Spotted Online – “Toys are Not Auto Parts”
Bruce Lund (see “Reading – Bruce’s Beliefs: Everything I Know About Business (and Life) I Learned Playing with Toys”) has a new post over at Global Toy News where he talks about the problems ToysRUs is suffering and states:
Toys are different, toys are fun, toys are special. Toys R Us and all the other major toy retailers sell toys as if they were auto parts rather than the engines of children’s imaginations.
Retail as entertainment just doesn’t enter the equation for TRU and opportunity is lost as a result. Nobody is eager to go to a dull, dingy, unimaginative destination for any reason, toy purchases included.
Okay, now this is an argument I can get behind and support. What may surprise some, though, is that ToysRUs need to only look at their own stores in Hong Kong for an idea of how to make toy shopping a more exciting and fun experience. I’ve posted a few times from Hong Kong ToysRUs stores:
What isn’t shown are the special events and displays I’ve seen in Hong Kong ToysRUs stores. Staff teaching games, magic trick demos, and lots of hands on interaction with toys in presentations that look like a taste test at your local grocery store all help make shopping at a Hong Kong ToysRUs a blast. And those are all tricks that should be brought over to the US stores.
Fingers crossed that ToysRUs turns things around soon! None of us can afford to lose another big toy chain; what would have happened to those 50th Anniversary G.I. Joe sets if ToysRUs wasn’t around? I suspect the sets would have never been produced.
I belive TRU does occasionally have “events” for kids but they are far and few between. This is a pretty good analogy. TRU does kind of have the same ambience of an auto parts store — the cement/tile floors, harsh (cold) fluorescent lighting, etc. Shopping is really not a fun experience.
I think if TRU closed down, NECA would be close behind. They have got to rely on TRU for most of their sales.