Welcome to Thunderdome

180 stores are closing. (This is a map of them.)

This is a company that badly needs new management.

Leisher wrote: 180 stores are closing. (This is a map of them.)

This is a company that badly needs new management.

They need to be put out to pasture.

They can be salvaged, but they have to reinvent themselves. Their stores need more interactivity, and they need to start marketing to different crowds.

Remodeling would be item #1. Goodbye random warehouse feel, hello warm inviting place.
Item #2 - Play area for the kiddies w/supervision so parents can shop. Maybe even do a "Monkey cafe" (whatever its called) type situation where you have a coffee shop for adults while kids can play. IKEA does it.
Item #3 - Interactivity. No shitty apps that simulate interactivity and don't work most of the time. Actual interactive representations of the products you're selling or fuck off.
Item #4 - The video game area needs to have one goal: Eliminate Game Stop. Steal their business model and beat them at it. That alone could be an anchor for your business.
Item #5 - Covet the collectors. I, as an adult, am always looking in the one aisle with video game and movie figures. It's rare I make a purchase, but sometimes I have to have something, like the big Godzilla or the 18" Ash. Both sit on my desk at home near some R&M figures and a few SW trinkets. They need to expand that section and lure in their adult shoppers, particularly collectors.

Leisher wrote: Item #4 - The video game area needs to have one goal: Eliminate Game Stop. Steal their business model and beat them at it. That alone could be an anchor for your business.
Item #5 - Covet the collectors. I, as an adult, am always looking in the one aisle with video game and movie figures. It's rare I make a purchase, but sometimes I have to have something, like the big Godzilla or the 18" Ash. Both sit on my desk at home near some R&M figures and a few SW trinkets. They need to expand that section and lure in their adult shoppers, particularly collectors.

4 - Was roaming the mall the other day and stepped into a GameStop for the first time in years. Half the store is already given over to toys... TrU wouldn't have to work very hard. Now that I think about it, TrU already has a video game section bigger than a typical GS at a mall, don't they? They should market that. Maybe even accept GS gift cards for a while, to really nail down the coffin.

5 - Yeah, this. There's like half of 1 aisle that I am interested in seeing when the kid was younger and TrU was a fun trip for him. At the time it was the only place to find random Doctor Who toys. They need more of that stuff.

GORDON wrote: 4 - Was roaming the mall the other day and stepped into a GameStop for the first time in years. Half the store is already given over to toys... TrU wouldn't have to work very hard. Now that I think about it, TrU already has a video game section bigger than a typical GS at a mall, don't they? They should market that. Maybe even accept GS gift cards for a while, to really nail down the coffin.

Yeah, there was jack shit in there for games, and they had like 2 Switch games total.

Preparing to liquidate.

They could still be saved, but I have to wonder if it's worth it. They failed to change with the times and became irrelevant. Perhaps their inventory would be worth the purchase, but then stores would have to be made over to reflect the new needs of shoppers.

A toy giant is a viable business, but not how they're doing it.

So sad. That giraffe was the first person/thing that shared my name.

As I get older and more knowledgeable about business and have access (and a desire to read) to more business news, I'm seeing how often businesses go under thanks to poor management.

My wife had a bad streak of supporting failing businesses for a bit. She worked at This End Up, a furniture retailer that, literally, handed the reigns of their company over to a group of business grads and promptly went under.

She was pregnant when her favorite restaurant, Chi Chi's, went under. That wasn't fun for either of us... This one actually still boggles my mind. How the fuck do you run a Mexican restaurant chain into the ground? Cheap food that's insanely popular, and your salsa was so popular it's still demanded today.

Jed's was a Toledo wing place that was amazingly popular. You couldn't go to one that wasn't packed. Then the owner got arrested for cocaine and tax stuff, was sued by 7 waitresses for sexual harassment, and his wife divorced him. this all happened back to back to back. His partners had a few locations all in lower populated areas. Jed's are slowly returning and maintain their popular brand, but there was a time when they were threatening to put all other similar places out of business. Since then BW3 and Sidelines (another local one) have taken over the market.

I have more examples, including many local ones, but the point is made.

I honestly wonder how many businesses are casualties of our economy moving to be more service driven. Not because it negatively affects the non-service businesses, but because folks who otherwise would have a plant job instead went to college because "everyone should!" Then these should-be-plant-workers get put in charge of businesses and drive them into the ground.

Not that there's anything wrong with plant folks AT ALL. "The world needs ditch diggers too." is not an insult, but a fact. You can have the greatest CEO in the history of man, but without people to make it happen, you aren't doing shit.

Ah capitalism...

If a market has a void, someone will fill it.

Billionaire makes bid to save Toys R Us.

One of the two around here is still open and thriving. Not sure if the other is still open as it's across town.