The grand opening of a Toys R Us store in San Marcos, TX. Toys R Us today announced it will open 120 atandalone stores for the holiday season.
Courtesy of Go! Retail Group
Toys R Us is opening 120 new U.S. stores with its retail partner Go! Retail Group, in a major expansion timed to capitalize on the peak holiday toy shopping season.
The expansion comes at a time when the U.S. toy industry is enjoying healthy sales gains after some tough years.
Toy sales for the first half of this year were the strongest they’ve been in six year, according to research firm Circana, LLC, with total dollar sales up 17%. Average selling price was up 4%.
The store expansion will bring the number of U.S. stores to 160, continuing the growth trajectory the new owners of the Toys R Us brand have been on since taking over the iconic toy brand that went bankrupt in 2017 and liquidated its stores in 2018.
There also are over 1,ooo licensed Toys R Us stores outside of the United States.
After its bankruptcy and liquidation, Toys R Us was acquired in 2021 by WHP Global, a brand management firm with a portfolio of more than 16 consumer brands – including Marc Jacobs, Vera Wang, and Lands’ End -that generate close to $10 billion in retail sales.
To drive its store expansion, WHP Global in 2023 announced it was partnering with Go! Retail Group, an Austin, Texas-based company with expertise in operating seasonal pop-up shops.
Toys R Us is expecting most of the latest batch of store openings to stick around long after the holiday season. Go! Retail has found with previous Toys R Us openings that there was enough year-round demand to keep them operational the entire year.
Some of the stores that they opened they thoughts were going to be seasonal stores, just for holiday, and the stores did so well they extended the lease,” Jamie Uitdenhowen, Executive Vice President of Toys R Us at WHP Global, said in an interview.
The store expansion is something consumers have been seeking, Uitdenhowen said. “This is something they’ve been asking for more of – standalone Toys R Us stores with a full experience in there, a wider assortment, more experiential elements,” he said.
A new feature that Toys R Us is rolling out this year at five of its current stores is Creator Studios, dedicated in-store spaces where influencers, creators, and toy brands can host toy reveals, unveil new products and create social media content.
The idea for the studios was the brainchild of Chief Marketing Offier Kim Miller and grew out of “really listening to all of our consumers that come in our stores and really love experiential elements,” Uitdenhowen said
“We think this is going to be, for us, a game changer – really leveraging all the cool things these influencers and content creators do and really getting the message out about products and trends and what we have in our store,” he said.
Toys R Us expects to open Creator Studios in more locations after testing it in the initial five stores. “We;re going to learn what really works – that way when we roll it out to more stores we’ll have the recipe finalized,” Uitdenhowen said.
The Creator Studios are launching later this month at the following Toys”R”Us stores at American Dream in New Jersey, Mall of America in Minnesota, Camarillo Premium Outlets in California, Denver Premium Outlets in Colorado, and Chicago Premium Outlets in Illinois.
In addition to the new standalone Toys R Us stores that will be operated by Go! Retail Group, WHP Global is again partnering with Macy’s to put pop-up seasonal toy stores in approximately 400 Macy’s stores. It also has a partnership with airport vendor WHSmith North America to operate stores in U.S. airports.
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