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Comment by achenatx | Hacker News Reader

If they try to be a warehouse store they will get killed by amazon (again). To compete with amazon (or walmart) they need to become a destination.

Around here if you add a playground to your restaurant you will immediately get families.

They should keep toys in the back and make the store one big toy playground. Playscape, track for riding bikes and electric cars, sand area, water area, walls of video games etc. Have "lands" similar to disney where those types of toys are available to play with. Have guides to help kids play with toys. Consumable toys can have a charge to use or art classes, science classes, electronics, etc.

Catalogs or computer screens that let you buy the toy and someone brings it from the back.

Parents will bring their kids to play and will end up buying things.

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The few times I’ve been in TRU in the last ~5 years, half the families in there were seemingly doing exactly this anyway. Kids running around with toy swords, skateboarding, and generally wreaking playful havoc, as they’re wont to do.

Embrace and extend, Toys R Us!

Another model is to just rent store space to toy producers, and make no or little money from sales.

This way, they earn a steady income regardless of whether someone buys it in store or tries it in store and then buys from Amazon.

The toymakers would pay assuming that letting people try the toys in person leads to better sales, which should be the case.

This seems like a good idea! Could even charge for admission.

Charge a LOT for admission, and include the ability to play with a bunch of the best toys. Then, if you buy a new toy, ~75% of the admission price goes toward the purchase price. I bet they'd make a killing.

IIRC think that is the business model of this store in NYC:

https://camp.com/

But Toys R Us has the name brand recognition that this doesn't. If they just reframe the idea of going there from a place to shop to a place to play (and buy your favorite toys to play back home) then they'll get back all the sales that they've lost to online shopping.

Six Flags' and Disney gets away with charging absurd ticket prices since parents will pony up because their kids will manipulate them into it. Especially if "all the other kids" are going or there is a school field trip. Most parents these days are too busy and too soft to disappoint.

And then there's concessions (IKEA and Costco do it).

Shopping as entertainment adventure rather than pushing a shopping cart down aisles of loud marketing boxes floor-to-ceiling.

And, they need to work with apps and games publishers to have the next Cabbage Patch or Transformers not just in iPhone-like limited supply, but as a whole launch event.

McDonald's + Disneyland + Roller rink + Indoor surfing

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