Toys"R"Us

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Toys weЯe us.

Toys"R"Us (stylistically ToysЯUs in the official company logo) was one of the world's biggest toy retailer chains, based in the United States but with branches in many other countries. According to various sources, it accounted for anywhere from 15 to 20% of major toymakers' sales.

Over the years, they carried many exclusive Transformers toys, in addition to regular mass retail releases. Many of those exclusives have been carried not only by US retailers, but also by international Toys"R"Us branches.

Japan also has its own branch of Toys"R"Us (トイザラス, Toizarasu), which has its own exclusive toys from TakaraTomy, independent of the toys Hasbro provided Western Toys"R"Us stores with.

History

Originally founded by Charles P. Lazarus as Children's Supermart in 1948, the store later changed its focus entirely to toys. By 1957, Lazarus came up with the tagline "Toys"R"Us", eventually operating several additional stores under the Children's Supermart brand. Nine years later, the company was acquired by Interstate Department Stores, Inc., who already owned the toy store chain Children's Bargain Town USA, which featured the original version of Geoffrey the Giraffe as its mascot. Following the bankruptcy of Interstate Department Stores in 1974, Lazarus himself took control of the bankrupt corporation and rebranded the merged Children's Bargain Town USA/Children's Supermart company into "Toys"R"Us", which subsequently grew into the biggest toy store chain in the United States, eventually expanding into other markets around the globe to the point where the company was considered a prime example of a "category killer".[1]

After many decades of success, Toys"R"Us failed to realize the growing importance of the internet during the 1990s, and as a result added its own online store very late in the game. Following a disastrous 1999 holiday shopping season, during which the company fell behind on shipping online customer orders, it struck a ten-year deal with Amazon, who would subsequently act as Toys"R"Us's online presence. Following a brief period of financial success that exceeded Amazon's expectations, the partnership was prematurely ended by Toys"R"Us after Amazon had allowed competing merchants to begin selling toys through the website, and following a lawsuit, Amazon paid Toys"R"Us $51 million in settlements. In 2006, Toys"R"Us reopened an independent website, but by that time, the damage had already been done.[2]

In 2005, Toys"R"Us was bought out by venture capitalist firms including Bain Capital, and as a result, the chain was saddled with a massive debt when the cost of paying back the loan used to buy the chain was then dumped onto it, with interest. Despite rebounding sales-wise and making a profit above its nominal operating expenses, the sheer size of the debt was too much, and Toys"R"Us eventually declared bankruptcy on September 18, 2017, leading to their planned liquidation, resulting in all stores in the United States to be closed by June 29, 2018.

Operations in other markets were also affected, though not all cases ended in all-out job losses: The United Kingdom division entered administration in February 2018, with the last remaining stores being closed on April 24 of the same year; the Australian division entered administration in May 2018, with the last remaining stores expected to close in July; and in Portugal and Spain, Toys"R"Us declared bankruptcy in March 2018, with the final fate of those divisions still uncertain. The Canadian division, which was still profitable by that point, was bought out by Fairfax Financial Holdings in April 2018 (with the takeover completed in May), who are continuing operations under the original branding. The divisions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which were also still profitable, were taken over by Irish family-owned toy giant Smyths in April 2018, who rebranded all stores in those three countries into "Smyths" in 2019. Operations in Asia continue as usual for the time being.

And in the middle of all these tumultuous times, the original Toys"R"Us founder Charles Lazarus, who had parted ways with the company in 1994, died on March 24, 2018, at age 94.

The Toys"R"Us brand is now owned by Tru Kids.

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

A Toys"R"Us store was in Times Square. All Hail Megatron #1

Commercial appearances

At a Toys"R"Us store in a Quadwal stream where toys are sentient, Snackin' Sara the Baby Alive toy informed an unboxed Optimus Prime toy about the store's Price Match guarantee, wherein if Optimus was found at a lower price at another retailer, Toys"R"Us would match their prices. The Optimus toy was confused as to the existence of another one of himself and was advised by Sara to look to his left. When he did so, both he and his doppelganger were distraught at their existence, a panic which soon spread to his entire shelf, fully populated by Optimi. Toys"R"Us Commercial

List of Toys"R"Us exclusive toys (Western market)

Robots in Disguise

Commemorative Series

The entire Commemorative Series toyline was originally intended to be exclusively available from Toys"R"Us stores. However, two toys from the later series were ultimately made available through other venues, at least for the United States market.
Series I Series II Series III Series IV
Series V Series VI Series VII Series VIII
Series IX
Unlike Skids, Side Swipe was only released at Toys"R"Us stores in the United States in very low quantities. The unsold stock was made available a year later through KB Toys stores and outlets, at half the original price. He was, however, available at Toys"R"Us stores in Canada and Australia in average quantities.

Energon

Although the larger packaging for these three six-packs was new, the toys themselves were unchanged from their Armada releases. Desipte the name on the packaging, the "Road Wrecker Team" actually used the toys' original Destruction Team colors. The Road Wrecker/Night Attack Team and Race/Space Team packs were also available at Walmart stores.
These were the smaller sculpts for both characters that were available as mass retail releases in Japan.

Universe (2003)

Alternators

There was a "Mega Alternators" assortment carried by Toys"R"Us... which ultimately turned out to be merely shrinkwrapped combos of single Alternators releases. The most common combinations were Smokescreen/Side Swipe and Smokescreen/Silverstreak, but Smokescreen/Windcharger, Smokescreen/Autobot Hound, and even Smokescreen/Smokescreen combos have been found as well.

Cybertron

Starscream was a redeco of the Voyager Class Starscream sculpt that was otherwise only available in Japan. Vector Prime, on the other hand, was identical to his single Hasbro release.

Titanium Series

Beast Wars 10th Anniversary

Classics

Transformers (2007)

These two toys are unchanged from their single releases.
These six toys are unchanged from their single releases.

Animated

These toys were unchanged from their single releases.
The above two toys were originally scheduled for general retail.

Universe (2008)

Revenge of the Fallen

Transformers (2010)

Dark of the Moon

Mission Earth

Scan Series Cyberverse multipacks
Toys"R"Us exclusive Scan Series Ironhide

Age of Extinction

Evolution 2-packs

Titans Return

The Arcee and Ultra Magnus Pack was first released at HasCon 2017 and later New York Comic Con 2017, the same day this set was released for pre-order at Toys"R"Us.

The Last Knight

Mission to Cybertron Premier Edition Deluxe Premier Edition Voyager

Studio Series


List of Toys"R"Us Japan exclusive toys

Beast Wars

List of Western Toys"R"Us exclusive toys without a US release

Europe

Transformers Animated

  • Autobot Ratchet & Bumblebee two-pack (Deluxe Class)
    • These two toys were unchanged from their single releases. This two-pack was not available at North American stores, but was available as a Toys"R"Us exclusive in the United Kingdom and Germany.

    Revenge of the Fallen

  • Autobot Wheelie vs. Decepticon Sideways two-pack
    • These two toys were unchanged from their single releases. This two-pack was not available at North American stores, but was available as a Toys"R"Us exclusive in the United Kingdom and Germany. The two-pack was given a general retail release in Australia, or at least turned up in a few different stores.

    Beast Hunters

  • Optimus Prime vs Predaking
    • Thus far, this two-pack has been found at Toys"R"Us stores in Portugal, the United Kingdom, Germany and France; in Germany, it was explicitly advertised as a Toys"R"Us exclusive. Since the only known official stock photos have shown this two-pack in multilingual European packaging, it's very likely that this has always been intended as a European market exclusive; however, it has also been found at general retail in Brazil.

    Masterpiece

    Most Hasbro Masterpieces were released as Toys "R" Us exclusives.

    Australia

    Universe

    Voyager Deluxe Comic 2-packs

  • Autobot Ambush (G1 series), contains:
  • Standoff Beneath the Streets (War Within series), contains:
    These 2-packs were originally sold as Target exclusives in the United States.

    Masterpiece

  • Masterpiece Grimlock (2010)
  • Starscream Ghost Version (2010)
  • Masterpiece Thundercracker (2012)
  • Masterpiece Optimus Prime (2012)

Notes

  • Toys"R"Us was also supposed to carry a redeco of Armada Jetfire done up as a Generation 1 Astrotrain homage that would have been released as a Universe toy named Spacewarp, together with redecos of the Armada Space Mini-Con Team. Ultimately, however, Toys"R"Us backed out of the deal, and Spacewarp was never released. While the Space Team redecos remain unreleased to this very day (Takara claims that the molds have become unusable), the planned Spacewarp deco was later used as the basis for the Collectors' Club exclusive Astrotrain redeco of Armada Jetfire, with a new head sculpt.
  • As of 2019, the Canadian Toys "R" Us branch has picked up the rights to the US Target exclusives, beginning with the War for Cybertron: Siege toyline.

References

  1. ↑ "Abandoned - Toys R Us" by Youtube channel Bright Sun Films.
  2. ↑ Alison Griswold: "A dot-com era deal with Amazon marked the beginning of the end for Toys R Us", Quartz, published September 2017.
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