Not really news; it's been all over the
media but I was visiting Woking the other day and popped into the Toysaurus for what will be the last
time, and it was a sorry site, I can't imagine they had actually sold
everything on the miles of empty shelves, so I guess a lot had been sent back
under sale-or-return deals and other stock had probably been shifted in bulk clearance
deals to wholesalers, sold-on to bigger evilBay
outfits, or sent to those parts of the TRU-empire
still trading; if there are any - Australia, HK, some US stores I think?
Following previous posts and 'News,
Views . . . ' on the subject here, and the constant talking-up of their
future viability by both the UK and US management, the end unfolded with the
same rapidity as the sudden autumn collapse.
Miles of empty shelving.
The 1st of February saw the US parent
announce it was looking for a buyer for the UK arm, which pretty-much sealed
their fate, and could be seen as an act of cowardice on the part of the US
had-office, but it was - I'm sure - also designed to protect a core hub of the
US stores.
The trouble with Thatcherite-Regonomics is
that it is driven by long-knives and short-termism! The beauty of the Victorian
'family firm' model (even when the firm got to be as big as Cadbury - for
instance) was that it featured no knives and long-term vision.
No matter, I have little sympathy for the
Toysaurus, as I think you know, and for a month there was little more in the
media. However, you could see at Christmas, the writing was on the wall, people
are simple creatures with a herd instinct, and the autumn headlines, far from
driving people into the stores to look for bargains, frightened them away - I
went to the same Woking store in Christmas week and it was dead; an early
evening a few days before the 25th it should have been heaving!
Beware - loud [yet vacuous] music!
On the last day of February both Toys 'Я' Us and Maplin (a UK out-of-town/mall-based
electronics retailer) announced the plug was being pulled, the administrator's
spokesman - Simon Thomas - announcing "All
stores remain open until further notice . . . " he also encouraged
customers to redeem any vouchers and gift cards outstanding (see below) and
added that the search for a buyer went on.
Having
watched Price Waterhouse Cooper's
(PWC) wind-up a business I was involved with, I know that these 'receivers' and
administrators just talk bollocks until they've changed all the locks and
padlocked everything they can't sell; closing down forums, denying rumours and
threatening disgruntled staff or customers with legal action!
With
no stock you can leave the stock-room door open!
On
the 9th March came news from Moorfields
Advisory (the administrators) that stores not included in the Autumn
tranche would begin closing the following week and that an 'orderly wind-down'
of the company was underway.
Five
days later it was announced that the end had come, the company or the UK arm
was bust and the remaining 100 stores would start closing - the same day. The
whole process to be completed in six-weeks - which is this Wednesday, but I
believe they either closed the final stores Friday just gone, or will close
them this coming Friday?
Everything
was for sale
If
I'd had £40 on me I would have had a ladder, they're £100's new!
Of
course the broadcast and print media have been blathering on about the death of
another high street staple and it took a Michael Cooper to remind the 'i'
(Letters - 16th March) that the Toysaurus
is not a 'High Street' store! Which is the point I've made in the past, Toys 'Я' Us are among those corporate 'free
market' fans who helped damage the high street in the first place.
Furthermore,
in the case of the Toysaurus, they
helped destroy the world of the 'Toy Men' and create a global behemoth of a few
giants, sourcing licensed TV & movie-character driven polymer tat from
China, containerised round the world in huge, polluting, vessels while all the
little domestic firms went to the wall . . . well; eat your medicine Toysuarus, you've fed it to everyone
else.
No
you 'ain't!
At
the risk of repeating myself, of the big five; Hasbro and Mattel (1
& 2) are in merger talks, Lego
(4) and Hornby Hobbies (5 - Corgi, Scalextric and Airfix)
are in trouble and Tomy-Takara (3) are increasingly branding Tomy only (to improve their visible
footprint/customer recognition), all five (who between them hold several
hundred defunct 'household name' brands) hung on to the coattails of the TRU-model (because they had to) and have
suffered as a result.
And
there's a wider problem, as well as Maplin,
we have B&Q looking ill, Homebase on the way out (both DIY giants),
Carpet-Right struggling, Restaurant
chains Prezzo and Byron, House of Frazer (department stores), New Look (Fashion) and Jamie Oliver's mini-empire are all in
trouble.
The
problems are many and varied - B'wreaksit hasn't helped with a falling pound
fueling inflation leading to lower consumer spending, which was already down
following a global crash, ten-year austerity and negative wage-growth which had
nothing to do with Labour and everything to do with global corporate greed and
lack of regulation!
To
which you can add higher ground-rents and business-rates (greed - bad),
competition from Amazon, feeBay and Alibaba et al (all fair under capitalism!),
and - recently - the creeping up of union wage demands and minimum-wage
requirements (reward - good) have created a minestrone
of problems for senior managers.
And
it's funny [ironic] that it's now hitting the big malls and out-of-town
complexes, as the high street's been under attack for years - from them, and
while for a while the 'empty teeth' in the high street were filled quickly with
discounters, pop-up's, Chinese-run nail bars, hair dressers and Turkish or
Kurdish barbers, the empty units are beginning to stay empty now, even in
affluent, middle-class, dormitory-towns like Fleet or large malls like
Basingrad's!
Have
I said how luscious this figure is?
I
bought this morning's posted-figure as a goodbye, for the hell of it, and when
I took my 75p 'bargain' to the till it first racked-up as 76p (a trades
description (consumer credit) violation!), then got reduced to 61p with an
applied 'voucher' I never saw or
handled! Chaotic!
Win
a hundred-quid and collect it . . . never!
And
despite the fact that the store had either four days or 7 to go, and was/will
be one of the last to go (being also one of the first to open in the UK), it's
still offering all the club-cards, gift-cards, offers and prize-draws,
oxymoronic when you consider that six weeks ago the administrator was urging
people to use-up such things. I mean - I'm sure nothing would happen if you
followed any of this up, but why is it still there at all?
It
was amusing, there was very little still in-store, a single large bay (where
the bikes used to be) piled-up with mostly Disney-licensed, pinky-purple stuff
and last year's movie-related bits, while blokes in their work clothes (on
lunch) wandered round talking to their wives on their mobile 'phone; "I don't know, shall I get one?" one
chap was saying, and I thought - if you've got a kid, get everything you can
carry, there's the next three Christmases and Birthdays here for less than one
at normal prices!
See'ya
Geoffrey; wouldn't wan'na be'ya!
Stop
Press - the last press release stated that all remaining stores will cease
trading on Tuesday 24th April - That's All Tomorrow Folks!
Sad
- but I ain't crying.
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