Toys R Us Express

The mall in my three-bit little town is something of a lackluster affair. Granted, when I got here 14 years ago the mall, and the town in general, were blissfully free of most varieties of 'big box' store which overrun just about every corner of our great nation currently, transforming all towns into sadly familiar landscapes of identical consumerism. Over time, the mall grew a bit, added things like a Best Buy and a Borders, and then the Target where I've been known to spend far too much time. I guess, overall, I've seen worse! But it's not really much to write home about.

Well, I do have to admit that a recent discovery inside of said mall has me all abuzz - it appears that this town finally ranks high enough to get a Toys R Us Express! I am just so impressed by the effort and apparent success of TRU these past several years. Sure, when you visit their stand-alone stores, they are almost uniformly under-maintained in a number of ways and understaffed with frustrated overworked employees. The amazing part is - I've notice that they often still have long lines at the checkout (see 'understaffed') and a number of cars outside in their over-sized parking lots. Given the problems the stores seem to have, it's heartening that they are still doing such brisk business. It is further heartening that the CEO decided last year to try out this holiday timed in-mall version of their store - a bold and no doubt expensive move that appears to have been a brilliant business decision! Here is an article from 2009 - can't find much coverage about it from this year.

Well, that's quite enough of my carrying on about things I don't really understand, so instead here are a few pictures, which are our stock in trade around the Preserve.
I called the main number for my mall, and a very friendly and patient woman humored my excited queries about the new TRU, claiming that she had heard an opening date of September 1st. Well, that's a nice possibility but given that the whole store appears to currently contain a card table with some job applications on it...that seems unlikely. Granted, a few overnight stints of those professional shelf-stocker people (and I guess shelf-builder people...) and anything is possible, so we will see! Either way, I'm looking forward to the possibility of picking up the TRU exclusive Spirt and Quick Kick figures from the Pursuit of Cobra line without the need to make an hour+ long pilgrimage to the nearest old school TRU...though admittedly I do enjoy such trips and am sure that, even if this store remains past the holidays, they will not be a thing of the past.



Posted by charlie on August 26th 2010, 08:23 AM
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