Monday, January 09, 2006

Toys-R-Us beaten by Wal-Mart; cuts stores and staff

It looks like Toys-R-Us is finally going to succumb to the Wal-Mart effect:

Toy retailer Toys R Us Inc. on Monday said it will close 75 Toys "R" Us stores in the United States and convert 12 others into Babies "R" Us stores, eliminating about 3,000 jobs.

Those piles of low priced toys that Wal-Mart pushes for that low-low price has finally driven Toys-R-Us to cut back stores and fire some workers. This is right after the most profitable part of their financial calendar too. At least they are latching onto the Babies-R-Us concept pretty well though. I think this may still pull in some good money for the moment.

It may be a losing business in the long term though. It seems people are having less children and much of that baby stuff could be carried by Wal-Mart for cheaper as well. Wal-Mart seems to be a kind of company that a consumer can go back to for their entire lifetime. The consumers parent buys them baby stuff, then toys, then video games, then school stuff, then clothing, and then the grown consumer does the same for their family.

Babies-R-Us is only useful for about a year and then the parents go to Wal-Mart to shop. Oh well, I hear that they have pretty good margins there and it brings in decent revenue growth for Toys-R-Us so they are still able to compete in that space.

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