Amazon (or Millennials) Didn’t Kill Toys-R-Us. Arrogance Did.

It’s time to stop crying over the stupid giraffe. We preserve endangered species, not aging business models full of bloated execs who blame their own customers, rather than trying to serve them.*

If you’re not a person who checks Twitter shortly after waking up (I know, I know…trying to stop), the most reactionary social network was full of hot-takes lamenting the passing of this mascot giraffe and the toy retailer he represented.

Look, it wasn’t your childhood that died. It was a garbage business who saw ecommerce coming for decades, and leadership did absolutely nothing about it. Didn’t lower prices. Didn’t create an irreplacable in-store experience. Didn’t work at innovation in any form.

I mean, they were too busy blaming Millennials for the companies demise.

Yeah, the number of people having kids has slowed a bit. So what? Toyota, Subaru and Mercedes are all recording great profits in 2018…when they could be lamenting the increasing migration to large cities, and the rise of Uber and Lyft resulting in less people purchasing their own vehicle.

There are many angles to business, and one of them is that biggest isn’t always best. Toy-R-Us was once a giant retailer, whose profit margin was cut deeply by the mega-retailer (Amazon) and tons of micro-retailers (handmade goods on Etsy, etc.). That doesn’t mean they had to go under. To cite the paragraph above, Toyota, Subaru and Mercedes lead the car industry in profits not necessarily because they’re the biggest (Subaru) or the cheapest (Mercedes), but because they create value.

What value did Toys-R-Us create exactly? Charging 40% more than the same product delivered to your doorstep in two days, with free shipping? Providing you with minimum wage employees who knew no more or less than the average big box employees to help you find what you need?

Brick-and-mortar retail isn’t dying…bad brick-and-mortar retail is dying now that customers are not held hostage by geography and lack of options.

Recently, my wife and I returned a set of pans to Macy’s. She couldn’t return them herself because they were over the pregnancy weight limit restriction, and I was working 80 hours a week on a new business.

We were one day past the return policy. One. Flipping. Day. And there was an extenuating circumstance (pregnancy).

The store manager in Orland Park, IL refused to return the pans for cash, or even store credit. Instead, we had to wait a month for a gift card to come in the mail.

Then, we had to take that gift card back into Macy’s in order to buy something off their website. I’m not kidding. All told, we spent three hours awkwardly standing near registers in Macy’s.

Either Macy’s gets right with Jesus and the consumer (they probably won’t) or they’re headed the way of the mascot giraffe (they probably are).

This is good news. Because when bad business fails, everybody wins. Employees get at least a less-bad employer. The consumer gets a better experience. And new opportunities for entrepreneurs spring up, which stimulates the economy.

One of my best friends owns a running shoe store. Based on the doom and gloom of Toys-R-Us, he should be living in a cardboard box and standing in a soup line.

Instead, that company is thriving? Why? Well, as my friend Dave puts it “Amazon doesn’t want to be in the business we’re in. Amazon cares about efficiency and margins. We remember the customer’s name, ask how their kids are doing. Check to see if they got off their blood pressure meds with added exercise. Amazon doesn’t want to care, and we do. So we win.”

Be big and specialize on making money in the margins of mass sales, or be smaller and operate with heart. As long as you’re treating your employees and customers well, both are great.

But stop mourning that giraffe of toxic retail, because 2018 took it out back and shot it for a reason.

#endrant

*I mean, for the most part. The Government Motors auto bailout was a clear exception. And before you ever think about buying another GM product, please consider that they never fully paid back the taxpayer.