Retail brands such as Circuit City, Toy R Us, Bon Ton, and Wet Seal are a few retailers that have gone through the bankruptcy process and are now re-emerging in an effort to find themselves and their new identity. Many of these concepts will look to online platforms to re-engage with customers, but in the world of brick and mortar, they must create some sort of a physical strategy for an experience that cannot be replicated online. With past financial conditions associated with leveraged buyouts, coupled with reactive strategies and lack of adoption to new consumer behaviors, these retailers are now starting with a fresh slate to work off of. The positions of the past are now in many of these retailer rearview mirrors with new venture capital firms acquiring the intellectual property rights and crafting a vision to revive these storied brands.

Ideally, if Toy R Us were to follow the Halloween stores strategy and opened pop up shops in select markets during the holidays and operated an efficient online platform, it would be a great start to get the train rolling again in the United States. A few flagship locations in primary markets could help to get the awareness that the brand is back and play off the nostalgia that still exists with consumers. This was shared by David Berliner with BDO, and this could be a great strategy to get off the starter block to run this second race in the new world of retail.

With venture capital acquiring the intellectual property rights to many of these storied brands, new future growth includes strategies for online platforms integrated with a plan for a select brick and mortar presence. In today’s world, you must have a digital and physical presence to compete. Opening a physical store in a market results in an average 37% increase in overall traffic to that retailer’s website, which proves that physical and digital go hand in hand. The new venture capital firm CSC Generation, who purchased Toys R Us, plans to open physical stores within international markets and will develop a new e-commerce platform.

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