He started selling a few inexpensive toys, then added to his inventory as they proved popular.īut Lazarus wasn’t content to stop with a single store. Specializing in baby goods, it only began selling toys once Lazarus realized customers didn’t come back for more strollers, high chairs and other baby goods with their second child. Lazarus opened his first store, Children’s Bargain Town, in Washington, D.C.
It was the end of an era for the store that once held a lock on the entire toy industry and made toy shopping-once a seasonal treat-into a regular family outing. In March 2017, the 70-year-old business announced that it would call it quits.
Now, the retail giant has been forced into bankruptcy, the victim of a retail model it helped pioneer. Once a retail juggernaut, the store dominated the entire toy industry-and children’s imaginations-by driving its competitors out of existence. © 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc.Those instincts didn’t just help Lazarus capitalize on the baby boom: They helped originate Toys ‘R’ Us. “What’s fun about an hour drive to see yall are closed and empty shelves,” one shopper wrote of the Houston store closure, first reported by Toy Book, on the store’s Facebook page.Īnother shopped wrote: “Did Ya’ll close all of a sudden and not tell anyone.” Shoppers are expressing surprise and disappointment at the closures. And Toys R Us still has stores in Asia, Europe and Canada under licensing deals with Tru Kids. Owned by a group of investors who bought the trademark out of bankruptcy, Tru Kids had plans to open 10,000-square-foot stores - or about a third of the size of their former spaces. Large retailers like Walmart, Target and Amazon have since stepped into the void, which helped fuel last year’s record sales. The demise of the chain sent the toy industry into a two-year tailspin as manufacturers struggled to find a new distribution model. But it filed for bankruptcy that same year as it struggled to innovate under a mountain of debt accumulated by its private equity investors. It was listed as the 22nd largest private company in 2017 with $11.5 billion in sales, according to Forbes. Toy sales surge to a record $25.1 billion amid pandemicĪt its peak in the 1990s, Toys R Us had 1,400 stores, controlling 25 percent of the global toy market. Before its 2017 bankruptcy, most of its massive stores had been freestanding locations where parents could let their children play with the floor sample displays. Now sales are completed by Amazon.Īnd the company could still attempt to open new US stores, although not likely in malls as the spokeswoman’s statement suggested. Parent company Tru Kids inked a deal with Target in 2019 that redirected customers to, but the deal ended last year. But shopping malls, where the stores were located, have been hard hit by COVID-19. The store closures couldn’t have happened at a better time for toy sales, which grew by 16 percent to $25.1 billion in 2020 - fueled by the pandemic’s lockdowns. “Consumer demand in the toy category and for Toys R Us remains strong and we will continue to invest in the channels where the customer wants to experience our brand.”
“As a result of COVID, we made the strategic decision to pivot our store strategy to new locations and platforms that have better traffic,” a spokesperson for the company said in a statement.
15 and 26, respectively, the company told The Post. The recently closed stores - at the Houston Galleria mall and at the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus - had barely been open for little more than a year before they were shuttered on Jan. The once uber popular retailer had been trying to make a comeback after its 2017 bankruptcy forced it to close its 700-plus US locations. It still has an online presence - selling through Amazon - and a smattering of stores in Asia, Europe and Canada.īut the US store closures, which come amid soaring toy sales, mark the latest in a sad chapter for the iconic toy seller founded in Washington, DC, by Charles Lazarus in 1957. Toys R Us has closed its only two US stores as the pandemic continues to rock retailers. Geoffrey the giraffe is homeless - again. Toys R Us is coming back next year for holidays, teaming up with Macy’s Toys R Us reopens in Macy’s stores in 9 states, more ‘coming soon’įormer Toys ‘R’ Us CEO warns of record retail bankruptcies by fallĪ giant Ferris wheel is coming to Times Square
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