At the end of this June, Toys R Us closed all their stores in the United States. This was following bankruptcy news in the fall and hope that the holiday season could have helped them. Alas it didn't. But to play the blame game is dumb. Some people like to blame millennials. That's not event true. What killed Toys R Us was itself.
Some companies spend money that they don't have or can't recuperate the money they had just spent. One example was Ames, which after buying a company in 1998, shut down because of going bankrupt a second time and being finished in 2002. That's what Toys R Us' situation was. Not to mention competition. Now these days, you have Target, Wal-Mart, and a few other stores that can sell toys, but also more than just that with food, clothing, you get the picture.
The failure to adapt to the modern day era of Internet is also something that bit Toys R Us. It's inability during the infancy of it rubbed people the wrong way (https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/23/business/toys-r-us-falls-behind-on-shipping.html) Even struggles with Amazon which culminated in a lawsuit which they won still hurt them.(http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-06-12-amazon-toys_N.htm) While they may have recovered and got better at doing online, there was still a bit of hurt from some of these moments during the late 90s and early 2000s.
Unfortunately, it was a specialty store. Although it was a place you could have kids come to and check out the cool stuff, it was also a place that you had to make your way to. And that's why it's part of the casualties of all these stores that have shut down in the last 20 or so years. People want all their stuff in one place and I would, too. There's also the ones who will take the Internet route, which is very easy to do in 2018 compared to the mid to late 90s. Before you blame it on a generation of people, take a look at what killed Toys R Us before saying millennials caused them to go bankrupt.
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