Toys R Us and Maplins go down

Who does the transport for these two companies?

bbc.co.uk/news/business-43225248
bbc.co.uk/news/business-43223175

Don’t know, but I’m sad about Maplins as well as being a great holiday camp in the 50’s they had a great range of stuff in their shops. I used to go in there and browse around while she went to her shops. Very handy for bits and bobs of if you were making electronic devices. The trouble was, I suppose, the stuff was very low value. I only ever bought LEDs and diodes
and daft stuff like that but it never came to more than a fiver!!!
Remote control stuff you get off the internet after going in and looking.
As for Toys R Us, well, it was just full of junk. Most of it pink for some reason.

Internet shopping…

Innit. Why mess around with car parks, queues and all the other mucking about that goes with shopping. Just stay at home, click your mouse a few times and some time later (depending on your delivery preferences) your goodies are at your front door.

Unless DHL have the contract.

I went to Toys R Us earlier this year to get my grandson a little electric car, we’re going to 24V it when he gets a bit better at controlling it, anyway, I thought that the selection of toys wasn’t very good at all, for a specialist toy shop it had no more choice than you get at Argos.

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I’ve seen those Smyth’s Toy shops popping up on some retail parks.

They seem to be a carbon copy of Toys R Us

Will_161:
I’ve seen those Smyth’s Toy shops popping up on some retail parks.

They seem to be a carbon copy of Toys R Us

Difference being Smyths has customers in it.

Will_161:
I’ve seen those Smyth’s Toy shops popping up on some retail parks.

They seem to be a carbon copy of Toys R Us

Yes, they are, and theyll go the same way as T R U. Its all just plastic rubbish and as said above these are supposed to be specialist toy shops! Ive got a 9 yr old boy whos totally un-interested in going into either shop. When I was a lad I loved a look round the toy shops. Dont worry about the management though, they`ll get their pensions and move on to another cushy post.

yourhavingalarf:
Internet shopping…

Innit. Why mess around with car parks, queues and all the other mucking about that goes with shopping. Just stay at home, click your mouse a few times and some time later (depending on your delivery preferences) your goodies are at your front door.

^^^^^
This
Apart from shopping at the local Sol supermarket and unless its something wanted on the day everything else is off the net. Nearly always cheaper as well…

Will_161:
I’ve seen those Smyth’s Toy shops popping up on some retail parks.

They seem to be a carbon copy of Toys R Us

We use smyths quite a bit tends to be cheaper and much more choice than toys r us

Bibby has 14 veh on the Maplin job in Rotherham and XPO has 40 veh on the Toys r Us in Coventry.

cheekymonkey:
Don’t know, but I’m sad about Maplins as well as being a great holiday camp in the 50’s they had a great range of stuff in their shops. I used to go in there and browse around while she went to her shops. Very handy for bits and bobs of if you were making electronic devices. The trouble was, I suppose, the stuff was very low value. I only ever bought LEDs and diodes
and daft stuff like that but it never came to more than a fiver!!!
Remote control stuff you get off the internet after going in and looking.
As for Toys R Us, well, it was just full of junk. Most of it pink for some reason.

Maplins were only ever good if you needed cables right now. If you could wait, you could get better and cheaper stuff off Amazon. Back in the 90s they were mostly a catalogue business with very few shops; now they have high-street shops and have to pay the rent that involves. Then again, if they’d stayed a catalogue and online business, they’d not have been able to compete with Amazon, although they had household name appeal among electronics geeks (alongside RS).

where theyv both fallen down is lack of personal contact with the consumer. toys r us used to have staff hovering about and demonstrating the toys to kids . maplin used to have a geek or 2 that was fixing/assembling something on a countertop, prepared to push it to oneside and share his know how. last few times i was in Maplin the geeks are out the back now- and very aloof- serves them right their out on their ears now

corij:

  • serves them right their out on their ears now

Bit harsh? I found them very helpful at the Belfast and Boston branches. (I wasn’t on a Maplin tour)

You have to bare in mind a lot of super geeks probably figure into “the spectrum” and it might make them a little unusual to talk to :laughing: . Think this bloke

youtu.be/2Z8pgV74_Hw

They know their geek stuff though. One went on a fact finding mission to find out if some solder I bought had a flux core :laughing: . That’s like a geek version of an Indiana Jones adventure asking that :laughing:.

If I wanted electronic bits’n’bobs I’d go onto their site straight away. Good quality, but with a money back guarantee that thry honour. When I bought something in error, my mistake, I took it into one if the shops, no arguments and good advice on the correct part I needed. More than worth any pennies extra cost.

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it looks like therell be a run of big brand name store closures coming up, must be about time for another disaster on the high street whos next ? in the papers they love all that. when you think about it the running costs on those big premises must be thru the roof.

Sears, the company with the big building in Chicago, have recently closed all their Canadian stores, many being the cornerstone store in shopping malls. They were famous for their catalogue in years gone by and as such would have been perfect for the internet shopping world, unfortunately they didn’t have a big online presence and hundreds of stores have closed and thousands of jobs have gone, lots of them lifelong jobs. I’m sure there’s a controversy over the pensions too.

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kr79:

Will_161:
I’ve seen those Smyth’s Toy shops popping up on some retail parks.

They seem to be a carbon copy of Toys R Us

We use smyths quite a bit tends to be cheaper and much more choice than toys r us

Agreed, Toys R Us is nothing more than overpriced crap, the demise of the brand is ultimately their own doing.

yourhavingalarf:
Internet shopping…

Innit. Why mess around with car parks, queues and all the other mucking about that goes with shopping. Just stay at home, click your mouse a few times and some time later (depending on your delivery preferences) your goodies are at your front door.

Or on the other hand…

There must be hundreds if not thousands of small high-street toy shops and electrical shops (you know, the sort of Aladdins cave who sold everything) who went out of business due to the likes of Toys-r-Us and Maplins. It’s not stretching the imagination to suggest that the successors to those little high street shops are the small-time entrepreneurs who now sell on the internet.

Karma’s a ■■■■■ sometimes.

The internet is killing these companies. It is becoming more and more difficult for even very successful businesses to maintain their High St stores. A lot more people are going to be out of work and looking for alternative employment. As you sow, so shall you reap! Lazy fat arses… :stuck_out_tongue: