Skip to main content

The Grinch Can Steal Christmas

After quite literally handing a head start to Amazon and enabling it to become it’s default connection for Customer’s Toys ‘R Us finds itself the latest victim added to the ever-growing heap at the retail morgue (see: Borders, HH Gregg, Circuit City, RadioShack, Payless Shoes, Sports Authority etc). That and the massive debt load (more than $5 billion) that it took on as a result of (over) leveraged buy-out by PE firms KKR, Bain Capital, and Vornado Realty Trust certainly didn’t help. Toys ‘R US Chairman Dave Brandon said that today the company can operate free from financial constraints with the debt restructured under Chapter 11 and stores are supposed to stay open for the Christmas season where Toys ‘R Us earned 40% of its U.S. sales last year. He went on to say that this should also buy them time to invest in the business by improving the Customer experience (both in store and online). Part of that apparently will include closing underperforming stores whilst remaining locations would be reconfigured to be more experienced-based, incorporating amenities such as in-store play areas. But is it all just smoke and mirror at this point? Is a former category killer that rolled-up over small-town mom & pop toy stores have enough specialness in being a specialty retailer to turn it around? http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/toys-r-us-files-bankruptcy?tp=i-H43-Q5S-4XI-6cbDX-1u-14Qs-1c-6cUEZ-12Dkn4&utm_campaign=BreakNew&utm_source=Experian&utm_medium=email&cid=17440&mid=97857547 https://www.wsj.com/articles/toys-r-us-once-a-category-killer-is-forced-into-bankruptcy-1505792620?mod=djemalertNEWS
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Billionaire Carlos Slim to Launch TV Channel Exclusively Targeting Mexican Americans

Not one to doubt the business instincts of someone like a Carlos Slim. Still a curious move to launch a network targeting the Mexican American audience. While all census projections show the US Hispanic population continuing to grow almost all also reflect a change in the sub-demographic showing that the percent of US Hispanics that speak Spanish is in decline due to a variety of reasons (e.g: acculturation, slowing number of immigration). That being said the network could potentially follow the route of having more cultural nuances or lead points that would be relevant for US Hispanic audiences while blending the languages between English and Spanish to make it more relevant especially for Millennials. https://www.portada-online.com/2017/01/20/billionaire-carlos-slim-to-launch-tv-channel-exclusively-targeting-mexican-americans/
Post a Comment
Read more

Snapchat Looks to Acquisitions for Growth

To say that Snapchat's growth prospects have looked somewhat darkened would probably be an understatement. The one-time unicorn of tech just wrapped up its second-ever earnings on Thursday missing analysts’ expectations and reporting slower than expected daily active user growth = no good. Add on top of this that Facebook's Instagram is constantly copying Snapchat's innovation and the picture gets dimmer. BUT, is there still light at the end for this fading star? Perhaps. With a few recent acquisitions Snapchat may be pivoting/repositioning itself in much the same way Foursquare did to move from being a check-in app to a location data-collection manager with a social element. Which means not only will advertisers know where their key consumer is but also how they may be interacting with their brand and if not how to seamlessly introduce their brand in the path-to-purchase. The first of these acquisitions that points Snapchat in this general direction was Zenly, a French ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is Eddie Lampert doing an Amazon to Amazon?

Back in the day Amazon used to sell books but it also had a strategic approach to broaden it's portfolio. That was to establish a seemingly non-hostile relationship with brick & mortar retailers like Toys 'R Us (see bankruptcy), Borders Books..etc. The goal? To get in front of the customer interaction. Amazon sold itself as an expert in the digital space and allowed for cost efficiencies (i.e: not having to build out a web-site or deal with the head-ache of how to fulfill product or the logistics on from where) from the brick and mortar company to focus on what it did best (selling in a physical store) while letting Amazon manage it's digital footprint which was a low volume mix relative to the traffic that was walking into the brick & mortar stores on a daily basis. But, as we all know now, by insinuating itself in the path to purchase and putting its brand in-between the customer and the brick & mortar brand Amazon was able to create a wedge that has grown...
Post a Comment
Read more