This Friday there will officially not be a single Toys “R” Us store open in the United States.
The company filed for bankruptcy in September. Things only worsened due to lackluster sales during the winter holidays, according to CNN.
There were 735 stores left when the Toys “R” Us announced it was planning to go out of business in March. The remaining 200 stores will all be closed by this Friday.
Toys “R” Us has been in business for seventy years but bigger stores like Wal-Mart and Target and online giants like Amazon have been dominating the competition.
The company has also been burdened with the debt that came from being purchased by a real estate firm in 2005. Former employees have also been protesting for not being paid their severance for losing their jobs.
For the toy industry, this is a huge loss. Yes, retailers: Wal-Mart and Target were already making money in toy sales than Toys “R” Us but this smaller store was an essential venue for toymakers to sell their entire sets of products.
Hasbro reported a loss in the tens of millions due to the end of Toys “R” Us, according to Hasbro.
Meanwhile, Party City has announced that it will use 50 of the closed location store spaces to offer Toy City stores during the holiday season. These locations will only be used temporarily though.
The end of Toys “R” Us comes a week after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states would be allowed to give a sales tax to retailers even if they don’t have a large physical presence in that state. This ruling will have effects on Amazon but even more on smaller online stores.
Sadly, this ruling is too late to provide a potential for Toys “R” Us in America but stores will remain open in some other countries such as Canada.
Featured Image via Wikimedia Commons
