Toys R Us Didn't Die Because of Amazon (The Real Story)

In March 2018, Toys R Us announced it would close or sell every store in America. Most people blame Amazon. But the toy store every kid loved was crushed by something else: about $5 billion in debt that a 2005 buyout placed on the company. This is the full rise and fall of Toys R Us: Charles Lazarus and the baby boom, the backward R and Geoffrey the giraffe, the "category killer" that sold roughly one in four toys in America, the giants that arrived (Walmart and Target), the strange Amazon deal of 2000, the $6.6 billion leveraged buyout of 2005, and the bankruptcy that ended it all. Watch to the end to see what really killed it. Chapters: 0:00 The last day of Toys R Us 0:45 The baby boom 1:35 The backward R 2:40 The category killer 3:47 The giants arrive 4:33 The Amazon deal 5:37 The debt 6:41 Game over 7:35 What's left 7:57 The real lesson Images via Wikimedia Commons: David Shankbone (CC BY 3.0); Mike Kalasnik (CC BY-SA 2.0); A.sostika (CC BY-SA 4.0); Talor Berthelson (CC BY 2.0); Larry Hachucka (CC BY-SA 4.0); Andy C (CC BY-SA 3.0); Rob Young (CC BY 2.0); afed (CC BY-SA 3.0); TomasEE (CC BY 3.0); Mack Male (CC BY-SA 2.0); Phillip Pessar (CC BY 2.0); Michael Ocampo (CC BY 2.0); Ian S (CC BY-SA 2.0); 3steph14 (CC BY-SA 4.0); NewYorker1999 (CC BY-SA 4.0); Breawycker (CC BY-SA 4.0); Tdorante10 (CC BY-SA 4.0); 掬茶 (CC BY-SA 4.0); EVandRailway (CC BY-SA 4.0); MIKI Yoshihito (CC BY 2.0); Raysonho (CC0); David Podgor (Public domain); Fuzheado (CC BY-SA 4.0); Sullynyflhi (Public domain); Kenneth C. Zirkel (CC BY-SA 3.0); Bull-Doser (Public domain); Walmart Corporate (CC BY 2.0); MikeMozartJeepersMedia (CC BY-SA 3.0); Brainulator9 (Public domain); Akos Kokai (CC BY 2.0); Michael Rivera (CC BY-SA 4.0); Tedder (CC BY-SA 4.0); Christopher Michel (CC BY-SA 4.0); Marc van Woerkom (Public domain); Matthew Paul Argall (Public domain); Benjamin D. Esham (CC BY-SA 4.0); Alan Chia (CC BY-SA 2.0); Kippelboy (CC BY 4.0); Eric.Ray (CC BY-SA 2.0); Chris Pruitt (CC BY-SA 3.0); Nyttend (Public domain); Arild Vågen (CC BY-SA 4.0); NHRHS2010 (Public domain); Z22 (CC BY-SA 4.0); BornToZucc (CC BY-SA 4.0); trougnouf (CC BY 4.0); Vincent van Zeijst (CC BY-SA 4.0); Tyler de Noche (CC BY-SA 3.0). Stock footage via Pexels. Music: "Racecar" by The Grey Room / Density & Time (YouTube Audio Library). #ToysRUs #BusinessDocumentary #EmpireFiles