After going back to Toys R Us for the 4th time in two weeks, I realized that I haven’t gone to a big box or even small brick and mortar store this much in… maybe forever.
Someone at TRU corporate is making all the right choices. Â As a gamer who buys a lot — A LOT — of games, the store with top of mind awareness for me is now Toys R Us. Â If you asked me five years ago, I may have laughed and even questioned if I would ever go back to a Toys R Us. Â In fact, I seem to remember them having financial problems.
Now, I check their ads every week. Â That’s one of their biggest selling points: They provide the deals. Â Tonight we found the deal on the right, printed the coupon, and sped over because we had a $15 gift card already from buying Lego Marvel there two days ago. Seems like there’s always a way to save 40%, get $X off, or buy 1 get 1 free.
20 years ago we went to Toys R Us to buy action figures. Â Now we’re going for our video games. Â The fact that they are managing to follow us throughout our lives and continue to be our store is really quite neat.
Last but not least, our TRU has awesome employees in the video game department. Â Usually I can’t stand the kids they have working these stores (Gamestop, anyone?), but the guys working in our TRU are knowledgeable, helpful, and consistent. Â It’s almost like I have ‘a guy’ I go to now because it’s the same employee every time I go in.
You’re probably thinking Toys R Us is paying me for the praise (I wish), but in reality I’m just grateful that there’s a store making me feel like I come first.
Maybe I’m in a sentimental mood tonight, but this crap matters to me. Â In a day and age where customer service has gone the way of the dodo and so many stores put the customer dead last, I feel the need to say something nice when it’s deserved.
In case anyone from corporate wants to reward these guys, it’s store #6622.
Back when my sons were kids in the 80’s, Toys R Us was the place for Nintendo games as well as numerous others. I remember going down the isle and picking up those Toys R Us item tickets. Once you had the correct ticket for the game, you paid for the game at the cashier and then picked the game up at a special window.
This was a time before the net and you did not have any information on the games. There was a young guy 18-19 who worked in the isle where all the games were on display. I would ask him if this or that game was any good. He knew exactly what games were good or not. He was always right.
It seems that they’re the only off-line retailer willing to consistently discount brand new titles off of MSRP… but they do it smart with either gift cards or B1G 40% or whatever so you’re always locked in to buying something else and thus they’ve got the chance to make it up in volume.
Plus – if I recall you don’t have kids? – bear in mind that as a toy store a decent portion of their demographic is children, who don’t care that Skylanders/Infinity figure will be cheaper in a month. If they can get you in the store, they can probably sell you something else – full price – by pushing it on your kids.
It’s nice of you to give a shout out to some do gooders in the retail trenches. Much appreciated.
I can understand this mind set. About 2 years ago I bought all of my console games at Kmart since they constantly had great gift cards rewards. I would pick up a game for $60 and get $20 off my next game.. and then that game would give me $20 off the next and so on. This kept me as a loyal shopper for console games there for about a year and half
The one thing I do not get about Toys R Us is they do these great deals on games but then consistently mark up things like their LEGO products an easy 20% above all other retailers.