Top Toy has decleared bankrupcy, Toys'r'us and BR to shut down. This might mark the end of major toy chains in Norway

 

RIP BR
You were an awesome store to hit while on vacation in Scandinavia.

 

Durch toy store chain Intertoys also announced a few months ago that it would close all its stores in Germany.

 

Top-Toy dug their own grave, sadly. On top of running both Toys'R'Us and BR, they also manufactured their own (cheap) toys. There's been a downward trend recently where the big and popular brands lost more and more shelf space to Top-Toy's own stuff, alongside other generic off-brand items. On top of that, the prices they were charging for Hasbro or Mattel products (to name a few) were astronomical. Even taking the increased costs associated with running a retail business in the Scandinavian market into account, it's hard to shake the feeling they were artificially raising the prices of other companies' products to further entice people to buy Top-Toy's own stuff instead.

In their press release they cited the fact that kids tend to prefer digital entertainment over traditional toys as one factor which lead up to this season's underwhelming holiday sales. I won't deny that's a thing, but I also teach lower primary and I know for a fact that every kid I spoke to had at least one big-name-brand toy on their wish lists. Off the top of my head I recall them wishing for Barbie, NERF, Lego, Transformers, and Spider-Man stuff. But popping into a BR, the only one of those that was somewhat well stocked was Lego. The others had been almost entirely replaced with cheap look-a-likes. You can't exactly claim kids don't want to buy as many toys when you don't even stock the toys kids DO want.

 

Christmas was so different without that big toys r us shopping spree. Amazon shopping wasn’t as fun 

 

Worldwide collapse. Slow steady decline of everything.

 

Probably because a lot of Brand name toy companies have been raising their prices worldwide.  It\'s off putting a lot of customers seeing some of these prices for toys. That is why a lot more people are shopping in the discount clearance stores where the toy prices are more reasonable.  

 

Guess it was inevitable.

So what ever happened with that KB Toys relaunch?

 

Is it fair to say we\'re watching the end of the toy industry? Producers raising prices left right and center as retialers die one by one. This is a really depressing time. 

 

"The crapification of everything".

 

Toys R Us was always overpriced, so all of the closures don’t surprise me. The only toy stores I shop at are used toy stores where I have the opportunity to get to know the owners. And some of them have really benefited from not having to complete with Toys R Us

 

Could it be?! But yeah, nowadays kids just play videogames or use their cellphones...

In my country Lego is still popular though...

 

Lego is one of, if not the biggest global toy company and I think they'll go last if they ever do.

 

The toy industry isn't the only thing going under. Go on Youtube & search for "global collapse", "economic collapse", "retail apocalypse", "dead malls", "auto industry crisis", "housing market crash" or "housing bubble".

 

Clearly if we give all our money to one guy, that will make everyone feel better!

 

I know the economy's about to go under, but the toy industry's been loosing money for a while.

 

Clarification: it appears the Norwegian branch is currently unaffected by the bancrupcy and will continue naormal operations