Closing down sale My Little Pony toy binge intensifies....
As per the actual dilemma facing the company, retail toy companiesaren't failing. They've diversified their portfolios and supplies.
Actually speaking ofMy Little Pony stuff, I've foundstuff cheaper in physical stores than on Amazon, even without calculating shipping. Selling stuff like the DJ-Pon3 GoH series for like 70 USD. But you can find it elsewhere, even physical retail stores, for a third that.
https://www.amazon.com/My-Little-Pony-Guardians-Sculpture/dp/B01CW6E8FW
http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index.jsp?productId=108360316&foreSeeBrowseSampling=15&foreSeeBrowseLoyalty=1&foreSeeEnabled=true
Toys have evolved, and there's very much a place for the good ol' fashioned toy store as market performance elsewhere seems to suggest. It's just the service and ange of products that would otherwise attract buyers like myself looking for a variety of 'toy' products wasn't there to draw in total possible customers.
After all, the toy stores that seem to be thriving have diversified into board games, often running tournaments, model train displays, etc. Physical retail has a place. Namely because what people fail to understand that individual shipping is not going to get much cheaper. So there is a place for bulkshipping warehousing to storefront consumption.
Particularly as manufacturing and production gets cheaper, but shipping won't ever get over that hump.
It's like evolution. If you can see obvious niches, you can occupy them and thrive. And there is a definite niche to be had in warehouse-direct customer service. You just need to retool the maths to make it work and play on the fact that people don't simply get what they want, but find other stuff to sink money into on impulse buying. That's the sweet spot.
The problem is Toys'R'Us failed to do the homework or do the legwork or organising necessary events to draw in as large a customer base as they could.
The problem with T'R'U wasn't that retail is somehow dead, it's that they lacked the total means to diversify their services to what customers want right now to encourage and diversify impulse buying opportunities. And that's the problem with franchises. Very, very, very hard to diversify once you have that uniformity and massive international presence within the capitalist sphere.
Like McDonalds, for instance. Once probably the symbol of hyperconsumerism on the world stage... 21st Century hasn't been treating them too well. The very poster child of global Western capitalism down to, now, an archaic mess that individually have trouble competing with even independent fast food stores that cater to a niche and just do it well.
And don't take my word for it ....the CEO of Toys 'R' Us agrees with me. Saying as much in one of his company directives where he spoke directly of failing to understand the modern toy consumer and what customers want to maximize store consumption and access to new consumers. Because I tell you what, if I could pick up some Netrunner datapacks or L5R stuff, tear them open, play some friendlies there with other gamers, while also satiating the My Little Pony fix for half as much as Amazon is selling it for .... Toys 'R' Us would be a great fortnightly spot for me to spend money.
But tht's kind of the problem. A moderately sized store can manage that mobility of service. And people will come from 20-30 miles around to play.
A massive, already established franchise can't.
Hell, bookstores. Making a come back. Even as you get bigf chain bookstores falling apart. Independent bookstores are getting creative, and actually make a buck out of it. If you can't make physical toys work, it's more about the drivers of economic activity you have in your store ... not about what you're actually selling.
There's a fantastic adage in retail; "It's not about what customers want to buy, it's about how you make them tear open their wallets."
