Target and Walmart Holiday Sales Increase Without Toys R Us

Earlier this year the 70-year-old toy store Toys R Us, unfortunately, had to officially close their doors. For decades they have been the most famous as well as the biggest toy store in the United States, so when they announced that they have filed for bankruptcy and failed to find a buyer, they didn’t have a choice but to get out of business. Toy makers, as well as their 33,000 employees, got affected by this negatively, however, other leading retailers found this as a great opportunity for them to boost their sales in the toys section. It did show how much they have gained especially during this five-day weekend holiday sale.

Retailers like Target, Walmart, Amazon, and Party City have taken advantage of the post-Toys R Us holiday sale this year after the toy store closed down earlier this year.

Retailers Race To The Top

For the very first time in more than 70 years, Toys R Us is out of the picture and retailers like Target, Walmart, and one of the biggest online retailer, Amazon, will be the leading companies to provide toys for the public. It all started during the recent Black Friday Sale as well as the Cyber Monday and just like what retail experts speculated, their toy sales boost this year.

Target revealed previously that they have decided to dedicate about a quarter-million square feet of space for the toys in all of their 500 stores. As expected, they have managed to get about a 20 percent increase in toy sales alone compared from the last quarter about a year about. During the holiday stretch, it is expected to increase even more.

Walmart, on the other hand, who is known to be the main competitor of Target, decided to prepare massively for this holiday sale and added about 30 percent on their toy collection and 40 percent of it online.

They even introduced a virtual toy lab wherein children are allowed to play with 20 of Walmart’s top toys. Both Walmart and Target aren’t just taking advantage of Toys R Us being gone for the first time in the holidays, they also had to step their game up against leading online retailer, Amazon.

What Amazon did to go against these retailers is that they offered free shipping on toys with no minimum purchase requirement as well as some toy catalogs, they are also extending this offer to those who do not have Prime membership.

Then again, former Walmart CEO believes that Target seems to be leading the race when it comes to toy sale. Bill Simon said in an interview with CNBC, that this battle is pretty exciting to watch but Target seems to have indeed stepped their game up and is serious about this competition.

How Toy Makers Got Affected

Since Toys R Us had to close down earlier this year, a lot of toy manufacturers have been affected. One of them is Mattel, who is the maker of the most famous doll Barbie, witnessed how it impacted them when their sales went downhill after 700 Toys R Us stores closed down. It was revealed that Toys R Us was the second largest customer Mattel had since 20 percent of their sales come from it. Unfortunately, the 70-year-old company still owes Mattel more than $135 million.

Another toy company has experienced a massive impact on their sales just like Mattel. Lego, which is known for its building blocks and bricks, revealed that their sales dropped for the very first time in more than a decade when Toys R Us closed down. Experts believed that compared to other toy companies, Lego would be the one that will be able to handle it well due to the success of its partnerships with films like the Lego Movie, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and more. Hasbro, on the other hand, which is the company behind My Little Pony, Monopoly, and more are expecting to get paid still by Toys R Us for about $59 million.

According to the US News, toy makers don’t have any choice but to deal with a massive sales decline within the final quarter of 2018. Luckily for these toy companies, there are still massive retailers who are now getting into the game with Toys R Us gone as their competition for Toys.