A lot of that has to do with socio-economic issues of the current economic instability. Adding in massive greed by those kinds of investment firms, that kind of corporate greed parasitism in current control of US political offices, and you're likely to see a lot more still go belly up whether they make changes or not.

The changes themselves aren't the issue. It's the economic unease of the consumer getting more frugal with what they spend and where they shop because of limited funds and feeling that discomfort in the economy. So we're seeing a rise in dollar stores and outlet shops, but a decline in major brands like TRU, JC Penny, and others.

This economic uneasiness is also why we saw booms in consumer purchasing over the past 2 decades. How there was growth in the early 2000s before the market crash to emergency recession repair, to then the growth from mid 2008 to 2015(a golden era for manufacturing tbh), then the growing despair in 2015 that started to cause some areas to feel uneasy about the economy, to now the current decline where people are feeling rapid loss at a growing rate and becoming more cautious about spending.

Sadly the toy market is all tied to areas of topics that the rules directly forbid in talking about, but it is all interconnected in production costs to merchandise moved, which is what impacts the brick and mortar stores more. Especially as rent continues to spike but sales are trending downward because of the unease causing more to turn to outlet shops and discount/dollar shops.

No amount of inner workings changes are going to fix that until the economy stabilizes and starts going back up and has consumer comfort and feeling confident about spending again, which isn't likely to happen any time soon due to the cause of it going downward now looking like it may only get worse.

As others have pointed out, it's all greed driven. The "trickle down economics" theory and how the only trickle down effect it actually causes is from the pissing out the window the parasites at the top do to every one below. We feel it the most in the toy industry because the toy industry is considered a "luxury item" as opposed to necessities like Telcoms, food, and clothing. The book/print industry feels it too, but thankfully can be offset by digital. Physical toys aren't as lucky.

 

I would add that the explosion of e-commerce is largely due to the lack of that parasitic rentierism. It costs $15 for a domain name and you can rent a few GB of space for as little as $100 a year. Thus businesses that have no chance being gouged well over $100 a day in real life have a fighting chance online. Rentierism is creeping in though. Just look at the fee structures of eBay and Amazon. In 1998, eBay took 2% of every sale. In 2018, good luck finding anywhere that takes less than 15%. That's a 7X increase in marginal cost that slows velocity between buyers and sellers.

 

None of the stuff anyone would want is on sale. Transformers and other pieces are regular prices still as of 2 weeks ago.

 

For all that "lack of sale," there aren't many Transformers at all in any of the TRUs near me at this point.

But, yes, the Transformers that are left are certainly not "stuff I would want." Frankly, I don't think even lowering the prices further will encourage me to pick those items up.

 

When it hits 50% off action figures, I might go see if they still have Infericus. Honestly, I haven't stepped into my local store in over a month.

 

All the good transformers are gone from the remaining TRU's in my area.... well one store had a bunch of Grotesques. They don't interest me though.

 

albuquerque, nm had a couple of those as of may 4th, regular price.

 

It's definitely not a $40 figure.

 

The "big changes" that were made was the vast expansion of the Babies R Us concept and stores. At the time, BRU was responsible for a large percentage of TRU profits, despite being a relatively small percentage of sales. Right around the time they got all the new BRU stores up and running is when the concept tanked, and it stopped being lucrative.
Just a fairly large part of the reason TRU wasn't able to continue hanging, that too was a significant amount of the debt they were saddled with.

 

all in all it's a sad situation all the way around. it's just straight depressing to walk into the stores as they stand today. total ghost town.

 

As of today, everything is 40-60% off. Excluding Lego, which dropped to 30% off. Your mileage may vary.

 

Are the action figures still at 40% off?

 

That's a good question. I didn't get a chance to check out the full list but, a lot of stuff did drop from the last discount. I work later so I will give an update unless someone beats me to it.

 

Oh, good grief. If he really wanted to, he could just invest in a new toy retail venture to fill the vacuum. All he's trying to do is purchase another one for pennies on the dollar, apparently. If it's really worth it, Larian, dig in and do the work yourself instead of trying to feed off the scraps of a failed business.

 

I'd rather SOMEONE buy up "the scraps of" this business and keep it going than to just let it die altogether. Perhaps Larian's the wrong guy to do it, but the fact that TRU (as it is now) is failing is by no means evidence that no one should run a toy business.

And, yes, of course it's easier to get a business going by buying up an existing one (however cheaply) than it is to start from scratch. Again, that's no reason that buying up the existing one shouldn't be attempted.

But, yes, if Larian's bid is too low, the debt holders have every right to demand better. They're looking at massive losses as it is. No reason to compound that by taking less than the business is (even now) worth.

 

action figs 50% off, Lego 30% off

 

I didn't say "no one should run a toy business". I said he (Larian) should try investing in his own toy retail business rather than in scraps of TRU. Chances are, if he can't afford to purchase without lowballing, he probably can't afford the costs associated with distribution, salaries, etc. If someone else wants to seriously purchase the assets, that's fine. But Larian would be better off taking his money and building his own toy retail business. Invest in 40-50 stores and a distribution center. Call it Larian's Toy Explosion. Grow from there.

The point is he's lowballing and then whining about the courts saying "no". Again, if he's REALLY serious, he needs to try building his own brand. People like new things...he'd probably be much more successful that way. As it is, he's about as effective as a bear crapping in the woods and then hoping some unfortunate park rangers see it and declare to the media "Oh my, a bear really did crap in the woods and we noticed."