Source: Dallas Morning News / Stan Olszewski
Growing up, going to Toys Я Us was a very special treat. My parents would take my brother and I to the Greatest Store On Earth On our birthday, and sometimes at the very beginning of the Christmas shopping season.
As a child, I recall spending a long time roaming the various aisles of Toys Я Us (except the Barbie aisle. No need to see that stuff! Of course having 3 daughters has addressed my childhood of skipping the pink colored aisle.)
They had toys that no other store had. There was no Amazon.com. I didn't live near a Walmart. K-Mart and Kresge's was the only game in town, other than the small toy section at Sears. The annual Wish Book? That was the book of gold to kids.
Toys Я Us will always be a special place in my heart.
Fast forward to today, and we hear that the toy store giant has filed for Bankruptcy.
We've recently heard US President Trump blaming Amazon for hurting retailers. While Amazon does have a strong competitive advantage on costs of product (study supply in demand in Economics, if you don't understand this principle.) Amazon is not to blame.
Consumers are.
We the consumer want faster, cheaper, convenience. Amazon and Walmart have done their part to address our wants. Unfortunately, that cuts down sales at brick-n-mortar stores, to the point where we are seeing large, long-standing companies go bye-bye, and malls are closing left and right.
We the consumer are to blame.
I'm a minimalist, so I don't overly participate in the consumer world as much as others do. I look at this era as an era of transition and adjustment in retail, and with economics in general.
The industrial age has been in transition for decades, and it will be interesting to see what the workforces will look like in the next 50 years. My hunch there will be some dramatic differences.
Keep learning new skills that are transferrable. You can thank me later.
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