Toys R Us

Shame about Carpetright, we have used them for bedroom carpets in the past and our local one has lovely staff. To me it is blindingly obvious why Carpetright is struggling; if young families are renting as they are unable to buy, they are not buying carpets. If you live in a rented house, one which could be taken back by the owner at the end of your lease period,would you buy carpets for it? Buy a new kitchen/bathroom/fitted wardrobes? Poor old Carpetright will not be the first or the last.

But landlords buy carpet and I have heard that some landlords automatically replace carpets when tenants change. Local Councils and Housing Associations remove all carpets and curtains when tenancies change hands, where they used to leave them.

I suspect another reason for their downfall is quite simply fewer houses are fully carpetted now. Many people have wood or laminate floors and laminate floors do not need replacing as frequently as carpets and scatter rugs are smaller and cheaper, assuming any are used.

DD's flat, that she sold 12 years ago was on RightMove recently and she noticed that while both kitchen and bathroom had been replaced since she refitted them and, obviously, it has been redecorated, the laminate floor she fitted in 1995 is still in place - 23 years and still going strong.

We used Carpetright years ago when we first moved here and they were good, but when we've re-done floors we have tended to use local firms.
We did try John Lewis but they were not at all good, we didn't actually buy from them in the end.

While a number of people have blamed online sales for the demise of Toy R Us it could not be further from the truth.

The parent company in the US went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year and you can be sure they were still draining the UK operation. Having said that, in the UK the company failed primarily because they could not pay their VAT bill. Money they had already collected from customers.

From the comments here and elsewhere, it is quite clear that the stores were dated, staff not customer focused, lack of a quality online presence and very expensive. Most products you have been able to purchase elsewhere, considerably cheaper and that is without going online. John Lewis sell Lego around 25% cheaper, Smyths Toy Stores along with The Entertainer are doing a roaring trade.

Maplin are a different kettle of fish. Not sure what management tactics have caused them to fail but I remember the original Maplin from the early 1970's who primarily were mail order, dealing with electronic geeks. They at the time only had a couple of stores. There failure to my mind has been trying to be an electronic toy store, but at a price that Joe Public was unwilling to pay. Remember Tandy? The way they grew and fell should have been a warning for this type of store.

I agree that recently the choice has been very bad in Toys R Us. My grandson struggled to spend his birthday money in there last month and we ended up going to Smyths. However in their defence, last year we went to buy a bike for him there. At 9 he was late to be learning to ride and the bike he already had was too heavy for him. The staff were great, keeping coming back to get out more bikes and telling us about them, then leaving us to decide. The bike itself has been a massive success, you would never know he has only been riding a short while. It's a pity that enthusiasm to find the right item didn't extend to the other toys, they could have done so more in store to demonstrate the toys.

Maplin are a different kettle of fish.

prestbury The economist, Frances Coppola, wrote a piece analysing the reason for Maplin's failure. As I recall, it wasn't poor trading performance, it was by being bought out and loaded with debt. It ended up with a structure of about 6 'holding companies' and all got very complicated.

I'll try to find the article this evening and post a link

I won't be sorry to see Carpetright go.
I recently ordered new kitchen flooring.
By the time they'd added delivery charge, fitting charge, a separate charge for the fixative needed and an admin charge on top, the cost had risen from £200 to £300.
The order form took a lot of deciphering to get to this breakdown. I complained to head office about their lack of transparency but had no reply. I happily cancelled the order.

A small local shop offered an almost identical vinyl and the cost was clear from the start with everything included and no added charges at all. I had some change from £200.

By the way, the owner remarked that much of his business is with decent landlords who regularly renew flooring.

The only time I was in ToysR Us was when DD bought baby furniture. Huge unfriendly place!

A do believe a decline in customer service is partially to blame for the downward turn of high street shopping, however I don’t believe it to necessarily be the staffs fault (not always anyway) My dil is currently on maternity leave from her management job for a big high street fashion chain. She has been talking for years about the changes on the high street. One of her biggest complaints, is that she continues to have her payroll budget reduced. She is now expected to operate the store with less than half the staff she used to. They now offer ‘click & collect’ as well so the workload has gone up, whilst the staffing levels have gone down. This has a negative effect on the level of customer service they can offer. I’m afraid until those running these companies have a better look at how they operate them, this will continue to happen.

I believe, not A believe

We used to have several independent shops in our town and now there's a pound type shop on virtually every corner and charity shops galore instead. In between all of these are umpteen cafes. The face of a town - ours anyway - is certainly changing.

It seems now the out of town stores are also facing change. I'm not sorry about Toys R Us and agree with other posters on the attitude and prices but also like other posters Maplin will be a loss - good service; good knowledge and my geeky GS and DH will miss it!

Will we still have shops and town centres soon?

Looking at DDs habits- the older one, works full time in high pressure job, 2 kids + volunteers with rugby training at week-ends - she has not been into a shop for months if not years. Everything is ordered by Ocado or on-line. The only shop visited, by sil, is the local butcher as they believe in buying good quality local meet from top supplier.

DD2 hardly goes shopping either- on line or Sainsbury's local across the road from hers and once a week to local larger Tescos.

I read somewhere that children are not wanting toys as much these days as they do so much on the computer. I find that sad, especially as DGD has just spent the weekend playing in the wendy house I made out of a cardboard box years ago for her older cousins.

Prestbury
The Maplin company we see today has no bearing on the company that Roger& Sandra set up in one of their bedrooms many years ago. They were friends of mine at the time and I would imagine that they're a little sad to see what has happened. The original company has been sold on several times.

Lots of companies are not the same when the name is sold on.