Page 25 - Toy & Hobbly Retailer Magazine August-October 2019
P. 25

Toys R Us again
Toys R Us has returned to Australian shores, backed by digital native, Hobby Warehouse. Editor Imogen Bailey explores its return and where it’s headed from here.
IT was the news that shook the toy industry on a global scale. Toys R Us had gone bankrupt and was shuttering worldwide operations in the US, the UK and Australia and others.
In fact, almost exactly a year ago, Toy & Hobby Retailer contained a large feature about the closure of Toys R Us (TRU) in Australia.
Now we’re here to report on its return.
The news of the return of the business –
of both TRU and Babies R Us (BRU) – to Australia came in the form of a licensing deal struck between TRU parent company Tru Kids and Australian, eCommerce retailer, Hobby Warehouse.
“I know that Tru Kids in the US were searching for some partners from late last year, following the closure of TRU,” Hobby Warehouse and TRU Australia owner and director, Louis Mittoni says.
“We met with them early this year in January and we found a very high alignment of our mission. The vision that the TRU team in
the US had for the brand and business going forward – especially as retail is evolving – we found that alignment to be very high.
“It’s been a long process of around about six to nine months where they were searching for the right partner with which to relaunch,” he says.
Hobby Warehouse, a pure-play online business which has been operating in the space for eight years, has established logistics infrastructure, a boon for the TRU business which is going for a digital-first approach this time around.
“We introduced a range of cost-effective warehouse automation and improved logistics abilities in the last several years as Hobby Warehouse grew,” Mittoni explains.
“Last Christmas we doubled our packaging line as a semi-automated system with some self learning systems to improve and meet
the increasing demands that we had for that company, so TRU will share a lot of that logistics and infrastructure.
“I think Tru Kids was looking for the right partner with whom to relaunch and re-imagine the next chapter of TRU in this region, so no doubt [logistics] would have been one of the key elements and I think in their assessment they would’ve looked at many attributes,” he says.
Backed by in-house research which indicates that over 40% of total toy and baby sales volumes
will be transacted online by 2023, the relaunch strategy began with the invigoration of the TRU and BRU Australian URLs, which launched on 12 June. The TRU website launched with same- day delivery options in metropolitan Melbourne, with plans to expand this delivery option to other metro areas in the medium term. The TRU website is also now equipped with a buy now pay later payment option.
“We decided that an obsessive focus on digital retailing to the exclusion of physical retail was a starting point,” Mittoni says.
“The digital storytelling platform, really harnessing real-time shopper data, machine learning, our logistics chain and a range of brands and products, being competitive and having fast delivery was really going to be our starting point,” he explains.
As part of this digital strategy, TRU named eBay Australia as its marketplace partner, launching a store on the site on 01 July.
Pulling on the existing partnership eBay had with Hobby Warehouse, eBay senior director,
B2C advertising and commercial partnerships Kristian Haigh says that the partnership was a logical step for both eBay and TRU.
“Through general discussions that we had with Hobby Warehouse and the team, it came to our attention that there was a potential around the TRU re-entry, which obviously sparked our interest, having had a relationship with TRU as well previously,” Haigh says.
“Understanding the iconic nature of the brand and the customer love that TRU did have in the business, we saw it as a really natural fit and opportunity for us to not only help the team at Hobby Warehouse in regards to their investment into TRU and its resurgence, but also giving that visibility back to Australian consumers around a brand that was very much trusted and loved by families and kids all over Australia.
“For us, being a marketplace with 11 million active customers a month and having known and worked with TRU previously we understood the underlying consumer value proposition and the engagement that we’d seen previously,” he says.
AUGUST / SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2019 TOY & HOBBY RETAILER 25
LEFT: (L to R): Toys R Us Australia: Tristan McLindon, Louis Mittoni, Lian Yu and Kevin Moore.


































































































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