Interestingly toy stores are still a thing in Japan. I took my 2 year old daughter to buy her birthday present this year. Her smile when I told her she could take the toy plush home was priceless.
I asked her if she wanted the big or small version, she liked the small. Showing kids toys on a tablet is never going to replace the experience.
I own a reasonably well performing indie bookstore. I've noticed for the model to work you need a critical mass of other local shops clustered to make the trip an experience for families and diverse tastes. My working theory is that three of such small businesses are sufficient and could operate well with a common inventory strategy and manager (e.g. a bookstore, a toy store, and a tea or candy shop...nothing that spoils in the very short term). When I've got a bit more time I want to try that idea and see if it works as a way to revitalize otherwise charming old downtown areas with vacant retail space and communities wishing to bring back their main street. Giving this idea away in case anyone else has tried or wants to try sooner than me and report back.
It's really baffling that even in the shittiest areas rents or property prices are insane. It seems the capital owners just don't care or don't lose enough money to care. They should be expropriated. Of course that won't happen.
AFAIK Commercial is priced at a multiple of rent. So when an owner still has a loan on a building that was based off of multiple of 3000/mo and decides to rent it out for 1500/mo it effectively cuts the value of that building in half.
Just an accounting issue for someone who owns it out right, but devastating for someone with a loan. I think this is why you’re seeing landlords offering multiple free months of rent nowadays. It allows them to adjust to actual market pricing annualized, while being able to call the “free” months an expense
We had this experience with a local town centre where the high street basically died. Retailers priced out by high rents, which was fine when the economy was good and people were spending, but as soon as it took a dip there was nowhere to go and they had to shut up shop.
And this mechanism was why; almost all the real estate was owned by funds and leveraged. Property values based on a multiplier of rent. They could weather a long spell of zero rental income because that effectively cost them nothing, but if the rent went down then the value went down and they had to come up with the difference.
If the only way to be successful is to start by buying multiple downtown locations outright I think we know why the downtown is empty. Nobody is going to do that to open a shop. Not even the mega chains are usually buying anything.
The path to the return of main street is bullying your city council to attach ridiculous property tax penalties for any vacancies for whatever the central business district commercial zone is and not allow land zoned in that fashion to change.
Force the rents and property values down until a competitive market rate is arrived at naturally. Punish the greed that attempts to store or preserve value by leaving things vacant for years.
I suspect, particularly for toy stores, there's also a weird incentive: if they stand alone, you don't want to bring your kids there because it's only going to cost you money. But if they're next to other shops, you can send your kids there to entertain themselves and browse what you actually want to see in peace.
I take my two little ones almost weekly to our small downtown area. The trip is usually a coffee shop, the bookstore, and a rotating third one (sometimes a candy shop sometimes the toy store, sometimes something else).
In our case the coffee shop is in the bookstore and it is located right in front of the third. The third is a really nice park (think lake and lots of playgrounds plus activities).
(In slight contrast to my other comment) I think Larimer Square in Denver is trying to do something akin. There was a land-edge-lord kerfuffle and gone are staples like The Market and Ted’s Montana Grill (RIP, I was also just in Bozeman). rn one side is bookstore - jewelry & artsy - African jewelry & artsy - Rioja (Denver famous food) - John Fluevog (Vancouver shoes) - Osteria Marco (Denver less famous Italian) - Van Leewuen (NYC ice cream). I hope it all works...
now, bookstores here are a whole other mess. two words, Tattered Cover. there are ample used bookstores, though, i found a copy of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals for $6.50 on Colfax that should probably be handled with BSL-3 precaution which is as it should be
This is a timely comment for me. I have been doing research on opening a small indie (new/used) bookstore in a small old downtown I walk through almost every day. It has restaurants, specialty shops, coffee shops and a small local grocery store. I've always thought it was missing a bookstore.
Any tips/warnings that might not be immediately obvious to a hopeful bookstore owner? Do you think there is a sweet spot in terms of square footage of retail space? Margins are low so do you supplement with sidelines/events/memberships?
One of my next steps is to join the ABA as a provisional member to get access to their new bookseller guides.
I know someone who used to manage department stores (one branch at a time, several locations). He talked about clusters in a very similar way: Stores need nearby other stores to be attractive.
I have seen bookstore (second-handed books) thriving near universities. Your idea is actually very interesting and remind me of the mall model -- the mall model worked because everyone in the family gets his/her own share of pleasure. Of course the traffic matters a lot, too. Hope you start that experiment soon and succeed!
This strategy has worked well for both Shakespeare and Co. in Paris and Shakespeare and Sons in Berlin. Books + Bakery + Coffee. Both of course are set in living pedestrian cities. https://www.shakespeareandsons.com
Tsutaya, a Japanese dvd rental store has a specialty shop in Hiroshima. It’s best described as a library hosting a small electronics store, a clothing store, a stationery shop and a coffee shop.
I can't comment about the minimum number of stores, but I do think its the correct idea. I live in a town of ~12000. We have 6.5 bookstores (including the good local thrift store as .5). Stores/restaurants do turn over fairly regularly, so its still tough, but it certainly seems viable. We get a good number of tourists, which helps but I do think you need a mix of restaurants, and a mix of different types of stores. Even as you go to nearby towns with big box stores, they all have downtowns that are doing ok with locally run businesses. Notably the downtowns all are small business focused with few if any box stores
The most common in the US is the strip mall. This is a largely American, soulless construct of commercial space with parking out front, typically on a major road. There are lots of reasons why this flourished in the US. It's a symptom of society being so car-dependent, which is by design. Rents here are typically lower than other options so some businesses can survive in strip malls that can't elsewhere.
The next step up (density-wise) are actual malls, or shopping centers for the non-Americans. There are different versions of this. You have the entirely indoor mall. You also have other anchor stores that pop up nearby (eg Home Depot) that are popular but can't justify the mall rent costs. Often a bunch of other businesses will sprout around these stores, which is why they're called anchor stores. Anchor stores are also things you generally need in a mall to bring in enough traffic to make the whole thing economical eg supermarkets, department stores. Malls in general have been dying in droves. Basically too many got built in the 1970s through 1990s and online shopping is killing them. There are photography and video channels dedicated to exploring dead malls.
The third rarest option is the walkable district. This is generally the downtown of cities that existed before cars. People generally love these but public transit is an issue. Americans always want to drive even when there are viable options otherwise. That means having to build parking garages and the whole thing kinda falls apart. Or at least it losses some of its charm. The hellish end of this spectrum is Houston.
Some cities have managed to rejuvenate such areas by diverting traffic and generally investing in the area. But what tends to always happen is that businesses will rejuvenate an area and then the landlords will kill it by charging exorbitant rents. I've seen 40+ year old restaurants close because of rent hikes in areas that only really existed for that restaurant.
This is part of the problem with housing being so expensive. It makes everything expensive. That local shops? Well it costs as much to build as a house and a house is easier to sell. But a cafe or a bakery or a bookstore or some other eclectic shop can survive when the rent is $20,000/year. You don't need to pay staff as much when houses cost $100k not $1M. Expensive housing just strangles everything. But when that rent goes to $200,000 over a decade well then suddenly only chain stores and big box retail can survive there so what was once a charming downtown turns into Chili's, a CVS and a Chase bank.
So this can go wrong even in dense places like NYC. There's a real issue right now with so-called "zombie leases". Basically, companies like CVS, Duane Reade and Walgreens signed high-rent long-term leases but then decided to close the store. The store remains empty because the owner has no incentive to rent it for a now-lower market rent while the billion dollar company is still on the hook for it. Enough of these and a street can look abandoned.
I really think that when cities choose to rejuvenate an area they should acquire all of it first. Eminent domain, baby.
I saw a Tiktok awhile ago where someone posited that things we once took for granted get taken away from us and sold back to us. The specific example was walkable cities. That used to be the norm. Now it's a luxury. We can't have that. If people walk everywhere and take a train or bus well then they might not buy a car. Then they'r enot buying insurance and gas and maintaining it. Unacceptable.
I live in a town of fewer than 8k people. Our local toy store is not only thriving, it’s central to the community.
People would rather shop there than go online. Why? Because they are a part of the community.
At every farmer’s market or community event they have a booth giving out free glitter tattoos to children, and they employ several teenagers part time to wrap gifts (of course this is free too), apply tattoos, and help out in the store.
This isn’t a unique concept. Going the extra mile and doing seemingly unreasonably nice things wins you customers and loyalty.
My experience in a large US city is surprisingly the opposite. The toy stores I visit are doing great. I suspect this is is because a large portion of their business is for birthday parties.
I assumed many or most were gone because of Amazon. But after having kids and getting gifts for birthday parties, I've learned there are a lot of them and they are doing healthy business. Almost always a line on weekends.
Many or most in line take advantage of free gift wrap because they're on their way to a party.
In many ways it is more convenient than Amazon because you're going out anyway, why not get it at the last second with careful gift wrapping.
But even a recent trip to the suburbs surprised me. The Lego store in the mall had a velvet rope and long line of kids waiting to get in. I had never seen anything like this and apparently it is usually this busy.
I have a 7 year old and for the past 3-4 years we make a weekly pilgrimage to a local boutique toy store specifically for birthday party gifts. It’s usually packed with others just like us doing exactly the same thing. They do provide the free wrapping service and they slap their story sticker on every box and it’s a good marketing strategy. But they also stock toys that are pretty unique and change the stock frequently, every kid we know practically has every toy you’d see at a place like Target. Their toy section seems to have been the same the entire time. Occasionally a new movie related toy comes and goes and a couple new big toy trends have entered but generally it’s all the same. Even the baby toys they sell are the same ones my kid had and has outgrown years ago. I’m not certain what their strategy is but it’s definitely not a good shopping experience for maximizing LTV of a childhood.
We also have the Lego store with the velvet ropes and always queued in our neighborhood mall.
Now the only observation I can say is this really only seems to work in affluent suburbs only. My neighborhood mall just so happens to be the top shopping mall in my huge city. It’s a destination for most of the suburbs and exurbs. The boutique toy story birthday present runs is usually around $50 per kid and we go to usually around 2 birthday parties a week during school year (on average). I don’t think most parents are allocating that type of budget for other people’s kids. I have 1 kid, many of my peers are doing the same for 2-3 kids and we all are varying levels of affluent by regional standards (expensive homes/cars, nannies, private schools, etc).
Part of the problem is that when Toys R Us bit the wax tadpole, Walmart jumped in and doubled or tripled the number of aisles dedicated to toys; so any "middle" suburb/city area with a Walmart already has an "easy source" of toys to grab, making it an uphill battle.
Target did the same and now has more Lego than TRU ever had, for example, though their prices are often over MSRP.
The key would be to market above both and aim for "different things" while making it a possible destination on its own.
I've never heard the phrase "bit the wax tadpole" before. From googling, it sounds like a reference to an urban legend about Coca Cola being poorly transliterated into Chinese? It's not clear to me if this is something commonly used as an alternative to "bit the dust" or if I'm missing another level of metaphor here.
It's a lot. Us parents joke how insane it all is but realistically it will taper off soon as kids start having smaller birthday celebrations. At this age it's kind of a "invite everyone in your class/grade" and has naturally reduced a bit already as boy/girl only parties started. I think next year or two it will become more common to have "invite 3-5 good friends to an event" type of birthdays and that will reduce it a lot further. Usually that's also the beginning of "drop-off birthday parties" where us parents don't have to attend with our guest. There was only one this year, my son was picked up and a group of ~10 went to a sport event.
Oddly enough, there are practically none in summer. If you have a summer birthday you either don't have a big party or you have a half birthday or something similar where the party occurs during the school year. Too many people travel throughout the summer and kids are doing different camps and things so it would not get well attended. Our group of parents kind of have unspoken rule to not do anything that feels required when school is out. That goes for fall/summer/spring breaks and holidays too.
The logistics part probably sounds crazy but probably only ~10% of these parties are at someone's house. We've never hosted a party at our house, well when he was 1-2 for family only, but not these huge parties with so many kids, parents, siblings, etc. Most people rent out a venue. Arcades, trampoline/slide parks, skating rinks are popular with the girls, sports themed places are popular with boys, chuck-e-cheese was popular for a bit, those kinds of things. It's too much work for a 2 hour party to have that many people in your home.
I think it's more scary than impressive. What kind of adults are all of those children going to grow up to and become, where multiple parties are the weekly norm?
Maybe you can clarify because I don't understand your fear or what you think it means for these kid's future adulthood?
The kids just see it as a fun 2 hour playdate with lots of friends in an interesting setting with dessert. It's the same friends they see at school, sports, etc. so it's their time to have some less structured play time, which - not sure if you've heard - is in rare supply for many children these days.
When I was a kid, even at this age, I was roaming all over town on a bike with my friends, I basically had the Stranger Things childhood experience, and I feel very confident there was a lot more to fear in that timeline of childhood.
Playing (and roaming) is great, non-stop parties is not.
Excessive partying can foster a mindset in children that equates fun with extravagance rather than simple enjoyment.
Frequent extravagant parties can foster a mindset in children that equates fun with material possessions and lavish events, rather than personal connections and shared experiences.
Not sure if the picture I painted originally was unclear but these kids are already living a very comfortable lifestyle by most standards. Most outsiders looking in would say they are all spoiled brats which is basically what I feel like you're trying to say more politely. But, this is just their norm, it's very much a part of their interpersonal connections and shared experiences which is exactly why we try to attend as many as we can. We try to engage in the community and support these kids as a group by celebrating their milestones and achievements; birthdays are one such example. What you fail to consider is these kids do not care about the material possessions at all. They've never had a shortage of that so they have no want for it. That is not special. I've never seen a kid even look at the presents during a party. They get loaded up and opened at home. I know my kid often doesn't open them for days or even weeks after the party. At this moment, he has a shelf full of toys he got as gifts half a year ago that are unwrapped but unopened. He's never even played with them. Some of them he already had and so he'll probably donate them at Christmas. However, the idea that they got to pick a theme and an venue that represents their personality/interests and share it with their friends during a day of fun is what they thrive on. Being the guest of honor at such an event has plenty of social-emotional benefits (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6130922/).
There's nothing lavish about these events unless you seem to think so. A $20/day trampoline park is not lavish. A 2 hour arcade card at D&B is not lavish. I don't know what your frame of reference is but this is what we do on a normal weekend if we have no plans too, just with a smaller group and withot birthday cake to eat.
In the early 2000's I visited my sister's family in Australia. Hadn't seen them for a few years. I took the kids to Toys'r'us and gave them $200 each to spend. It was the best $400 I've ever spent in my life. They still talk about it.
Somehow giving $200 of Amazon credit doesn't feel the same :(
I can only imagine the sheer delight in a kid that had never been to a dedicated toy store like Toys'r'us because of online shopping to see one for the first time. Sadly, many kids will never get to experience a toy store like that. I remember thinking what I'd do if I ever won that shopping spree that kids won on whatever Nickelodeon game show where that was the prize. I'd actually practice by learning where the things I wanted were in the store to be as efficient as possible.
One of my daughters always asked to be taken to Toys-R-Us for one of her b-day presents so she could pick out something. Watching her walk around in wonder for an hour trying to decide was an even better present for me. I'm sad they're gone too.
Back when I was a kid in the smallish UK city of Lincoln, we had two big model shops (tools, balsa kits, aero engines, Airfix, etc.), one big toyshop (Scalextric, and toys for young kids) and one rather weird place that specialised in fishing gear, Meccano and 00-guage railway stuff.
Now all are gone, and I do wonder how kids of today will be able (for e.g.) to experience building a glider (balsa, cutting out with a razor, tissue covering with paste) and launching the final product into the sky. We have lost something.
BTW, if any of you or your children want to get into things aeronautical I can strongly recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Book-Kites-. Some string, a little bamboo or dowel, and a binbag and you are ready to go.
The Barnes and Noble bookstore I occasionally shop at has a second floor that is about half full of nothing but games, legos, puzzles. I honestly think they sell more of that than books these days.
Our local toy store is a member of marketing cooperative and yours might be too.
They are wonderful and a perfect example of a local toy store - a wide variety, personal service and free gift wrapping on all purchases (a life saver for anyone with kids and a birthday party to go to seemingly every other weekend).
There are no toy stores close to me in New Zealand any more, or even a long drive away. There used to be two small ones, they were both great but never really that busy.
The local cash and carry also used to have a toy section - it was great because they had a deli where they also made coffee, a grocery section, bulk food section, and warehouse section that included toys. So we'd send the kids to the toy section, get a coffee, grocery shop. The building was a bit rundown, but that was part of the charm too. They upgraded it, it looks fancier but the toys are gone, the deli is gone, we only go for things like bulk flour now. I wonder if businesses like that have real trouble understanding loss leading sections like that.
There is a really cool place in Denver called Wizard’s Chest. I think they make good money off costumes, but also Warhammer 4k (and to a related lesser extent DnD). Nice people, too.
My local toy store has a resident dog, and allows other dogs inside. That place serves as a dog toliet, and dog hair, saliva, oils and excrements are everywhere. I refuse to go near it, purchasing any contaminated toys is out of question!
Last time we went there, owners assaulted my child and knocked it onto the floor!
I was surprised to find that Barnes n Nobles has a decent selection of quality toys for infants to toddlers. Toys have their own section at my store. I used to buy toy/book gifts at Target but the options are so much more limited.
I’m surprised physical toys are still a thing. We have a boutique toy store in our neighborhood. Expensive wooden things from Europe. I see lots of old people buying toys for grandkids. I hope they are well loved and not just tossed.
I miss toy stores, butcher shops, record stores, movie renal stores... everything moving online has really made culture so isolating and a lot harder to meet people. I remember when I was younger I could just go to a retail area and get some coffee, look at magazines/books, then go to a record store, then a video game store, a pet store, etc. Now everything is either a big box store in a giant parking lot or online. There are obviously exceptions, but I remember having so many more retail options and now they can't compete with Amazon and the rising cost of real estate and labor. Capitalism is strangling culture and making people more lonely and anti-social. They want us at home, buying subscription services, and getting taxis for our burritos so we don't have to actually go out and do anything or see anyone...
Yes, in the city were I grew up a single private toy store is hanging on. I think it is because they out right own the building they are in. But we all know their days are numbered.
It is too bad, they were real good and carried items that could not be found elsewhere. Now seems all stores are the same.
Edit: Looked it up, the store stopped selling toys all together last year. But they are still in business selling other items that were in a different part of the store.
Interestingly toy stores are still a thing in Japan. I took my 2 year old daughter to buy her birthday present this year. Her smile when I told her she could take the toy plush home was priceless.
I asked her if she wanted the big or small version, she liked the small. Showing kids toys on a tablet is never going to replace the experience.
I own a reasonably well performing indie bookstore. I've noticed for the model to work you need a critical mass of other local shops clustered to make the trip an experience for families and diverse tastes. My working theory is that three of such small businesses are sufficient and could operate well with a common inventory strategy and manager (e.g. a bookstore, a toy store, and a tea or candy shop...nothing that spoils in the very short term). When I've got a bit more time I want to try that idea and see if it works as a way to revitalize otherwise charming old downtown areas with vacant retail space and communities wishing to bring back their main street. Giving this idea away in case anyone else has tried or wants to try sooner than me and report back.
The thing I've noticed is that even dying downtowns want insane amounts of rent; I think you have to be able to buy the building to make it work.
However, that's not as unrealistic as it may seem, because the city itself often owns a decent amount of downtown, and can make a deal.
It's really baffling that even in the shittiest areas rents or property prices are insane. It seems the capital owners just don't care or don't lose enough money to care. They should be expropriated. Of course that won't happen.
AFAIK Commercial is priced at a multiple of rent. So when an owner still has a loan on a building that was based off of multiple of 3000/mo and decides to rent it out for 1500/mo it effectively cuts the value of that building in half.
Just an accounting issue for someone who owns it out right, but devastating for someone with a loan. I think this is why you’re seeing landlords offering multiple free months of rent nowadays. It allows them to adjust to actual market pricing annualized, while being able to call the “free” months an expense
We had this experience with a local town centre where the high street basically died. Retailers priced out by high rents, which was fine when the economy was good and people were spending, but as soon as it took a dip there was nowhere to go and they had to shut up shop.
And this mechanism was why; almost all the real estate was owned by funds and leveraged. Property values based on a multiplier of rent. They could weather a long spell of zero rental income because that effectively cost them nothing, but if the rent went down then the value went down and they had to come up with the difference.
I’m not sure if the explanation in the second part holds water. Wouldn’t the reduction in property value be the same as the ammortized free rent?
No, because the mortgage companies' valuation is based on rent and does not consider any incentives.
When the capital owner has thousands of properties, why spend energy on optimizing a few to make cities more liveable?
Consolidation, as always, is eating the society like cancer.
If the only way to be successful is to start by buying multiple downtown locations outright I think we know why the downtown is empty. Nobody is going to do that to open a shop. Not even the mega chains are usually buying anything.
The path to the return of main street is bullying your city council to attach ridiculous property tax penalties for any vacancies for whatever the central business district commercial zone is and not allow land zoned in that fashion to change.
Force the rents and property values down until a competitive market rate is arrived at naturally. Punish the greed that attempts to store or preserve value by leaving things vacant for years.
I suspect, particularly for toy stores, there's also a weird incentive: if they stand alone, you don't want to bring your kids there because it's only going to cost you money. But if they're next to other shops, you can send your kids there to entertain themselves and browse what you actually want to see in peace.
I take my two little ones almost weekly to our small downtown area. The trip is usually a coffee shop, the bookstore, and a rotating third one (sometimes a candy shop sometimes the toy store, sometimes something else).
Anyway, we're an N=1 confirmation of that theory.
In our case the coffee shop is in the bookstore and it is located right in front of the third. The third is a really nice park (think lake and lots of playgrounds plus activities).
(In slight contrast to my other comment) I think Larimer Square in Denver is trying to do something akin. There was a land-edge-lord kerfuffle and gone are staples like The Market and Ted’s Montana Grill (RIP, I was also just in Bozeman). rn one side is bookstore - jewelry & artsy - African jewelry & artsy - Rioja (Denver famous food) - John Fluevog (Vancouver shoes) - Osteria Marco (Denver less famous Italian) - Van Leewuen (NYC ice cream). I hope it all works...
now, bookstores here are a whole other mess. two words, Tattered Cover. there are ample used bookstores, though, i found a copy of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals for $6.50 on Colfax that should probably be handled with BSL-3 precaution which is as it should be
This is a timely comment for me. I have been doing research on opening a small indie (new/used) bookstore in a small old downtown I walk through almost every day. It has restaurants, specialty shops, coffee shops and a small local grocery store. I've always thought it was missing a bookstore.
Any tips/warnings that might not be immediately obvious to a hopeful bookstore owner? Do you think there is a sweet spot in terms of square footage of retail space? Margins are low so do you supplement with sidelines/events/memberships?
One of my next steps is to join the ABA as a provisional member to get access to their new bookseller guides.
I know someone who used to manage department stores (one branch at a time, several locations). He talked about clusters in a very similar way: Stores need nearby other stores to be attractive.
I have seen bookstore (second-handed books) thriving near universities. Your idea is actually very interesting and remind me of the mall model -- the mall model worked because everyone in the family gets his/her own share of pleasure. Of course the traffic matters a lot, too. Hope you start that experiment soon and succeed!
This strategy has worked well for both Shakespeare and Co. in Paris and Shakespeare and Sons in Berlin. Books + Bakery + Coffee. Both of course are set in living pedestrian cities. https://www.shakespeareandsons.com
Tsutaya, a Japanese dvd rental store has a specialty shop in Hiroshima. It’s best described as a library hosting a small electronics store, a clothing store, a stationery shop and a coffee shop.
I can't comment about the minimum number of stores, but I do think its the correct idea. I live in a town of ~12000. We have 6.5 bookstores (including the good local thrift store as .5). Stores/restaurants do turn over fairly regularly, so its still tough, but it certainly seems viable. We get a good number of tourists, which helps but I do think you need a mix of restaurants, and a mix of different types of stores. Even as you go to nearby towns with big box stores, they all have downtowns that are doing ok with locally run businesses. Notably the downtowns all are small business focused with few if any box stores
I always wanted to open an indie book store + coffee shop and had a similar analysis. I read recently they are having a come back.
Barnes and noble is opening in my city after a decade ago books a million closed and our local indie closed during Covid.
So there are a few versions of this.
The most common in the US is the strip mall. This is a largely American, soulless construct of commercial space with parking out front, typically on a major road. There are lots of reasons why this flourished in the US. It's a symptom of society being so car-dependent, which is by design. Rents here are typically lower than other options so some businesses can survive in strip malls that can't elsewhere.
The next step up (density-wise) are actual malls, or shopping centers for the non-Americans. There are different versions of this. You have the entirely indoor mall. You also have other anchor stores that pop up nearby (eg Home Depot) that are popular but can't justify the mall rent costs. Often a bunch of other businesses will sprout around these stores, which is why they're called anchor stores. Anchor stores are also things you generally need in a mall to bring in enough traffic to make the whole thing economical eg supermarkets, department stores. Malls in general have been dying in droves. Basically too many got built in the 1970s through 1990s and online shopping is killing them. There are photography and video channels dedicated to exploring dead malls.
The third rarest option is the walkable district. This is generally the downtown of cities that existed before cars. People generally love these but public transit is an issue. Americans always want to drive even when there are viable options otherwise. That means having to build parking garages and the whole thing kinda falls apart. Or at least it losses some of its charm. The hellish end of this spectrum is Houston.
Some cities have managed to rejuvenate such areas by diverting traffic and generally investing in the area. But what tends to always happen is that businesses will rejuvenate an area and then the landlords will kill it by charging exorbitant rents. I've seen 40+ year old restaurants close because of rent hikes in areas that only really existed for that restaurant.
This is part of the problem with housing being so expensive. It makes everything expensive. That local shops? Well it costs as much to build as a house and a house is easier to sell. But a cafe or a bakery or a bookstore or some other eclectic shop can survive when the rent is $20,000/year. You don't need to pay staff as much when houses cost $100k not $1M. Expensive housing just strangles everything. But when that rent goes to $200,000 over a decade well then suddenly only chain stores and big box retail can survive there so what was once a charming downtown turns into Chili's, a CVS and a Chase bank.
So this can go wrong even in dense places like NYC. There's a real issue right now with so-called "zombie leases". Basically, companies like CVS, Duane Reade and Walgreens signed high-rent long-term leases but then decided to close the store. The store remains empty because the owner has no incentive to rent it for a now-lower market rent while the billion dollar company is still on the hook for it. Enough of these and a street can look abandoned.
I really think that when cities choose to rejuvenate an area they should acquire all of it first. Eminent domain, baby.
I saw a Tiktok awhile ago where someone posited that things we once took for granted get taken away from us and sold back to us. The specific example was walkable cities. That used to be the norm. Now it's a luxury. We can't have that. If people walk everywhere and take a train or bus well then they might not buy a car. Then they'r enot buying insurance and gas and maintaining it. Unacceptable.
Society really is getting dystopian.
I live in a town of fewer than 8k people. Our local toy store is not only thriving, it’s central to the community.
People would rather shop there than go online. Why? Because they are a part of the community.
At every farmer’s market or community event they have a booth giving out free glitter tattoos to children, and they employ several teenagers part time to wrap gifts (of course this is free too), apply tattoos, and help out in the store.
This isn’t a unique concept. Going the extra mile and doing seemingly unreasonably nice things wins you customers and loyalty.
My experience in a large US city is surprisingly the opposite. The toy stores I visit are doing great. I suspect this is is because a large portion of their business is for birthday parties.
I assumed many or most were gone because of Amazon. But after having kids and getting gifts for birthday parties, I've learned there are a lot of them and they are doing healthy business. Almost always a line on weekends.
Many or most in line take advantage of free gift wrap because they're on their way to a party.
In many ways it is more convenient than Amazon because you're going out anyway, why not get it at the last second with careful gift wrapping.
But even a recent trip to the suburbs surprised me. The Lego store in the mall had a velvet rope and long line of kids waiting to get in. I had never seen anything like this and apparently it is usually this busy.
I have a 7 year old and for the past 3-4 years we make a weekly pilgrimage to a local boutique toy store specifically for birthday party gifts. It’s usually packed with others just like us doing exactly the same thing. They do provide the free wrapping service and they slap their story sticker on every box and it’s a good marketing strategy. But they also stock toys that are pretty unique and change the stock frequently, every kid we know practically has every toy you’d see at a place like Target. Their toy section seems to have been the same the entire time. Occasionally a new movie related toy comes and goes and a couple new big toy trends have entered but generally it’s all the same. Even the baby toys they sell are the same ones my kid had and has outgrown years ago. I’m not certain what their strategy is but it’s definitely not a good shopping experience for maximizing LTV of a childhood.
We also have the Lego store with the velvet ropes and always queued in our neighborhood mall.
Now the only observation I can say is this really only seems to work in affluent suburbs only. My neighborhood mall just so happens to be the top shopping mall in my huge city. It’s a destination for most of the suburbs and exurbs. The boutique toy story birthday present runs is usually around $50 per kid and we go to usually around 2 birthday parties a week during school year (on average). I don’t think most parents are allocating that type of budget for other people’s kids. I have 1 kid, many of my peers are doing the same for 2-3 kids and we all are varying levels of affluent by regional standards (expensive homes/cars, nannies, private schools, etc).
Part of the problem is that when Toys R Us bit the wax tadpole, Walmart jumped in and doubled or tripled the number of aisles dedicated to toys; so any "middle" suburb/city area with a Walmart already has an "easy source" of toys to grab, making it an uphill battle.
Target did the same and now has more Lego than TRU ever had, for example, though their prices are often over MSRP.
The key would be to market above both and aim for "different things" while making it a possible destination on its own.
I've never heard the phrase "bit the wax tadpole" before. From googling, it sounds like a reference to an urban legend about Coca Cola being poorly transliterated into Chinese? It's not clear to me if this is something commonly used as an alternative to "bit the dust" or if I'm missing another level of metaphor here.
> we go to usually around 2 birthday parties a week during school year
That's honestly impressive, some 70 birthday parties a year, plus presumably some extra in the summer.
It's a lot. Us parents joke how insane it all is but realistically it will taper off soon as kids start having smaller birthday celebrations. At this age it's kind of a "invite everyone in your class/grade" and has naturally reduced a bit already as boy/girl only parties started. I think next year or two it will become more common to have "invite 3-5 good friends to an event" type of birthdays and that will reduce it a lot further. Usually that's also the beginning of "drop-off birthday parties" where us parents don't have to attend with our guest. There was only one this year, my son was picked up and a group of ~10 went to a sport event.
Oddly enough, there are practically none in summer. If you have a summer birthday you either don't have a big party or you have a half birthday or something similar where the party occurs during the school year. Too many people travel throughout the summer and kids are doing different camps and things so it would not get well attended. Our group of parents kind of have unspoken rule to not do anything that feels required when school is out. That goes for fall/summer/spring breaks and holidays too.
The logistics part probably sounds crazy but probably only ~10% of these parties are at someone's house. We've never hosted a party at our house, well when he was 1-2 for family only, but not these huge parties with so many kids, parents, siblings, etc. Most people rent out a venue. Arcades, trampoline/slide parks, skating rinks are popular with the girls, sports themed places are popular with boys, chuck-e-cheese was popular for a bit, those kinds of things. It's too much work for a 2 hour party to have that many people in your home.
I think it's more scary than impressive. What kind of adults are all of those children going to grow up to and become, where multiple parties are the weekly norm?
Maybe you can clarify because I don't understand your fear or what you think it means for these kid's future adulthood?
The kids just see it as a fun 2 hour playdate with lots of friends in an interesting setting with dessert. It's the same friends they see at school, sports, etc. so it's their time to have some less structured play time, which - not sure if you've heard - is in rare supply for many children these days.
When I was a kid, even at this age, I was roaming all over town on a bike with my friends, I basically had the Stranger Things childhood experience, and I feel very confident there was a lot more to fear in that timeline of childhood.
Playing (and roaming) is great, non-stop parties is not.
Excessive partying can foster a mindset in children that equates fun with extravagance rather than simple enjoyment.
Frequent extravagant parties can foster a mindset in children that equates fun with material possessions and lavish events, rather than personal connections and shared experiences.
Not sure if the picture I painted originally was unclear but these kids are already living a very comfortable lifestyle by most standards. Most outsiders looking in would say they are all spoiled brats which is basically what I feel like you're trying to say more politely. But, this is just their norm, it's very much a part of their interpersonal connections and shared experiences which is exactly why we try to attend as many as we can. We try to engage in the community and support these kids as a group by celebrating their milestones and achievements; birthdays are one such example. What you fail to consider is these kids do not care about the material possessions at all. They've never had a shortage of that so they have no want for it. That is not special. I've never seen a kid even look at the presents during a party. They get loaded up and opened at home. I know my kid often doesn't open them for days or even weeks after the party. At this moment, he has a shelf full of toys he got as gifts half a year ago that are unwrapped but unopened. He's never even played with them. Some of them he already had and so he'll probably donate them at Christmas. However, the idea that they got to pick a theme and an venue that represents their personality/interests and share it with their friends during a day of fun is what they thrive on. Being the guest of honor at such an event has plenty of social-emotional benefits (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6130922/).
There's nothing lavish about these events unless you seem to think so. A $20/day trampoline park is not lavish. A 2 hour arcade card at D&B is not lavish. I don't know what your frame of reference is but this is what we do on a normal weekend if we have no plans too, just with a smaller group and withot birthday cake to eat.
In the early 2000's I visited my sister's family in Australia. Hadn't seen them for a few years. I took the kids to Toys'r'us and gave them $200 each to spend. It was the best $400 I've ever spent in my life. They still talk about it.
Somehow giving $200 of Amazon credit doesn't feel the same :(
I can only imagine the sheer delight in a kid that had never been to a dedicated toy store like Toys'r'us because of online shopping to see one for the first time. Sadly, many kids will never get to experience a toy store like that. I remember thinking what I'd do if I ever won that shopping spree that kids won on whatever Nickelodeon game show where that was the prize. I'd actually practice by learning where the things I wanted were in the store to be as efficient as possible.
One of my daughters always asked to be taken to Toys-R-Us for one of her b-day presents so she could pick out something. Watching her walk around in wonder for an hour trying to decide was an even better present for me. I'm sad they're gone too.
Back when I was a kid in the smallish UK city of Lincoln, we had two big model shops (tools, balsa kits, aero engines, Airfix, etc.), one big toyshop (Scalextric, and toys for young kids) and one rather weird place that specialised in fishing gear, Meccano and 00-guage railway stuff.
Now all are gone, and I do wonder how kids of today will be able (for e.g.) to experience building a glider (balsa, cutting out with a razor, tissue covering with paste) and launching the final product into the sky. We have lost something.
BTW, if any of you or your children want to get into things aeronautical I can strongly recommend https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penguin-Book-Kites-. Some string, a little bamboo or dowel, and a binbag and you are ready to go.
The Barnes and Noble bookstore I occasionally shop at has a second floor that is about half full of nothing but games, legos, puzzles. I honestly think they sell more of that than books these days.
I rolled into a b&n and it had more toys than books 100%.
Our local toy store is a member of marketing cooperative and yours might be too.
They are wonderful and a perfect example of a local toy store - a wide variety, personal service and free gift wrapping on all purchases (a life saver for anyone with kids and a birthday party to go to seemingly every other weekend).
A map of the network is here.
https://stoysnetpartner.com/our-retail-clients/
There are no toy stores close to me in New Zealand any more, or even a long drive away. There used to be two small ones, they were both great but never really that busy.
The local cash and carry also used to have a toy section - it was great because they had a deli where they also made coffee, a grocery section, bulk food section, and warehouse section that included toys. So we'd send the kids to the toy section, get a coffee, grocery shop. The building was a bit rundown, but that was part of the charm too. They upgraded it, it looks fancier but the toys are gone, the deli is gone, we only go for things like bulk flour now. I wonder if businesses like that have real trouble understanding loss leading sections like that.
There is a really cool place in Denver called Wizard’s Chest. I think they make good money off costumes, but also Warhammer 4k (and to a related lesser extent DnD). Nice people, too.
It's Warhammer 40k.
But beware, this game is designed to suck your wallet dry! ;)
My local toy store has a resident dog, and allows other dogs inside. That place serves as a dog toliet, and dog hair, saliva, oils and excrements are everywhere. I refuse to go near it, purchasing any contaminated toys is out of question!
Last time we went there, owners assaulted my child and knocked it onto the floor!
I walk by a lovely local toy store every day.
https://www.playtoysandbooks.com
I live in the Andersonville neighborhood in Chicago, and it’s a small bit of joy to have a thriving boutique toy store to walk by as I go to the gym.
I was surprised to find that Barnes n Nobles has a decent selection of quality toys for infants to toddlers. Toys have their own section at my store. I used to buy toy/book gifts at Target but the options are so much more limited.
In my area, while there are certainly fewer game/toy stores than there used to be, the ones that are left are doing great and are always busy.
I’m surprised physical toys are still a thing. We have a boutique toy store in our neighborhood. Expensive wooden things from Europe. I see lots of old people buying toys for grandkids. I hope they are well loved and not just tossed.
What dense urban core do you live in?
I miss toy stores, butcher shops, record stores, movie renal stores... everything moving online has really made culture so isolating and a lot harder to meet people. I remember when I was younger I could just go to a retail area and get some coffee, look at magazines/books, then go to a record store, then a video game store, a pet store, etc. Now everything is either a big box store in a giant parking lot or online. There are obviously exceptions, but I remember having so many more retail options and now they can't compete with Amazon and the rising cost of real estate and labor. Capitalism is strangling culture and making people more lonely and anti-social. They want us at home, buying subscription services, and getting taxis for our burritos so we don't have to actually go out and do anything or see anyone...
> a big box store in a giant parking lot
You know it's bad when stores don't even "have" parking lots, but are "in" them.
this article feels 10 years late. Toys R us marked the end of the toy store.
Its just a matter of time before other stores follow, except for the Lego flagship stores , or the ocassional anime store in a bigger city.
Its sad.
Yes, in the city were I grew up a single private toy store is hanging on. I think it is because they out right own the building they are in. But we all know their days are numbered.
It is too bad, they were real good and carried items that could not be found elsewhere. Now seems all stores are the same.
Edit: Looked it up, the store stopped selling toys all together last year. But they are still in business selling other items that were in a different part of the store.