Amazon Considers Buying Some Toys R Us Stores (bloomberg.com) 61
According to Bloomberg, Amazon has looked at the possibility of expanding its retail footprint by acquiring some locations from bankrupt Toys R Us. "The online giant isn't interested in maintaining the Toys R Us brand, but has considered using the soon-to-be-vacant spaces for its own purposes," reports Bloomberg. From the report: Such a move would let Amazon quickly expand its brick-and-mortar presence, coming on the heels of buying Whole Foods and its more than 450 locations last year. The Seattle-based company also has opened its own line of bookstores and a convenience-store concept. Additional stores would give Amazon space to showcase its popular Echo line of devices, which run on the Alexa voice-activated platform. Amazon sees voice as the next interface for people to access technology -- supplanting computer mouses and touch screens -- and the benefits may be easier to demonstrate in a real-world setting. A bigger network of stores would put inventory closer to where shoppers live, potentially enabling quick delivery to e-commerce customers. The space could also serve as a staging ground for grocery delivery from Whole Foods stores. Amazon is already planning to roll out free two-hour service to Whole Foods customers in four cities, including Dallas and Cincinnati.
Good idea (Score:3)
If they are going to make into stores they would need to compete with Target and Walmart and from what I remember of the Toy R Us stories they were not big enough.
Re:Good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
The stores will be big enough because Amazon has precise data about what sells the most in a given area/city.
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I think this is the main reason https://www.youtube.com/result... [youtube.com], so pick up points and what is the ideal thing to do then, set up a good show room, let them wait a bit and go for a wander for some spur of the moment purchases. So real world click and mortar stores, carrying the most sold consumables and other stuff and with lots of pick ups you need lots of storage and even an all call taxi truck service with a couple of able bodies. In that case check the package, call taxi truck and do you own delivery,
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Sometimes it works just as well the other way round. Look at Amazon to see all the different products available and what features they provide. Then go to the local store, order that item and pick it up at a convenient time. I do this with new parts for my PC's - I prefer to just walk into the store and get the memory chips, HD drives and CPU's rather than risk having them lost in the post.
Big stores tend not to understand their customers (Score:3)
Target in Canada didn't fail because of competition. It failed because it didn't secure it's supply chain and didn't have the products people wanted.
Best Buy is failing for not understanding their customers, even though they are quite vocally being told they don't appreciate being treated like criminals. Also they are failing in Canada because they are not providing the products people want, where they wan
Target in Canada was one big clusterf*** (Score:5, Interesting)
> Target in Canada didn't fail because of competition. It failed because it
> didn't secure it's supply chain and didn't have the products people wanted.
Let's start at the beginning...
* Walmart buys bunch of Woolworth/Woolco stores in Canada http://articles.latimes.com/19... [latimes.com]
* ***KEEPS STORES OPEN***
* this maintains the supply chain and customer base
* renovates a store one section at a time, keeping 3/4 of the individual store open at all times
* when the "rolling renovation" of the store was finished, a sign company came out, and replaced the "Woolco" sign with a "Walmart", and the store never skipped a beat in the process
* Target buys a bunch of Zellers leases
* ***THE IDIOTS SHUT DOWN ALL THE STORES FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR***
* chase away former customers, who now get used to shopping elsewhere
* former suppliers either go out of business, or find business customers elsewhere
* after an entire year of gutting the old stores, they re-open
* now they have to beg all the former customers to come back (didn't work)
* and they try to ramp up supply chain for an entire store chain all at once (didn't work)
If you ever want to write a "How *NOT* to expand into another country" book, Target is the obvious case study.
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The difference is that for Amazon the stores would be a small supplement to their on-line sales. Just as Apple has their stores, which are mostly just a show-case for their wares, rather than their main method of selling.
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Well, if I'm ordering a $2000 BTO MacBook, a $600 Apple Watch, or even just a $160 pair of AirPods, I'm not especially inclined to entrust it to the mailman who just drops packages on my driveway without so much as ringing the doorbell, the UPS guy who gives my packages to random neighbors if I'm not home, or the OnTrac guys who seem to enjoy the pastime of playing football with my packages for a while before delivering them... assuming they can be bothered to deliver them at all. When I place my order, in
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Funny how history repeats itself. Sears, Roebuck and Co. was founded in 1893 as a mail-order only retailer and caused a shift away from local "general store" operators by making price discovery easier with their widely published catalogs. Local retailers would mark things up as they could; Sears kept them honest.
As Sears found out, and as Amazon is finding out, people still need a local retailer for some purchases.
The actors may change but the play is always the same.
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When you're 80 years old you won't move around as well as when you were 20, either. That's the point. Sears is the old man in the story I paint, having his lunch eaten by the young up-start. The point is that Amazon will grow old, too. We're just seeing the next candle being added to its birthday cake now.
It's almost funny in a way. As humans age they look to establish a solid homestead and will fight to the death over it. Businesses, being run by humans, have similar desires. I see Amazon's foray into the
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Funny)
After all having all those brick and mortar stores has done wonders for Barnes and Nobles and Waldenbooks.
Who says that Bezos is planning on using them for stores . . . ?
Now that the Zuck has been knocked out as the darling candidate for the 2020 presidential election, maybe Bezos is planning to run?
All those empty stores in prime locations would make excellent campaign local HQs.
Actually, considering the latest Facebook scandal . . . I believe Oprah orchestrated it all to eliminate the Zuck as competition to her.
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Bezos is about as charismatic as Aleister Crowley. He has zero chance of running for political office, and doubtless knows this well.
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ToysRUs isn't just going out of business due to poor management.
Keep in mind they just settled the decade old TRS vs Amazon & Amazon vs TRS lawsuits (mostly in Amazon's favor) a few years ago and Amazon has been targeting them for longer than they have Wal-Mart.
This is just a case of the wolves picking the bones clean during a fire sale.
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Toy R Us has been in death throes before Amazon (Score:2)
Amazon has been surviving on borrowed money since Amazon was a book seller. TRS declined in the 1990s vs Walmart and Target. In 1998 Walmart sold more toys than Toys R Us did. By 2005 Moody's rated TRS bonds as "extremely speculative" and "substantial risk" - indicating it was already likely TRS was headed for bankruptcy.
Investors including Bain Capital thought there was still value in the brand, and with better management they might be able to turn the company around, so they bought it (cheap). After an
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Stop lying. Bain did their usual tactic of buying the company, taking loans out in the company's name to reward themselves handsomely (for existing I guess), and then letting the company be crushed under said debt. They did it to Kay Bee and dozens of other companies. It's called a leveraged buyout and it's ravaged the retail sector over the last few decades. Most of these companies, KB and TRU included, are perfectly profitable without hedge fun leeches sucking them dry.
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I'm not sure what your smoking but you have no idea what your talking about. Yes I know evil capitalist paranoia is the new black on /. but that's to much of a stretch even for semi-sane people.
Bain Capital had nothing to do with what happened to TRU that happened after Lazarus stepped down. The board put John Eyler in charge and he murdered the company with an expensive brick-&-mortar rebuild/re-brand that was never completed. He's also the reason TRU signed the bad (for them) contract to let Amazon
Not only do you get sweet retail locations... (Score:2)
...the shops ALREADY come stocked with drones you can tie packages to for delivery!!!
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shut up you fucking fool.
Re: They are perfect... (Score:1)
The floor space maybe suitable for a warehouse, but the surrounds infrastructure might not be. Semis and truck in and out multiple times per day and all that.
These places were built with retail traffic in mind.
Amazon will never stop! (Score:2, Offtopic)
Even when they surpass Apple in 2019 as the biggest company in the world, they won't stop there!
Why settle for being #1 when there's a number even higher: Number Zero.
Amazon Zero: coming soon!
I don't want to grow up (Score:2, Offtopic)
I'm an Amazon kid
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I'm an Amazon kid
"We be Amazon . . . and shit."
No, it just sound right.
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Modded down by someone who is too young to remember the Toys R Us song.
Truly, the end of an era.
Any other toy stores left? (Score:2)
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There are plenty of toy stores left. They are small, local, and child focused. You probably have one within driving distance if you look for it.
My prediction (Score:2, Offtopic)
Amazon will purchase the buildings from Toys 'R' Us, but leave them empty. Then, whenever Bezos feels the need to have his power reaffirmed, he can just go to one of these locations and wander around the empty store telling himself "I DID THIS".
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Based on past history of large closed stores, they will probably sit vacant for quite a time no matter who eventually buys them. Locally, we have a new 'Super Kroeger' grocery store, and the old Kroeger store, former anchor of a small shopping mall, is abandoned and vacant. Another local grocery chain's former location has finally been repurposed but stood vacant for about eight years after it closed.
Some better than others (Score:2)
Going forward...in reverse. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The Seattle-based company also has opened its own line of bookstores...A bigger network of stores would put inventory closer to where shoppers live, potentially enabling quick delivery..."
So, Amazon defines progress as essentially converting themselves back into the very brick and mortar model they decimated? Putting inventory "where shoppers live"? Don't make that bullshit sound like it's some 21st century cutting edge concept; it's how the world did business for the last few thousand years.
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"The Seattle-based company also has opened its own line of bookstores...A bigger network of stores would put inventory closer to where shoppers live, potentially enabling quick delivery..."
So, Amazon defines progress as essentially converting themselves back into the very brick and mortar model they decimated? Putting inventory "where shoppers live"? Don't make that bullshit sound like it's some 21st century cutting edge concept; it's how the world did business for the last few thousand years.
Well, apparently the old bookstores didn't do it well enough to stay open. I'll be interested to see what Amazon brings to the table.
Shoes (Score:2)
Walmart (Score:2)
Let's go a further back in time (Score:2)
The Toys R Us locations make sense. Now let's take their data tracking / customer profiling to the next level and create a store much like what was Service Merchandise. Order darn near anything in advance and they'll ship it that day to the store for you to pick it up. Shop there and they have the common items / trends ready to sold. Product that doesn't sell / needed elsewhere returns to the warehouse on the trucks making the deliveries and shifted to other locations as needed.
Along with Sears (Score:2)
I keep saying that Amazon's long term strategy is to drive the 20th century brick-and-mortar stores out of business and then buy up their real estate at fire sale prices. Then they open Amazon stores.