Toys Were Us

Toys "R" Us, at its peak America's biggest toy store chain, its stores the most generously stocked toy stores with the biggest selections, is going the way of Montgomery Ward, Gimbels, and other storied retail names (not to mention the Kiddie City and Playworld toy store chains operated by Lionel, Inc.) as traditional mass-market retailing goes the way of the dodo in the face of competition from online retail.  Charles Lazarus - the store's name is a play on his own - founded his first store in 1948 in Washington, D.C., starting out selling juvenile furniture but shifting his focus to toys and later starting offshoot chains, Babies "R" Us and the since-closed Kids "R" Us.  At  its peak, the chain, headquartered in Wayne, New Jersey (just west of New York City) had 1,758 stores all over the world.

The downside of Toys "R" Us's dominance was the threat against smaller independent toy retailers, but Amazon is even more of a threat to retailers big and small, as it is out to rule the world by monopolizing the supply and distribution of consumer goods.  The loss of Toys "R" Us makes it harder for toy companies to market its products through brick-and-mortar stores, and as for surviving toy stores and toy store chains . . .  the smaller the company and the smaller the store, the greater the threat.  Amazon underscored just how much of the retail business it hopes to dominate by showing interest in Toys "R" Us stores . . . not to take them over and run them but to use them as local warehouses once they're vacated.    

It's a brave new world for our kids to play in.