Just announced yesterday more KB toys are closing

[tmthor]

Just annaounced yesterday more Kb toys are closing. Around me the one in Plymouth MA, Pembroke MA, Attleboro MA, Walpole MA, & Worcerster.
One employee told me they are cloing more than 100 stores. & will probably be completely out of bussiness by this time next year.

[toys2cool]

wow that really sucks,here in Miami there's only one left,about 5 of them have closed down in the last 2 years

[The Sentry]

They only have 2 here and the one closest to me is almost 50 miles away! I love KB toys, WalMart and Target are killing it for all the other stores, not to mention the fact that record stores are selling toys in their shops kills the business as well. It all adds up after a while.

[jds1911a1]

in a past regeneration (er I mean career little Dr Who joke) I worked for a KB. As a corporate entity it has always suffered from it's buy anything cheap mentality. We always had barrels of cheap action figures from dead toy lines that arrived pre red slashed. We woudl have to waste valuable shelf and floor space in a mall store for stuff another store already wrote off. Big lots gets alot of the same kind of junk.
That warehouseing stupidity made it that much harder for our store to get the current toys people actually wanted and were willin to pay our slightly higher price than walmart,target,kmart,toysrus,etc etc.

In my area they went out of bus about 2 years ago and I miss them but it doesn't surprise me

[davidb]

Do you have a link to the list? We've still got one where I am, and I'm wondering if it's still going to be there.

[toys2cool]

I kind of figured something was up though,the one in my mall just switched locations to s smaller space,I know there's still a huge one in the outlet mall in Orlando.

I could remember as a kid getting Star Wars figures for $1 and the 2 pack ones for like $1.50,I never liked it as much as Toys R Us but I do have some great memories of KB,the one thing I hated was that they were always so expensive,while a Ninja Turtle was $5 at Toys R Us it was $8 there and stuff like that

[cjefferys]

It's too bad, but I can't say I'm surprised, the chain has been on life support for years now. There are still several in my general area, including a couple larger "outlet" ones, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them gone in the near future (perhaps one more Christmas season for them). I always wonder how long Toys R Us will survive, considering the all mighty Walmart is their competition.

[LadyZod]

As a toy collector I always loved KB, if for nothing else... being able to buy price slashed figures from past toylines. Granted for every gem there's 100000000 pieces of crap, but I always loved it.

There's 2 KB's at 2 outlets in Orlando, off I4, and 2 at Sawgrass Mills in broward, and one at Dolphin Mall that I know of.

[megocrazy]

The one in Franklin MA went out about 18 months ago, and the one near me in New Bedford MA went about 6 months later. I bought a lot of good stuff there. It's too bad.

[toys2cool]

As a toy collector I always loved KB, if for nothing else... being able to buy price slashed figures from past toylines. Granted for every gem there's 100000000 pieces of crap, but I always loved it.

There's 2 KB's at 2 outlets in Orlando, off I4, and 2 at Sawgrass Mills in broward, and one at Dolphin Mall that I know of.

The one at Dolphin was the one I was talking about,not sure if the 2 at sawgrass are still there and the one by I4 in the outlet mall is the other I go to when ever I'm at Orlando

[johnmiic]

There were some in pretty remote locations here in NY. I know of only 2 near me now. There was one hidden in an area called Port Washington where I would go and find all kinds of rare but current toys. It's too bad. They are going the way of Woolworths.

[toysrus]

KB Toys!

I figured this was coming with Target & Walmart out there. When did KB start? 1980's huh? Its hard to picture KB Toys as another store that only remains in our childhood memories.

[Adam West]

Unfortunately, KB did nothing to distinguish itself from the competition and their higher prices did not make store visits appealing.

I think TRU will be ok. If you look around their store, they carry a lot of items that can't be found in a WalMart or Target (take a look at their wooden Thomas the Tank Engine assortment or some of the other high end toy lines).

They have a good video game selection and the prices are in line with Target and WalMart.

[tmthor]

I figured this was coming with Target & Walmart out there. When did KB start? 1980's huh? Its hard to picture KB Toys as another store that only remains in our childhood memories.

K•B Toys (previously known as Kay Bee Toys) is a chain of mall-based retail toy stores in the United States. It was founded in 1922

[toys2cool]

I figured this was coming with Target & Walmart out there. When did KB start? 1980's huh? Its hard to picture KB Toys as another store that only remains in our childhood memories.

if Lionel Play world went down and that was a huge store,it was only a matter of time before KB went down,it's just going to suck going to a mall and not seeing a toy store