Toys “R” Us has its e-commerce site online for Black Friday. However, consumers cannot buy anything there. The site does not offer a single piece of merchandise, products, or services.
Toys “R” Us went bankrupt in September and eventually closed all its stores. This put about 32,000 people out of work. Two private equity firms which are partial owners of what is left of the retailer–Bain Capital and KKR–have set up a severance fund of $20 million. The two firms and other owners have been hit with charges that the debt they piled on Toys “R” Us was what ruined the retailer. Others claim Toys “R” Us was not aggressive enough online to keep up with rivals, both specialty toy companies and giant retailers like Walmart
The Toys “R” Us site also carries branding for the Babies “R” Us. Beyond this there is promotion for corporate mascot Geoffrey the Giraffe. The hedge funds which bought many of Toys “R” Us assets operates under the name Geoffrey, LLC. In specfic, the new organization said it “will control a portfolio of intellectual property that includes trademarks, ecommerce assets and data associated with the Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us businesses in the United States and all over the world.”
Other than the announcement from Geoffrey, LLC, the Toys “R” Us site has a section entitled “Today We Play”. It is a collection of statistics about child playtime. These include the facts that “8% of third graders have never had recess” and “children have lost 25% of playtime and 50% of unstructured outdoor activity over recent decades”. The claims do not carries sources. The site also has six videos about things children can make to improve their play time. These include “foosball freakout”, “feeding time”, “balloon pong”, “flight school”, “blindfold challenge”, and “at the drive in”.
Another section of the Toys “R” Us site has two blogs. The first is “lessons from the playground”. The primary goal of this, the site reads is that “Play has benefits that make us function as better humans” The second blog is “Game of the Month” which has one game called “Band-Aid Tag”. When a child tags another, the tagged child gets a bandage. The game is meant to be played by 10 or more players from grades 1 through 5.
The last section of the site sets out the new owners philosophy, “Kids have a right to play however they want. To be crazy and go nuts. To express the wild visions and dreams that only kids can come up with. Our mission at Toys“R”Us is to set play free, and help kids everywhere, have the best childhood ever. So join us in our fight to make the attack on play a thing of the past!”
However, the children who have the right to play can’t buy anything to play with at the Toys “R” Us website
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