Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, seriously, the author is nuts. I've got a 5-year old and I can't remember the last time I've been to Toys R Us. She knows how to pick stuff out on Amazon; for trinkets there's Target, and a lot of her "toys" now are on her iPad/digital. Suburban big-box retail stores aren't a growth area, and toy stores selling Chinese-made junk are probably among the worst situated. Unlike, e.g. clothes or food, there is little value in being able to look at the thing before you buy (the kid probably wants it because its branded so it doesn't matter whether the actual toy is crap or not).

View on HN

This is an excellent point. I don't think I've read an account of the TRU fiasco from the POV of a person with kids. By my read, TRU's problem isn't debt or Amazon, but changing substitutes. E.g.:

+ YouTube + Amazon: Lets kids see what a toy looks like in HD, whereas previously you'd need to go to a store to see the big images on the box, or to press the "try me" buttons. As you said, the brand drives most of the sales, so the store experience adds little.

+ Advanced Supply Chains/McDonalds: The toys in Happy Meals are insanely nice, I wouldn't be surprised to see them retail for $5-10 at a toy store. High-quality toys are throw-ins for a lot of stores now, obviating the need for a special purpose store, save for Christmas/Birthdays.

+ YouTube + Grocery Store: The rise of Surprise Eggs over the last few years has been astounding, to the point that a decent amount of our toy budget is spent at the checkout line at the grocer, where these eggs are increasingly on offer.

+ YouTube + DIY: The explosion in popularity of DIY slime is another development where tactile time is invested in a project rather than a packaged toy.

+ Apps: The YouTube Kids app and the many thousands of quality games on offer in the app store are great substitutes for plastic junk.

No doubt debt played a role, but I think almost every story has underplayed massive changes in the toy market that are an additional headwind to the industry.

The other problem is that Toys R Us was a terrible retail experience. Warehouse-like, dim flourescent lighting, reminiscent of an old KMart. Dirty floors, unattractive steel shelves in narrow aisles for displaying merchandise. Indifferent, bored workers. I think I shopped there twice before giving up.

terrible retail experience, yes and quite standard for retail, especially that that purposefully encourages the whine and cry for things they want at eye level at registers.

I avoid certain stores in order to avoid the whole "I want this, I want, I want, whine whine" in the store and then at the checkout. I understand Toys R Us playing to this, going in you know it's going to happen...

but rather than really trying to increase it with impulse things at the entrance and then at the checkout, especially with things like candy, they could innovate.

Giving the kids a scanner like some of the walmarts have available and letting them zap all their wants, like some stores have with wedding registries, then letting them print a list or send to an app and then be able to sort by most wanted, etc - easy sharing.. could increase sales, and take care of the whining problem for example.

I'd also support a non candy aisle by spending more money if it had fresh fruit / veggy snacks for example, and I think others would as well.

The wall street greed that pushes some of these methods of selling is backfiring in some ways that are uncountable - if your app could detect the times I need something, yet drive by your store because kids and your impulse check out aisles..

These are all good reasons. Add onto it that most people are paycheck to paycheck. Its cheaper to shop online then drive tour car across town even if you enjoy the store experience.

Apps - yes. Addictive electronic entertainment has taken over. I imagine many other parents also have a few piles of toys that were cool / must have / licensed by the popular things, that just sit in that pile and take up space while phones / tablets / consoles other addictive electronics get used constantly.

Why waste money on things that get an initial "wow!" - only to be tossed into a pile and never used, when there are tons of privacy stealing ad supported free things that take all the time and attention.

Last holiday I looked through the TUS online and offline catalogues for 10-12 age range, found 2 things that may be interesting to the youngin' here; one was a watch.

Strangely card based games like pokemon yugio mtg can actually get groups of kids involved without the need for electronics, but I don't think those alone would keep a large warehouse in business. I am also not driving across town when target has the card packs a mile from here, and specialized card shops are all over town.

I did see TUS expand it's electronics section, but the ad supported freemium models don't sell many games, just hardware once every so often.

Sad to see TUS go, unlike GP commenter, I don't think the author is crazy, I believe that shareholders often influence places to make decisions that may raise profits in the short term yet lose the war after a couple of years. It may not be the only reason, but I'd wager it's one of the main ones out of the top 10 perhaps.

A problem is that in a retail store, you might walk by something new and want to try it. On Amazon et al you're largely going to stick with what you know, and the site's recommendations are probably not going to stray much.

Additionally, walking out of a store with something is a nice experience, maybe reading the manual on the way home, instead of waiting a week to get something unless you have prime or pay for faster shipping.

Amazon is definitely convenient, but it's sad to see Toys R Us go. Stores like that provide a real added value in my opinion.

What you've described doesn't sound like a value-add at all to me. In stores they can manipulate your senses to get you to make emotion-based purchases whether or not it makes economic sense or if you're going to actually get your money's worth out of the product.

You only think it's better reading the manual on the way home and not waiting a few days because you're still riding that emotional high.

I much prefer the Amazon approach where feasible, because that detachment helps you keep a more level head while purchasing, which reduces the expenditures on frivolities and you'll have more savings for more meaningful things later.

>that detachment helps you keep a more level head while purchasing

I kind of doubt that this is really the case in practice. There is detachment from the walk by impulse buys. But there is also detachment from the part where you spend your money. One click purchases are just too easy.

And Amazon suggestions are getting better all the time at convincing you to buy more and more. Not to mention the discounts on auto delivered products.

The store can only entice me when I decide to get in a car and drive there and walk in. Amazon is just a click or tap away from absolutely anywhere.

And the deals on "plus" items. I spent a few hours once to find other items to buy in order to reach the required 25$ to get that first item rebate.. madness.

I wasn't actually enjoying that experience, I just thought I was?

I don't see the big deal with a few impulse purchases as long as it's not hurting the family budget.

Do you really think you're not being manipulated by Amazon? "Frequently bought together", fake reviews based on free samples in exchange for "honest opinions" (hah!), gold box deals with countdowns to artificial deadlines, "people also shopped for", add-on items, "recommendations for you", free shipping when you spend at least $X, discounts calculated from inflated retail prices, "your shopping history" going back 10+ years, daily email specials, curated product photos. And millions of A/B tests to optimize everything from the layout, colors, product recommendations, search results, and checkout process to make more people buy more stuff.

Stores optimize layout, colors, ambient music, the checkout process (ever see the rack of stuff right by the cash register?), too. They even pump fragrances into the store.

There's enormous effort expended on this by stores - because it works.

This is the experience IMO. Someone talked about this about old video games. Atari boxes were so pretty, yet the games had nothing to do with the box art (8 bit graphics can only get you so far). But the imagination bootstrap it gives made the game pleasurable. It's all fake anyway.. make believe.

I feel this era is going way too much into sound/engineered decision making for mundane human life, and I say it's detrimental.

True, but apparently that value was less than the cost to provide it.

Toys R Us is a pretty basic economic transaction. They sold toys, and the people buying them get the value. We're not dealing with public goods or externalities or any other type of market failure where this type of value might be tricky to pick up.

I hadn't been into one in ages, but about six months ago I went into one with my toddler and was shocked how completely un-interactive the experience was. There was almost nothing for him to play with. Just aisle after aisle of hermetically sealed boxes with bright fluorescent lighting and sullen employees.

Couldn't see what the value add was. I'll take my local toy shop, thanks.

Honestly, that's what I remember of Toy R Us.. the immensity of it. To the roof shelves, packed with fantasies(fetishes) I could barely see so high were the boxes. And I left mind numbed by this (positively so, if you can call this pornographic level of toy need positive).

> the site's recommendations are probably not going to stray much

On the other hand, a toy store is stocked only with management's recommendations. They're not fools, either, they only stock what they expect to sell well - mainstream, right down the center products.

I have a 3 year old and a 3 month old and we go to babies r us 1-2 times per month.

Our local Target has some choice of baby stuff but nothing like babies r us has. And with the problems of fakes I've ran into on Amazon, I would NEVER trust them with something like a carseat.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com