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Toys R Us to close over 180 stores in US

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;)
 
I've found Maplin very useful for just popping in to get the odd connector or adapter there and then - quicker than mail order and far more likely to be paying their taxes than Amazon. Sad to lose them.

Tandy was Radio Shack's UK operation, back in the days (yes, I am old enough to remember them).
 
Once you pass middle age toys aren't that important.

BOT: Where can you take kids to see toys these days? I'm nerdy so I'd say Science Museum gift shops. There's a great Big one in the Museum of Science in Cambridge MA next to Boston.

That place still makes me feel like a kid in a toyshop. :)
 
Hadron said:
I've found Maplin very useful for just popping in to get the odd connector or adapter there and then - quicker than mail order and far more likely to be paying their taxes than Amazon. Sad to lose them.

Tandy was Radio Shack's UK operation, back in the days (yes, I am old enough to remember them).
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In the US, Tandy was Radio Shack's computer brand name.
 
Tandy was originally Tandy Leather Company (who I happened to work for right out of high school). They acquired Radio Shack in the '60s and branched out into electronic hobbies. My dad had a Tandy CoCo. My first real PC was a Tandy 286.
 
It's definite. Toys R Us is gone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43401674

It's a real shame, because they could have made their stores so much more inviting. For instance, why not introduce a cafe area as a central point in the building, with toys placed around for kids to play with? Make it an enjoyable place to visit, instead of a huge boring warehouse, with untidy and disinterested staff. I still think a toy store is one of the few things that can be a great success as a high street retail outlet - it's got a perpetual flow of new customers, and toys are a very tactile thing.
Massive opportunity thrown away, because the management didn't have enough vision. :(
 
The interesting thing is that the Smyths chain is still growing in the UK. I've been in one once, and it was basically a more downmarket, less organised and less inviting clone of Toys 'r' Us - and yes, I do know how implausible that sounds!

So are they just building to a crash, paying even less for goods/staff/premises, or have they cracked the trick of Amazon-like tax dodging while still having physical stores? Their apparent success was certainly a mystery to me.
 
Hadron said:
So are they just building to a crash, paying even less for goods/staff/premises, or have they cracked the trick of Amazon-like tax dodging while still having physical stores? Their apparent success was certainly a mystery to me.
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Their head office is in Ireland apparently so they've obviously taken advice from Google (whose UK head office is in Ireland) or they're mates with Phillip Hammond.
 
El Presidente said:
Their head office is in Ireland apparently so they've obviously taken advice from Google (whose UK head office is in Ireland) or they're mates with Phillip Hammond.
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I think they pioneered that tax strategy. I seem to remember they set up a scheme where all the stores paid an absurd licensing fee to a shell company for the likeness of Jeffrey the Giraffe as a way to shift profits from high tax jurisdictions to low tax jurisdictions.
 
Planning on getting a telescope for real, at my toys r us, I have not shopped there in many years , think I bought something small down there. Not so sure on what I bought over there either, I am a Barns and Nobles every once a while though.. Comics I go to Walmart next door to my home anyways :)
 
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