combination of inertia and ignorance.
I have a deep sense of nostalgia for Toys R Us, and they were truly a part of my childhood. The store occupies A Place In My Memory. Itwas the first place I saw an intellivision. It had an entire aisle dedicated to just to video games. It had every action figure in every set I wanted! It was magical and I'm glad it existed when I was a child.
Nowadays like most things that existed when I was a child - rotary dialing, Long distance charges, broadcast television, Ozarks related fads - I'm not really upset that they're gone and I am excited to see the acceleration of brick-and-mortar closures.
Here's a New Republic article from November detailing what's happening to retail chains and the financial sector that's preying on them if anyone is interested in more background
Here's a New Republic article from November detailing what's happening to retail chains and the financial sector that's preying on them if anyone is interested in more background
amazon is going to be the biggest monopoly we've ever seen, but we effectively don't have a government to regulate things anymore, so we're in for hard times employment wise
Amazon will outcompete business like walmart and sears, sure.
But it won't be the death of brick and mortar for a good long time. Millennials do love amazon, but they also love shopping experiences too.
Amazon will replace large-area and outlet stores like Sears, TRU, Wallmart, and so on. Their entire business plan is giving customers a large selection and cheap prices, and Amazon has a much larger selection at much cheaper prices.
What Amazon will not replace is smaller specialized stores, where you can get specialized products, expert advice, and experience. Specialized products are harder to find online (especially without getting slammed by shipping fees), and not everyone can understand spec sheets or find reliable sources online. And live experience always wins out over sitting in front of a computer screen.
Game stores are already adapting. Board games are the best example: board game cafés give you access to a range of obscure games you won't find at Walmart and TRU, experts who've played them and can guide you to the good games in your favourite genre, and the café portion allows you to sit down and play the game before you buy it while sipping a beer with friends (along with experts to explain the rules to you). Amazon's got nothing on that.
Except that after you are done playing the game at the cafe you go home order the game on Amazon and you don't go back to the cafe until you are looking for a new game.
You go home?
You buy it on your phone for $15 less right there at the table, and if you're lucky you just tell them to drop it off at your doorstep while you have one more drink. Then you go home and play around 2 at your house.
This is not a common feeling in the US, yet.
I live in a decent sized city that literally was built around being a transport hub (3 different interstates and another handful of state and US routes all meet), and we don't get Prime Now or anything like this. We're only now starting to get pickup/delivery on groceries, mostly thanks to Wal-Mart and Hyvee and a few other companies. Despite there being multiple distribution centers in Illinois, there's still a 2 day lag to get anything here (less than a couple hours away). Now extend that for people in rural areas...
Now, on the larger discussion, board games aren't a good analogue anyways because they are a social event. You need to experience the games with someone else, on some level, be it online or in person. Game shops cater to this. Books are generally not a social experience, beyond conspicuous consumption. But toys? Toys is something I feel fits in the middle, where people need to see what they are buying (and make sure it is appropriate) and then they can impulse buy. IF we ever get nation-wide doorstep delivery, then I can see that being the death knell of brick and mortar for the toy industry. But again - the bigger problem was the leveraged buyout hurting the experience and feel (and raising prices), not necessarily the arrival of Amazon... yet.
My version of this looks like four different companies competing to bring me groceries to my house, within 2 hours, for about $4 more than it would cost me to spend 2 hours getting them myself.
Prime now is transformative, and I absolutely, unquestionably welcome it. Big box stores are environmentally harmful, promote waste, deceive customers, and soak wealth out of the economy. They pay their employees terribly, treat them worse, and their business model is built around a combination of inertia and ignorance.
I have a deep sense of nostalgia for Toys R Us, and they were truly a part of my childhood. The store occupies A Place In My Memory. Itwas the first place I saw an intellivision. It had an entire aisle dedicated to just to video games. It had every action figure in every set I wanted! It was magical and I'm glad it existed when I was a child.
Nowadays like most things that existed when I was a child - rotary dialing, Long distance charges, broadcast television, Ozarks related fads - I'm not really upset that they're gone and I am excited to see the acceleration of brick-and-mortar closures.
We love you, goodbye. Don't come back.
I wouldn't say Amazon is a fabulous replacement in these regards. Its essentially Walmart of the internet, and it treats its employees pretty shittily as far as I've ever heard. You know outside the tech sector portions of it, which are only like marginally bad. That kinda bad the way all super aggressive tech firms are.
If VR takes off at all, it's not absurd to expect virtual olde timey retail experiences to replicate places like TRU. Your kid would still need to wait 2 hours for delivery, though.
A service or retail sector job is only worth .08 jobs on the “true America” scale, as opposed to fossil fuel oriented or steel jobs that rate as 117 “true americas” each
Toys R Us Canada appears to be doing just fine and some people are maybe looking to buy it. Hopefully this doesn't go down like the Blockbuster situation where the american version took the Canadian version down with it despite the Canadian stores being profitable.
This in general matches with my experience, which sound nothing like the americans talking about Toys R Us. Here it's no more expensive then anywhere else and places like Amazon.ca are way way way less useful for picking up stuff because neither the selection nor the prices are good enough to be retail destroying. The closest competition would be Walmart and on that front the two are pretty similar, with Toys R Us generally having a better baby section and having the benefit of not being Walmart. Babies R Us is very useful. That's a competitive store on both prices and selection.
Also at least young kids (preschoolers and the like) play with toys all the time, so that market seems fine overall.
This just reads like "Amazon Canada is lagging behind". This isn't a description of a healthy market - its a description of a place where the Eye of Bezos has not yet cast it's gaze. It's crazy to me to hear someone say that Amazon's selection is less than "somewhere between exhaustive and encyclopedic". From my experiences trying to ship items we've purchased in the US up to our Canadian offices, import duties are also helping a lot as it's quite expensive to just get across the border. Likewise, as soon as something enters Canada delivery seems to slow down by 1-2 days (not to mention the 2-5 days sitting at the border) over expected delivery times to a similar distance in the USA.
I guess what I'm saying is that the reason TRU Canada is competitive has little to do with TRU and a lot to do with artificial, external conditions that are preventing competitors from destroying them.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
For consumers its clearly a bad thing.
Is it?
because at no point in the time I've spent living in the better part of the american continent has the lack of an amazon monopoly come close to being a "bad thing".
This statement doesn't parse because there is no Amazon monopoly anywhere, and yet Amazon's entrance and subsequent domination of the market place in the USA has been a clear and obvious net benefit for consumers.
I hate when companies use the "It's standard" when giving out golden parachutes. I'm sorry everyone is losing their job but the Executive needs his $2.8 million retention to guide us through this trying time.
That Free Press article is hilarious with respect to Michigan. In that it is marginally true in the short term, but Brandon's increased profits for the Michigan athletic department was purely because of renegotiated TV deals he had nothing to do with. Long term he cratered the department's finances. Buy a two liter coke get two football tickets (face value: $110), comes to mind.
I mean, he was an athletic director who was the subject of a thousand person protest on campus demanding his firing. Because he didn't take player safety seriously. Also covered up an expulsion for rape by saying the kid was no longer playing because of "family reasons." Dave Brandon is the fucking worst human in America, possibly excluding the president.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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Ugh. This Saturday is my son's birthday. I'll probably have to take him over there, but it's sad that it'll be one of the last times he could go into a toy store.
Everyone that matters in the modern American economy make out like bandits by essentially exchanging monopoly money for real money.
So, I didn't know about Guitar Center and wondered to myself, "was this purchase made about the time the company service started to drop like a fucking rock?" Yes, yes it was. Used to be able to go into the local store and get some decent service. Now it's a pain in the ass to get anyone to help you regardless of what you're there for.
Toys R Us was a big deal for me as a kid. Significantly less so for my kid. Target has served her toy needs just fine. Well, that and video games have replaced some of her play time. The wife and I would only shop at Toys R Us once a year to buy toys for Xmas and our daughter's birthday. Both events are close enough together that we'd just take one big trip and then divide the toys between the two gift giving occasions. Location was part of the reason we didn't go much. Both of the stores in our city were a 20-30 minute drive. Target, Meijer, the LEGO store are all significantly closer.
It's still a bummer to hear and read about. Also, this gutting of retail by people looking to do nothing but line their own pockets and fuck everyone else really bothers me. After a certain point, don't they have enough money?
PSN : Bolthorn
People are actually more loyal than that most studies show. Its why independant bookstores and game stores are actually doing well. People say they showroom a lot more than they actually do.
Yup I followed up that post with basically what you're saying here.
We're going to see a rise in different types of stores I think.
I welcome the return of good book stores, I tell you hwat.
Amazon is actually surprisingly mediocre for board games, and is only getting worse since their disinterest in dealing with game counterfeiters is beginning to scare away publishing companies.
...is that the right passage? Because I googled it and it has nothing to do with money
Board games at least have strong small business showings from stuff like TCGs that encourage physical space. And the service aspect is nice when you can chat up the staff, demo games, etc.
I don't think it translates well to other categories so much though.
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Little indie book stores seem to be doing better. They provide a curated service, and don't need to stock every book in print to do that.
The same for indie toy stores. There's a little one nearby that I use a lot, and I figured out (after going there for years) that there's nothing branded from a movie or toy show in the entire place. Just good toys. It's a nice theme. You can get a "princess crown" but you can't get a Princess Sophia crown. It *is* more expensive than Amazon, though.
Is that so? Based on what exactly?
Maybe it's simply that Amazon can't drive their prices down as much in the Canadian market, if we assume that's even the main driver behind TRU's problems.
One of the things mentioned in a lot of the stories about the Canadian version, which is managed completely seperately as far as I can figure out, is this: https://globalnews.ca/news/4083991/bid-submitted-for-toys-r-us-canada/
Which suggests the problem may just as much be management as competition. Fuck, Target Canada shit the bed SUPER hard entirely based on it being badly run.
Ya might want to look at the larger picture here. It's not all about Amazon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/03/20/there-are-fewer-coal-miners-than-you-might-realize/?utm_term=.4f675577332d
33,000 TRU workers vs 69,460 jobs in coal mining.
No, I'm being facetious.
Jesus actually said that it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
And you certainly can't take it all with you and nowhere in the Bible does it say you can; I pulled John 4:27 out of my ass.
I vastly prefer online shopping over B&M when I know exactly what I want.
But when I just want to browse and wander the aisles looking at stuff until something catches my eye? When I want to pick up a book and feel it's heft and skip to the middle to read a page or two... You can't do that on Amazon.
That's where little indie book stores come in. You want something to read... but you don't know what. So a indie book store, which stocks only the really good books, probably chosen by its bookworm owner, is just what you want.
You go home?
You buy it on your phone for $15 less right there at the table, and if you're lucky you just tell them to drop it off at your doorstep while you have one more drink. Then you go home and play around 2 at your house.
Oh, that does make more sense. Because the actual passage is " Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”"
Incidentally, it's just before the passage about Jesus healing that crippled guy
It's definitely true that Target Canada was a failure that belongs right beside New Coke in the annals of Epic disasters
This is not a common feeling in the US, yet.
I live in a decent sized city that literally was built around being a transport hub (3 different interstates and another handful of state and US routes all meet), and we don't get Prime Now or anything like this. We're only now starting to get pickup/delivery on groceries, mostly thanks to Wal-Mart and Hyvee and a few other companies. Despite there being multiple distribution centers in Illinois, there's still a 2 day lag to get anything here (less than a couple hours away). Now extend that for people in rural areas...
Now, on the larger discussion, board games aren't a good analogue anyways because they are a social event. You need to experience the games with someone else, on some level, be it online or in person. Game shops cater to this. Books are generally not a social experience, beyond conspicuous consumption. But toys? Toys is something I feel fits in the middle, where people need to see what they are buying (and make sure it is appropriate) and then they can impulse buy. IF we ever get nation-wide doorstep delivery, then I can see that being the death knell of brick and mortar for the toy industry. But again - the bigger problem was the leveraged buyout hurting the experience and feel (and raising prices), not necessarily the arrival of Amazon... yet.
In a leveraged buyout, the rich make money. The banks make money. The corporate friends of the rich make money. The only losers are the employees and America. And I think it's been clearly demonstrated for the past 50 years that the rich, the banks, and corporate leadership care nothing for employees nor America.
When I worked there it was always dusty or dirty, with my main job being to find loose toys not where they were supposed to be and put them where they belonged. I was originally hired to be a cashier in the electronics department because I "knew video games" and my "mentor" never actually trained me and was generally a scumbag who gladly told me about how he got games for next to free by abusing TRU's Buyer Protection Plan. About a week later I was quietly shifted over to the floor.
Everything about the store was, in one word, stale. The air, the lighting, the stock in the aisles. It never changed, everything remained where it was until a hurricane of a child swept down the aisles and knocked everything askew. Not that many people bought the toys, because just comparing prices with the Target right down the street I saw how ridiculous TRU was being. The only things "safe" from the TRU tax were video games, but not their accessories. And this showed, because outside the holidays there was no one inside besides listless cashiers manning empty queues.
As a kid Toys R Us was a magical experience of wonder and excitement. As an adult I just saw another dusty toy store death marching towards inevitable oblivion.
B&N has been on a downward slope due to poor management for years but they're in a death spiral now. Fired nearly all of their full time employees earlier this year. I'd be surprised if they make it to 2019.
Shit, really? Dammit.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I hate when companies use the "It's standard" when giving out golden parachutes. I'm sorry everyone is losing their job but the Executive needs his $2.8 million retention to guide us through this trying time.
I worked at B&N a few years ago and that's not surprising to hear. They put a lot of stock into the Nook and that didn't take off like they wanted. Plus they still don't price match and their prices are ludicrous compared to basically anywhere else.
Their overall plan sounds like shifting to a smaller store footprint and carrying less stock. Which is a good idea... if they had done it two years ago. At this point I don't think they can be saved, and likely will be the next big name to go out. Well, maybe Sears; at least B&N has, you know, *some* customers.
My version of this looks like four different companies competing to bring me groceries to my house, within 2 hours, for about $4 more than it would cost me to spend 2 hours getting them myself.
Prime now is transformative, and I absolutely, unquestionably welcome it. Big box stores are environmentally harmful, promote waste, deceive customers, and soak wealth out of the economy. They pay their employees terribly, treat them worse, and their business model is built around a combination of inertia and ignorance.
I have a deep sense of nostalgia for Toys R Us, and they were truly a part of my childhood. The store occupies A Place In My Memory. Itwas the first place I saw an intellivision. It had an entire aisle dedicated to just to video games. It had every action figure in every set I wanted! It was magical and I'm glad it existed when I was a child.
Nowadays like most things that existed when I was a child - rotary dialing, Long distance charges, broadcast television, Ozarks related fads - I'm not really upset that they're gone and I am excited to see the acceleration of brick-and-mortar closures.
We love you, goodbye. Don't come back.
The Cause and Consequences of the Retail Apocalypse
Wait. TRU was seeing increasing profits? And still has to file for bankruptcy because it got force-fed a ticking time bomb.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I wouldn't say Amazon is a fabulous replacement in these regards. Its essentially Walmart of the internet, and it treats its employees pretty shittily as far as I've ever heard. You know outside the tech sector portions of it, which are only like marginally bad. That kinda bad the way all super aggressive tech firms are.
A service or retail sector job is only worth .08 jobs on the “true America” scale, as opposed to fossil fuel oriented or steel jobs that rate as 117 “true americas” each
This statement doesn't parse because there is no Amazon monopoly anywhere, and yet Amazon's entrance and subsequent domination of the market place in the USA has been a clear and obvious net benefit for consumers.
That Free Press article is hilarious with respect to Michigan. In that it is marginally true in the short term, but Brandon's increased profits for the Michigan athletic department was purely because of renegotiated TV deals he had nothing to do with. Long term he cratered the department's finances. Buy a two liter coke get two football tickets (face value: $110), comes to mind.
I mean, he was an athletic director who was the subject of a thousand person protest on campus demanding his firing. Because he didn't take player safety seriously. Also covered up an expulsion for rape by saying the kid was no longer playing because of "family reasons." Dave Brandon is the fucking worst human in America, possibly excluding the president.