Toys R Us is leaving and Walmart is taking over

[VoteDemocratic2004]

I was listening to the Corporate Owned Media and they have been talking about Toys R Us all day. It seems like Toys R Us will be selling off their toy section because Walmart has taken over the Toy business.

They are going to keep the Baby's R Us stores but they will be selling off the Toys R Us stores.

I grew up with Toys R Us and I will miss them dearly.

I hate Walmart and I will never shop there again. :grr:

[ContraBass Black]

1. What? How?

No other large-scale chain has the same selection!

[VoteDemocratic2004]

4. I hate Walmart

I can't believe that my favorite toy store is going to be closing.

[Bettie]

2. I always loved Toys-R-Us

I don't shop at Wal-mart at all anyway, they have poor customer service in addition to being flat-out evil.

I have always gotten good service and reasonable prices at Toys-R-Us.

Well, I bet the people in charge of Wal-mart will be proud of themselves for booting another batch of people out of their jobs.

[VoteDemocratic2004]

6. I love the buy one get one free game sales that Toys R Us has

The CEO at Walmart must be getting paid some big bucks to screw everyone up.

[Democat]

3. I wonder if Walmart will use this as a stealth way into some communities?

Are they buying up Toys R Us stores?

Imagine a community who has fought against Walmart, but that has a Toys R Us - maybe Walmart could use the ownership of that existing store to somehow get into some of those communities via a backdoor?

[VoteDemocratic2004]

5. They have a problem getting into large cities

They will now be welcomed with open arms.

How much do you want to bet that they take over right before the Holiday?

[UdoKier]

7. Well, I never ever shop at Wal Mart

I guess the kids won't be getting many toys...

[TOhioLiberal]

8. according to the link I have...

they are not selling off the entire chain. probably will close some stores, but not all.
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/breaking/breakingnewsarticle.asp?feed=OBR&Date=20040811&ID=3906402

[VoteDemocratic2004]

13. They are keeping the Babies R Us stores

I'm sure they will keep a few baby toys but once a store starts to sell a number of stores you can expect them to get rid of the rest within a matter of a year or two.

I have watched it happen to so many places that it makes me sick.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

16. It's good that Babies R Us is staying.

It's best baby store.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

9. Thats too bad..I always got xmas presents at Toys R Us....

...never walmart. Occasionally Zany Brainy, but they went under too, in my town.

[VoteDemocratic2004]

14. Zany Brainy went out of business

I think that they started a few years ago closing some of the stores and then they continued closing them until they went out of business.

[VolcanoJen]

10. And I hadn't even gotten over the loss of Children's Palace.

A super toy store, and a whole lot more!!

Eventually, we'll all be owned by one super-company. With Cheney-in-Charge, I fear. :-(

[VoteDemocratic2004]

12. I use to love going to FAO Schwartz but that's gone

Most of the time I couldn't afford shopping at FAO unless they had a good sale going on but I loved window shopping at the store. They would have a person dressed up as a toy soldier in front of the store at Christmas time and it just made the holiday a little more Christmasy.

We then had another store that stayed around for two years and I can't remember it's name but it's gone.

I heard that the Disney store is leaving and they are going to keep their web-store business but they will be getting rid of their retail stores.

Walgreen's took over the pharmacy business and now we have Walmart taking over the retail business.

I don't like their clothing but it looks like 10 years from now that will be the only store that we will have to shop in if we don't boycott them now.

They are getting into the grocery business big time so I guess in a few years our grocery stores will be gone as well.

Let's rename Walmart to "Cheney's" or "Haliburtons".

[in_cog_ni_to]

15. Every year at Christmas,

as a family tradition, we go to downtown Chicago to Marshall Fields to see the Christmas windows, have lunch in the Walnut Room in Fields, go over to Water Tower, hit the FAO Scweez candy store and then walk across the street from the Water Tower to FAO Schwartz. It was SO much fun to just visit that store....especially when my son was little. It was like a wonderland....pure fun. Last year, we did our usual trip, walked out of Water Tower to go across the street to FAO and LOW and BEHOLD...it was GONE! We were just CRUSHED. I still can't believe it's gone. :cry:

[Piperay]

17. I don't believe that Walgreens and Walmart

have anything to do with each other, don't believe they are connected in any way.

[VoteDemocratic2004]

24. They don't

We had tons of small pharmacies until Walgreen's took every corner over.

Walmart is doing the same thing that Walgreens did to the independent pharmacy's.

[Piperay]

29. Yeah

I get you ;-) the names are so simular I thought there was some confusion about the ownership. Here in CA they are on just about every corner and I think they are the largest drug chain now. :-( All we have here anymore is Walgreen, Rite-Aid and Savon and a few CVS, no independents. :mad:

[in_cog_ni_to]

11. I will NEVER EVER shop at Walmart.

I haven't shopped that store in years. I hate Walmart and this is one reason why.

My 6 year old great nephew gives his OPINION on Walmart whenever someone mentions it. He says "I HATE Walmart! They undercut prices so that MY Zany Brainy store had to close down! I will never shop at Walmart!" :) We need a generation of him.

[mountainvue]

18. At what point will Wal Mart

violate anti trust laws?

[theboss]

19. I'm sorry, but I find these lamentations weird.....

It's one huge corporation (with terribly overpriced merchandise in my opinion) being put out of business by another huge corporation with slightly cheaper merchandise. I mean, I really doubt Geoffrey the Giraffe is going to become a crack whore because of this.

[in_cog_ni_to]

20. Toys R Us was't/isn't overpriced.

What this will do is let Walmart corner the toy market, putting EVEN MORE smaller toy companies/stores out of business. :(

[genius]

21. That's really bad

[OneTwentyoNine]

22. Wal Mart ran them out of here years ago....

We bought several kids bikes from them over the years,not a bad place to shop.

David

[LuCifer]

23. WALMART CAN LICK ME.

God, they SUCK.

I don't wanna grow up, I am NOT A WALMART KID! NEVER WILL BE!

Lu Cifer

[Xithras]

25. Toys R Us IS NOT CLOSING!

Instead of listening to the stupid press, I went straight to the corporate news releases. Here's what's happening:

1) Toys R Us and Babies R Us will be splitting into two separate companies. They are doing this because Babies R Us is a rapidly growing franchise while Toys R Us is a stable and entrenched business, so they have very different business needs.

2) Toys R Us will try to cut their operating expenses by about $125 million next year. They will do this by closing their less profitable stores (it's important to note that no Toys R Us store, anywhere in the U.S., operates at a loss, whether there's a nearby Walmart or not).

The second item is being driven by WalMart and Target. Toys R Us isn't in any kind of serious financial trouble (yet), but they are preparing for an all out price war with those retailers. A core part of that preparation is "trimming the fat" by shuttering the stores that are likely to become dead weight to the company. If they do this right, Toys R Us will not be going anywhere anytime soon. As the CEO himself said, the goal here is to end up with a "leaner and more focused toy business".

Considering that my local Toys R Us has almost half of its floorspace devoted to CLOTHES, I don't think that's such a bad thing.

[VoteDemocratic2004]

26. Have you been to Toys R Us lately?

I have and they have revamped the store and it looks like they are getting rid of the toys and putting more baby things in.

The CEO was being interviewed and he is the one that said that they are fazing out the toy section which means the toys will be gone before you can blink an eye.

[Xithras]

27. Two weeks ago

There were a lot of kids clothes in the store, but not baby stuff (the Babies R Us is only two buildings down, so I assume they didn't want to compete with each other).

And I have yet to see anything anywhere saying that they are phasing out their toy section. On the contrary, I've found plenty of information saying that they are planning on concentrating on their toy business after the Babies R Us spinoff to make it more profitable. The only thing they're phasing out are the less profitable stores.

[VoteDemocratic2004]

28. Do you remember when Montgomery Wards revamped their store?

The word was going around that they were shutting stores down and they didn't stop until the very last one was shut down.

I hate Walmart :grr: