Are you already missing Toys R Us? KB Toys is counting on it.
Strategic Marks, which owns the KB Toys name and brand, announced that it plans to open 1,000 pop-up KB Toys shops this year for Black Friday and the holiday season, according to CNNMoney. The decision comes as toy retailer Toys 'R' Us announced earlier this month that it was calling it quits and closing its more than 700 stores nationwide.
"My assumption is that there's about half a billion dollars worth of toys that have been produced for Toys "R" Us with no place to go," Strategic Marks president Ellia Kassoff told CNNMoney. "That's a big, big void that we're hoping to fill up."
Kassoff said he's working on deals with Hasbro, Mattel and 200 smaller toy makers "that have inventory but no place to sell it," according to CNN.
The pop-up stores will end after the holiday season unless they perform well and report high sales numbers.
Kassoff said hes drawn influence from stores like Spencer Spirit Holdings Inc., Go! Retail Group, and Party City Holdco Inc., which often open pop-up stores around the Halloween season and fill their stores with Halloween gear, toys and props.
"We're talking to companies that know how to do it, they have a methodology, they're used to rolling out stuff real quickly," he said.
Kassoff told the New York Post that he originally wanted to relaunch KB Toys online. However, Toys R Us decision to close its doors inspired him to follow the pop-up idea.
Toys R Us announced earlier in March that it was going out of business, which would affect close to 30,000 employees, according to the Deseret News. Four Toys 'R' Us stores and two Babies 'R' Us stores will close in Utah.
KB Toys began as a family-owned toy business in 1922, according to CBS. It soon ballooned into one of the countrys biggest toy retailers. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004. Prentice Capital Management purchased the company before it went bankrupt again in 2008.
Kassoff hopes this move will reverse the fortune of all toy retailers.
"We're going to save the toy industry," he wrote in a LinkedIn post.
Strategic Marks, which owns the KB Toys name and brand, announced that it plans to open 1,000 pop-up KB Toys shops this year for Black Friday and the holiday season, according to CNNMoney. The decision comes as toy retailer Toys 'R' Us announced earlier this month that it was calling it quits and closing its more than 700 stores nationwide.
"My assumption is that there's about half a billion dollars worth of toys that have been produced for Toys "R" Us with no place to go," Strategic Marks president Ellia Kassoff told CNNMoney. "That's a big, big void that we're hoping to fill up."
Kassoff said he's working on deals with Hasbro, Mattel and 200 smaller toy makers "that have inventory but no place to sell it," according to CNN.
The pop-up stores will end after the holiday season unless they perform well and report high sales numbers.
Kassoff said hes drawn influence from stores like Spencer Spirit Holdings Inc., Go! Retail Group, and Party City Holdco Inc., which often open pop-up stores around the Halloween season and fill their stores with Halloween gear, toys and props.
"We're talking to companies that know how to do it, they have a methodology, they're used to rolling out stuff real quickly," he said.
Kassoff told the New York Post that he originally wanted to relaunch KB Toys online. However, Toys R Us decision to close its doors inspired him to follow the pop-up idea.
Toys R Us announced earlier in March that it was going out of business, which would affect close to 30,000 employees, according to the Deseret News. Four Toys 'R' Us stores and two Babies 'R' Us stores will close in Utah.
KB Toys began as a family-owned toy business in 1922, according to CBS. It soon ballooned into one of the countrys biggest toy retailers. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004. Prentice Capital Management purchased the company before it went bankrupt again in 2008.
Kassoff hopes this move will reverse the fortune of all toy retailers.
"We're going to save the toy industry," he wrote in a LinkedIn post.
