Did Toys R Us Have the Right Brick & Mortar Strategy?

On this MarketScale Industry Update, Voice of B2B Daniel Litwin sits down with Melissa Gonzalez, host of MarketScale’s Retail Refined and founder of The Lionesque Group, to give analysis on Toys R Us’ final wave of closings. After being brought under the Bain Capital umbrella and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and then reviving its store operations with a smaller and more experiential footprint, Toys R Us is shuttering its final two US store locations.

When Toys R Us brought its stores back post-bankruptcy, it opened a New Jersey location and a Texas location, scaling back their big box approach to be smaller and more focused on letting kids interact with their toys before buying. As Gonzalez explains, this strategy was working well for the retailer until the pandemic hit.

Toys R Us claims the closures are due to COVID, telling the AP they “made the strategic decision to pivot our store strategy to new locations and platforms that have better traffic.”

Gonzalez helps give some context on whether or not the closures were completely COVID-related, if this reveals any more fundamental flaws in their strategy, and how experiential retail fits into big box retailers’ strategies as the pandemic continues.

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Twitter – @MarketScale
Facebook – facebook.com/marketscale
LinkedIn – linkedin.com/company/marketscale

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

Solo Stove
From Firepits to Full Backyard Experiences: How Solo Stove Is Rebuilding Connection Through Product Innovation
April 3, 2026

As consumer brands navigate a post-pandemic world shaped by digital saturation and rising loneliness, the most successful companies are rediscovering something analog: human connection. A 2025 World Health Organization report found that 1 in 6 people globally are affected by loneliness, highlighting a growing public health challenge tied to weaker social bonds and reduced…

Read More
Doable
Rethinking Leadership: Why “Doable” Might Be the Most Powerful Strategy in Education Today
April 3, 2026

At a time when educator burnout is rising and schools across the U.S. are facing ongoing teacher shortages, leaders are being forced to rethink what sustainable success actually looks like. Research shows that teacher attrition is closely tied to working conditions, job-related stress, and workload demands. As districts push for innovation, data-driven instruction, and…

Read More
Casey Brown
From Poverty to Pricing Power | Why Great Companies Undercharge
April 2, 2026

Casey Brown didn’t grow up thinking she would become an entrepreneur. She grew up in a blue-collar family where money was always tight — close enough to the edge that the fear of poverty shaped many of her early decisions. That fear led her into engineering, into corporate America, and eventually into a moment…

Read More
Nightingales Summit: Empowering the Next Generation of Nigerian Nurses
Nightingales Summit: Empowering the Next Generation of Nigerian Nurses
April 2, 2026

In this episode of Care Anywhere, host Lea Sims sits down with Nigerian nurse entrepreneur and advocate Obafemi Arowosegbe to discuss leadership, mentorship, and the future of nursing in Africa. While still a nursing student, Obafemi founded the Nightingale Summit, a growing conference designed to empower nursing students and early-career nurses with leadership skills,…

Read More