A lot of economic forecasts show that this holiday season won’t be quite as successful for retailers as it has been in recent years. But Toys R Us Chairman and CEO Gerald Storch tells NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider that his company expects holiday sales to match or exceed past successes.
In good times and bad, toy sales are largely unaffected by the national economy when the holidays roll around, according to Storch.
“The last thing parents cut back on is a holiday present for their kids,” said Storch. “We did quite well even in 2008 and 2009 in the depth of the reception [and] the economy is certainly better [now] than it was then, so we have reason for optimism this year.”
Storch says the impact of Hurricane Sandy was felt by the Wayne-based company and at his own house.
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“Our headquarters was out power for some time, my own house was out power for nine days.” He adds that, like many residents in New Jersey, he was afraid to drive because of the gas lines.
According to Storch, the storm hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of holiday shoppers. He says he’s already seen a big comeback in the last few days and expects a dramatic upswing in business in the stores and on the Internet. He adds that, nowadays, Toys R Us uses an integrated system for doing business that tightly links its brick and mortar stores with the company’s e-commerce outlets under what he terms an “omni-channel” model.
“Customers these days, particularly younger customers, don’t really distinguish between the physical world and the digital world. They may shop on a laptop, they may shop on their cell phones but they pick up a product from a store,” explained Storch. “There are 81 different ways, believe it or not, for a product to go from a customer order to the customer and we’re happy no matter which way they choose to do it.”
Black Friday will be huge but it’s Cyber Monday that might break records, says Storch.
“We’ll keep adding more and more deals throughout the weekend. When we get to Cyber Monday, it’s going to be the biggest Cyber Monday in history, I’m sure of it.”
Every year, there are certain toys that become the must-haves of the season. This year, Storch says there are several sought-after items.
“The hottest product that we have right now is called Tabeo. This is a Toys R Us-designed tablet for kids and it costs $149.99 and it has all the apps that they want to play,” said Storch. Other hot items include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Lego’s Ninjogo and Nintendo’s Wii U which Toys R Us plans to sell during the Black Friday weekend. “We’re going to have Wii U available on Black Friday and on Saturday in our stores, so we’re really excited about it.”
While the U.S constitutes about two thirds of Toys R Us’ business, Storch says its global sales is strong and growing rapidly throughout Asia. “It’s the next frontier, so we believe very strongly that a lot of growth is going to come out of China in particular and we’re going to be there — stores and on the Internet. But meanwhile, we’ll keep growing in the U.S. both with toy stores and on the Internet and with our express stores in malls.”