Consumer Nation
- New York Fashion Week Hits the Runway as Colors Pop
- PepsiCo CEO: We’re Not Splitting the Company
- Is Apple Coming to Sam’s Club Stores?
- W Hotels 'Fashion Next' Partnership to Hit the Runway
- Beer Giant Taps Into Cider in a Bid for Growth
- The Real Cost of Overtime Is Higher Than You Think
- Jason Wu Targets New Customers
- Do You Speak Super Bowl?
- Bargain-Hungry Cupid Grows Generous This Valentine's Day
- Private-Label Brands Gaining Clout — And Pricing Power
RSS FEED
- Tesla Unveils First SUV: Model X
- New York Fashion Week Hits the Runway as Colors Pop
- Mulling Buffett's Stock Advice? Get in With REITs: Fund Managers
- LinkedIn Earnings Bode Well for Hiring and Social Media
- Top Five Mistakes to Avoid in Online Dating
- Victor Cruz ‘Understands’ Gisele's Super Bowl Frustrations
- Tamminen: The United States of India
- Unusual Volume: Taleo Jumps After Oracle's $1.9 Billion Offer
- Warren Buffett: Stocks Will Outperform Gold and Bonds .. and They're Safer 'By Far'
- Stocks Looking Past Europe for a New Driver of the Rally
- Israel Likely to Bomb Iran This Year: Political Analyst
- Greeks on Strike as the Second Bailout Is in Limbo
- EU Agrees Rules for $700 Trillion Derivatives Market
- The World's Best Beers
- Citigroup Takes $50 Million Loss in Lending Rate Probe
- Barclays Warns May Miss Medium-Term Profit Goal
- Will Romney Regret Opposing Michigan Auto Bailout?
- In Europe, Stagnation as a Way of Life
Toys 'R Us Placing Bigger Bet on 'Pop-Up' Stores
Text Size 
News Editor
Santa will have plenty of helpers this holiday season.
 |
Source: Toys R Us Toys 'R Us plans to open about 600 temporary Holiday Express stores in malls and shopping centers throughout the U.S. |
Toys 'R Us unwrapped plans to vastly expand its reach this Christmas by adding 600 "pop-up" stores, more than 260 Toy 'R Us shops within Babies 'R Us stores—and an additional eight outlet stores.
And with the new stores, comes about 10,000 jobs above and beyond its traditional holiday hiring.
In doing so, the nation's largest toy retailer is placing a big bet that a larger presence in the nation's malls and shopping centers this holiday season will translate into richer profits.
The strategy paid off for the retailer last year, when it opened 350 "Holiday Express" stores. Despite a challenging retail environment, sales in the fourth quarter for 2009 rose 7.3 percent to $5.857 billion, while earnings during the period climbed to $387 million from $345 million in the prior year.
But this year, the company is setting the bar higher, opening up six-times as many temporary stores—a number that actually doubles the number of Toys 'R Us stores in the U.S.—to add an additional 2.4 million square feet of toy-selling space for the holiday season.
"We're going to be where the people are and make sure Toys 'R Us is convenient for our customers," said Jerry Storch, chairman and CEO of Toys 'R Us.
Storch declined to quantify how much the "Holiday Express" stores added to the company's sales and earnings last holiday season, but he said the strategy was "very successful."
Key Points
Expand toy selection in 260 Babies 'R Us StoresAdd 8 Permanent Outlet StoresSteps create 10,000 Jobs for Holiday Season
It was successful enough that the company kept about a third of the locations it added last holiday season throughout 2010. The rest closed shortly after the holidays were over.
Some of this year's additions have already opened. Several have cropped up on the streets of Brooklyn, N.Y., others were added from Federal Way, Va., to Saugus, Mass. The early openings probably allowed Toys 'R Us to snag some additional sales as shoppers headed out to the malls to do back-to-school shopping. The rest of the stores will open their doors in the coming weeks, Storch said.
There has been a growing trend toward pop-up stores in recent years. In fact, Toys 'R Us even had some competition last year, when Sprit Halloween, a retailer know for its temporary Halloween stores, opened several temporary toy stores in East Coast malls. The pop-up strategy works well for landlords who are eager to fill up empty store space as well as for the stores, which are often able to negotiate shorter leases at favorable rents.
For Toys 'R Us, the strategy has allowed it to fill the void left when KB Toys went bankrupt, leaving many malls without a national toy retailer.
In addition to making holiday shopping more convenient, there is a little psychology behind the pop-up store that spurs shoppers to buy because the store's temporary nature makes shopping there a bit more exciting.
This has certainly been the case for a number of recent pop-ups. Claire's [CLE
Loading...
()
] recently raised the curtain on 'Glee'-themed pop-up shops in select malls to promote the new merchandise, and this week home shopping channel QVC [LINTA
Loading...
()
] will open its first-ever pop-up store in New York City's Rockefeller Center during Fashion's Night Out as a prelude to Mercedes Benz Fashion Week.
While these last two examples show how pop-up shops can be like an interactive billboard, of sorts—providing retailers with a way to connect with consumers in new and unexpected places—Toys 'R Us uses its pop-up stores more as a laboratory, testing locations on how much interest there is for their products.
The additional stores, including the eight outlet stores, are all just another sign of how Toys 'R Us has been trying to ratchet up its game amid tough competitor from discounters such as Wal-Mart Stores [WMT
Loading...
()
] and Target [TGT
Loading...
()
].
The Toys 'R Us outlets will average about 5,000 square feet, and sell value-oriented products, some of which are unique to the locations.
Toys 'R Us had initially tested four outlet locations during last holiday season, and kept the stores open after the season was over. Since then, the company has opened addition locations in Gurnee, Ill., Limerick, Pa., and Orlando, Fla. An eighth outlet will open later this fall in Elizabeth, N.J.
Questions? Comments? Email us at
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes
