Toys R Us Opening 120 New U.S. Stores In Time For The Holiday Season

Toys R Us is opening 120 new U.S. stores with its retail partner Go! Retail Group, in a major expansion timed to capitalize on the peak holiday toy shopping season.

The expansion comes at a time when the U.S. toy industry is enjoying healthy sales gains after some tough years.

Toy sales for the first half of this year were the strongest they've been in six year, according to research firm Circana, LLC, with total dollar sales up 17%. Average selling price was up 4%.

The store expansion means Toys R Us will have 160 standalone U.S. stores open during the holiday season this year. It continues the growth trajectory the new owners of the Toys R Us brand have been on since taking over the iconic toy brand that went bankrupt in 2017 and liquidated its stores in 2018.

After its bankruptcy and liquidation, Toys R Us was acquired in 2021 by WHP Global, a brand management firm with a portfolio of more than 16 consumer brands - including Marc Jacobs, Vera Wang, and Lands' End -that generate close to $10 billion in retail sales.

To drive its store expansion, WHP Global in 2023 announced it was partnering with Go! Retail Group, an Austin, Texas-based company with expertise in operating seasonal pop-up shops.

Toys R Us is expecting many of the latest batch of store openings to stick around long after the holiday season. Go! Retail learned with previous Toys R Us openings that there was enough year-round demand to keep them operational the entire year.

"Some of the stores that they opened they thought were going to be seasonal stores - just for holiday - and the stores did so well they extended the lease," Jamie Uitdenhowen, Executive Vice President of Toys R Us at WHP Global, said in an interview.

There is consumer demand for more Toys R Us stores, Uitdenhowen said. "This is something they've been asking for more of - standalone Toys R Us stores with a full experience in there, a wider assortment, more experiential elements," he said.

A new feature that Toys R Us is rolling out this year at five of its current stores is Creator Studios - dedicated in-store spaces where influencers, creators, and toy brands can host toy reveals, unveil new products and create social media content.

The idea for the studios was the brainchild of Chief Marketing Officer Kim Miller and grew out of "really listening to all of our consumers that come in our stores and really love experiential elements," Uitdenhowen said

"We think this is going to be, for us, a game changer - really leveraging all the cool things these influencers and content creators do and really getting the message out about products and trends and what we have in our store," he said.