As Toys R Us closes the last of its doors, toy collectors and kids are left with a giant hole in their hearts. Meanwhile, malls all over the country are left with holes in their line-ups. Enter Party City. The company has already started renting out vacant storefronts around the country each year to set up Halloween City shops. Now they have just announced that they’ll also be setting up Toy stores in September to fill the holes, and probably also the storefronts left vacant by Toy R Us.
The company said that they plan to open up around 50 of the pop-up toy shops this fall in “Optimal Markets.” Adding to the benefit of creating a temporary toy shopping opportunity is the glut of properties currently left vacant by Toys R Us. This has provided the retailer to negotiate really cheap rental space, which can drastically lower over-head. Additionally, the short-term lease allows the “Toy City” shops to capitalize on prime toy-buying time and not be stuck with a toy store in the months when toy sales are lower.
“The creation of a Toy City concept to complement our temporary seasonal retail strategy is a logical extension of our brand; one that will allow us to leverage our existing pop-up store capabilities and capitalize on the category whitespace that has recently been created,” Party City CEO James Harrison said in a statement.
In addition to Toy City, Party City will also start carrying an increased inventory of toys.
As cold-hearted a plan as this might sound to fans of Toys R Us, this is actually just a revamp of something they did themselves back in 2010, when KB Toys went bust. They opened up pop-up shops in many of the malls left toyless by the closing of that chain.