Well yeah, the only thing I took issue with is the ideda that a store's continued existence means that they are doing just as well as they were 5-10 years ago. Wal-Mart really didn't start to get a tight strangehold on cities and prices until the late 90's so I don't really consider the years prior to that to really be worth noting when you are talking about their effect on smaller businesses. It remains to be seen how things will turn out, though it's going to suck if we end up in a world where the only 2 grocery stores are Super Wal-Mart and Super Target.
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ToysRus looking to get out of toy business, blames Walmart and Target
- Thread starter Ripclawe
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human5892 said:
And I assume you can back that up? All I have to do is point to last night's news.
In my experience, the Toys 'R Us has been generally overpriced -- why do you think I do know to shop around?
And you know Wal*Mart isn't always the cheapest game in town, right?
Nintendo Ate My Children
Member
I should have said their mass market competition. Wal-Mart has cheap prices one stop shopping. They don't need great customer service and atmosphere. Specialty retailers can't compete with mass market prices, and can't offer dog food, lightbulbs, and groceries, so they have to offer something else to get customers.
I'm not pro-WM by any means... I'd like to see their legal woes make the news more often than they do, and... well, I've been through all of that "WM v Union" stuff in other threads.
This TRU thing is fingerpointing to draw attention away from themselves. Completely disregarding games, because they're a low enough markup that it's a non-issue, and looking solely at toys: TRU is priced too high on figures. Only time I've bought anything at TRU in the last year or two is when it's on sale online, like the Transformer G1 reissues... which were purposely overpriced initially, due to their TRU exclusivity.
I don't understand how TRU can't remain competitive... if you go by shelf space and square footage in stores, and compare the sizes of sections for dolls, cars, boys tv, or whatever, TRU tends to stock (in theory) a wider variety of merchandise than any WM or Target. People always argue that WM can undersell because they buy in bulk and therefore get a lower cost per unit, but if TRU is selling more of this type of product, doesn't it stand to reason that TRU would be getting a similar deal, if not a better one? Granted, TRU's impulse merchandise is sorely lacking compared to WM due to their specialized focus, but instead of having 3-year old WWF figures marked down to $4.96 and having them rot and collect dust on shelves, why not make them $3 or whatever the cost is, blow them out, and bring in newer stuff?
I'm not one to defend WM at all, but this is all TRU's fuckup, not WM's. WM's toy selection is limited and typically stocked very poorly... the one near my house has a ton of Spiderman toys, and a handful of everything else, with many empty or near-empty pegs. The nearest TRU has a bunch of overpriced old figures sitting on shelves, and the shelves are crammed full, as well as the overhead storage sections. It's not hard to see what they're doing wrong.
Besides, when the babies at Babies R Us grow up, TRU wants them to go to WM for their toys? Real smart.
This TRU thing is fingerpointing to draw attention away from themselves. Completely disregarding games, because they're a low enough markup that it's a non-issue, and looking solely at toys: TRU is priced too high on figures. Only time I've bought anything at TRU in the last year or two is when it's on sale online, like the Transformer G1 reissues... which were purposely overpriced initially, due to their TRU exclusivity.
I don't understand how TRU can't remain competitive... if you go by shelf space and square footage in stores, and compare the sizes of sections for dolls, cars, boys tv, or whatever, TRU tends to stock (in theory) a wider variety of merchandise than any WM or Target. People always argue that WM can undersell because they buy in bulk and therefore get a lower cost per unit, but if TRU is selling more of this type of product, doesn't it stand to reason that TRU would be getting a similar deal, if not a better one? Granted, TRU's impulse merchandise is sorely lacking compared to WM due to their specialized focus, but instead of having 3-year old WWF figures marked down to $4.96 and having them rot and collect dust on shelves, why not make them $3 or whatever the cost is, blow them out, and bring in newer stuff?
I'm not one to defend WM at all, but this is all TRU's fuckup, not WM's. WM's toy selection is limited and typically stocked very poorly... the one near my house has a ton of Spiderman toys, and a handful of everything else, with many empty or near-empty pegs. The nearest TRU has a bunch of overpriced old figures sitting on shelves, and the shelves are crammed full, as well as the overhead storage sections. It's not hard to see what they're doing wrong.
Besides, when the babies at Babies R Us grow up, TRU wants them to go to WM for their toys? Real smart.
Sir Willoughby
Member
Very sad. TRU was always one of my favorite stores.My first memories were back in the seventy's and yes, the stores suck now. i loved taking my kid's there hoping for the same experience as I had. When they remod. the one near me it went down hill, they lost close to 30% of thier floor space to *clothes*, wt.....in a toy store.
For the most part TRU had pricing fairly in line with the market, exception being Walmart.
As far as 'mom & pop "stores go, who say's thier pricing is out of line. In retail it's all about dollars per sqr.ft. of floor space, your mark-up must reflect many things, cost of real-estate, business taxes (and there are many), insurances, payroll, utilities, in some states inventory tax (a real killer), and the most expensive of them all replacement cost. If you mark your product up 40%, how many do you have to sell to buy another.(that's a redundant question).
Wallmart has great buying power and can in a-way force it's suppliers down on pricing, and many of the cheaper sku's are "loss leaders". A loss leader is commonly fiqured at the beginning of the year in the advertising budget, and "mom & pop" can't effectively do that. The only way to truly compete against the "mega chain" is quality, and above all else service. IMO
For the most part TRU had pricing fairly in line with the market, exception being Walmart.
As far as 'mom & pop "stores go, who say's thier pricing is out of line. In retail it's all about dollars per sqr.ft. of floor space, your mark-up must reflect many things, cost of real-estate, business taxes (and there are many), insurances, payroll, utilities, in some states inventory tax (a real killer), and the most expensive of them all replacement cost. If you mark your product up 40%, how many do you have to sell to buy another.(that's a redundant question).
Wallmart has great buying power and can in a-way force it's suppliers down on pricing, and many of the cheaper sku's are "loss leaders". A loss leader is commonly fiqured at the beginning of the year in the advertising budget, and "mom & pop" can't effectively do that. The only way to truly compete against the "mega chain" is quality, and above all else service. IMO
Sir Willoughby said:
Too true... the store I work in now sometimes beats Suncoast and Best Buy on dvds, but other times we're way higher. Still, people will buy from us because we take care of people and their special requests, etc.
Seems like every TRU employee I've come across over the past few years suspects every customer of being some toy collector or something, so you get an attitude from them, even if you simply ask if an item has come out yet. Or they go in the back and never come out, or something like that. It's too bad, because it didn't happen that way before, even ten years ago.
Nintendo Ate My Children
Member
That's true, but sales in the toy business are very focued on a few select toys that get all the advertising and promotion. Kids want to buy the toys they see advertised on cartoons, and these are the toys that are available everywhere, and in massive quantities. So while TRU may have *more* toys, the toys they have that Wal-Mart doesn't generally don't sell that well. Wal-Mart also has a much more efficient warehouse distribution system, so they can get hot toys faster, and can also restock empty shelves faster.
The problem is that TRU doesn't sell more toys than Wal-Mart.
Because that would make too much sense. I guess the reason is that they would have to take a loss on their balance sheets. If you say you've got X billions of dollars in inventory assets (even if most of it is useless crap that can't be sold), it looks better than showing how much money you lost by buying too much junk that no one wanted and having to sell it below cost.
I used to think Toys R Us offered the best prices on toys I used to buy back in the day. And I was right; compared to KB Toys and especiallly FAO Schwarz, Toys R Us offered more and the best prices. Now, whenever I see their coupon book, I don't have much of a compelling reason to buy games there because the prices are always MSRP. Luckily they're good for price matching because if Circuit City doesn't have it, TRU would. However, whenever there's a 3 for 2 deal, lots of people show up and ransack the place before it's all said and done. I guess I'll shop there sometime in the near future if a game debuts at full price (like Tales of Symphonia).
Nintendo Ate My Children said:
Fixed. Worked at a WM for 2.5 yrs, frequent the one by my house on an infrequent basis, and they never seem to be stocked on everything at the same time. I know the lag time for assembly items is 15 days, but even so... you can go months without seeing new stock, especially around this time of year, so they can store up for Christmas.
MrAngryFace
Banned
The 'beat em with better service' crap only works with customers that are either old, or are raising a family.
Walmart GENERALLY panders to a giant majority of pushy assholes (broke college students, white trash, and insane people) that dont allow 'bad service' to dictate where they shop because they live for the confrontation and the drama.
I agree in some situations it works, but too many people are jerks these days to give a nod to better service.
Walmart GENERALLY panders to a giant majority of pushy assholes (broke college students, white trash, and insane people) that dont allow 'bad service' to dictate where they shop because they live for the confrontation and the drama.
I agree in some situations it works, but too many people are jerks these days to give a nod to better service.
If we're going to get anecdotal about Walmart's effect on local economies...
After the Walmart supercenter opened in my town, at least 3 locally owned hardware stores have had to close, because they couldn't sell stuff cheaply enough to stay in business. One chain grocery store is on the verge of closing as well. All because they can't compete, at all, with Walmart's cheap prices.
There was an interesting article a few weeks ago on NPR's weekend edition about how Save-a-lot is a smaller store directly competing with Walmart and winning, which was an interesting story. I personally don't like, don't trust and don't shop at Walmart unless I have no choice.
After the Walmart supercenter opened in my town, at least 3 locally owned hardware stores have had to close, because they couldn't sell stuff cheaply enough to stay in business. One chain grocery store is on the verge of closing as well. All because they can't compete, at all, with Walmart's cheap prices.
There was an interesting article a few weeks ago on NPR's weekend edition about how Save-a-lot is a smaller store directly competing with Walmart and winning, which was an interesting story. I personally don't like, don't trust and don't shop at Walmart unless I have no choice.
regarding: overpriced games...
as someone who works in the R-Zone, the only game ive noticed in 2 months, is that we're going to be charging 40 bucks for the new pokemon games...
other prices seem to be in line, except for games TRU doesnt want to drop in price, like anyones going to pay 50 bucks for Maximum Chase for xbox... HAH
as someone who works in the R-Zone, the only game ive noticed in 2 months, is that we're going to be charging 40 bucks for the new pokemon games...
other prices seem to be in line, except for games TRU doesnt want to drop in price, like anyones going to pay 50 bucks for Maximum Chase for xbox... HAH
The new TRU store layout is really bad. The old one that was used when I was a kid all the way up until a few years ago was great; it was like an awesome toy warehouse. Now it's a cluttered unorganzied mess. There's boxes stacked everywhere, and the store just looks ugly. The new video game section is cool, but I liked the older one better. Everything there sucks now.
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