The Decline of KB Toys...What Happened?
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- Опубликовано: 3 июл 2024
- I used to love going to KB Toys. It was the nations largest chain of toy stores located primarily in malls. This video talks about the circumstances that led to their multiple bankruptcies and ultimate closure.
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Company Declines:
Kmart: • The Decline of Kmart.....
Blockbuster: • The Decline of Blockbu...
RadioShack: • The Decline of RadioSh...
Solo Cups: • The Decline of Solo......
Toys "R" Us: • The Decline of Toys R ...
hhgregg: • The Decline of hhgregg...
Pan Am: • The Decline of Pan Am....
ESPN: • The Decline of ESPN......
Gibson: • The Decline of Gibson....
iHeartMedia: • The Decline of iHeartM...
Bon-Ton: • The Decline of Bon-Ton...
Kodak: • The Decline of Kodak.....
General Electric: • The Decline of General...
Woolworth: • The Decline of Woolwor...
Dell: • The Decline of Dell......
Sears: • The Decline of Sears.....
Payless: • The Decline of Payless...
Hostess: • The Decline of Hostess...
Redbox: • The Decline of Redbox....
Nokia: • The Decline of Nokia.....
JCPenney: • The Decline of JCPenne...
Quiznos: • The Decline of Quiznos...
GameStop: • The Decline of GameSto...
NASCAR: • The Decline of NASCAR....
Shopko: • The Decline of Shopko....
MoviePass: • The Decline of MoviePa...
Reebok: • The Decline of Reebok....
The Gap: • The Decline of The Gap...
Pier 1 Imports: • The Decline of Pier 1 ...
Sbarro: • The Decline of Sbarro....
AOL: • The Decline of AOL...W...
Long John Silver's: • The Decline of Long Jo...
Chuck E. Cheese's: • The Decline of Chuck E...
GNC: • The Decline of GNC...W...
Hertz: • The Decline of Hertz.....
Steak 'n Shake: • The Decline of Steak '...
CiCi's Pizza: • The Decline of CiCi's ...
Boston Market: • The Decline of Boston ...
Yahoo: • The Decline of Yahoo!....
Montgomery Ward: • The Decline of Montgom...
Fry's Electronics: • The Decline of Fry's E...
Souplantation: • The Decline of Souplan...
Gateway: • The Decline of Gateway...
BlackBerry: • The Decline of BlackBe...
Sports Authority: • The Decline of Sports ...
Atari: • The Decline of Atari.....
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In the 90s if I got dragged to the mall by my mom or grandmother it was understood that they would be paying the KB Toys tax for making me go clothes shopping with them. Loved this place.
Back in 1967, I used to go to Karl's Toys and Hobbies in Baldwin Hills, California, Stocker street and Crenshaw Blvd Los Angeles. I loved it. Well stocked and toys in all price ranges. That was the store for me!
You're lucky, my family was too poor to buy me anything there, I was rarely allowed to go in and look at stuff.
@@bearatts Now, you can buy whatever you want.
Lol and people say this generation is entitled
Privileged
If this channel has taught me anything, it's that leveraged buyouts shouldn't be legal. This type of business acquisition is predatory and ends up hurting workers and customers.
Hey cool it with the antisemitism
@@Emerson-Tiddees fr
+1 to that, leverage buyouts are evil and should be outright banned.
@@Emerson-Tiddees wait huh? could you eleborate on how its antisematic? /gen
@@M4HARAJ woosh
The mall in the 80s and 90s was a glorious experience for a child!
The pet store, the toy store, and the book store were my favorite stops before the food court and the arcade!
Now the mall is a giant depressing beige clothing store
Ikr, like "OH MY GOD GET ALL THOSE ZARA CLOTHES OUT OF MY SIGHT!"
And furniture stores
Nowadays malls are just big empty places filled with empty spaces...
@@user-dv2hc8zt3o like the Dixie Chicks
Don’t forget the skateboarding store
This one hit home. My mother was a manager for KB toys from the mid 90's till the very end of KB, which was most of my childhood. This video sparked so many memories. My mother lost her battle to cancer in October of this year, and this video couldn't have come at a better time. Thank you
Whenever you see the words Bain Capital, you know that the end is near.
Mitt Romney was worst candidate. Couldn't run on his political achievements like Romneycare since his base hated it so had run on his business acumen which brought out all the Bain Capital horror stories.
The name sounds so evil and corporate
Bain Capital is where bad and dying companies get liquidated. This video made it look like Bain screwed it up. It's like blaming the undertaker for the person's death.
@@jonathanng2390 Yeah, if the undertaker had come into the deceased's house and removed ninety five percent of the oxygen, then just waited for the obvious conclusion.
@@acmeopinionfactory8018 Bain's job is to basically 1) break down the organization and see if can still operate. Some have come back. 2) if not, break it up and sell it's assets. Maybe a turkey vulture analogy would have worked better.
I remember KB being just a bit higher priced than other retail toy stores. When you're a kid, you dont know the price of milk, but you know how much a He-Man figure costs.
They were expensive
The square price tag was so little though you could pretend it wasn’t for a minute
I used to go to KB so often in 1995 to buy Magic and Star Wars CCG cards, they asked me to apply for employment as seasonal help. They also really liked that I was 6'8" tall and could reach the high shelves. It was a fun job to have for a few months! I miss that time in my life, and I really miss KB.
I actually miss KB more than Toys R Us. Their locations were more convenient for me. I remember stopping to check out their "daily deal" which was always in the white basket out front. I was heartbroken to see them go. They were a happy chapter in my childhood that I would love to relive.
@@largol33t1 I miss that white basket, too!
I also have some fond memories of visiting St. Louis, going to a KB there, and buying cellophane packs of 1987 Topps baseball cards. I found two with Mark McGuire rookie cards showing through the cellophane. That was 35 years ago. Time sure has flown.
As a store manager at the time Bain Capital took over I knew the end was nigh when I heard that Bain personnel were going through some of the stores with their clipboards. I remember my response as if it were yesterday: “Great, now we’re going to have people that don’t know our business tell us how to run our business.“ It sure didn’t take them long to ruin it. My guess is they were never really interested in the business at all, other than their ability to extract capital.
As an ex-store manager with KB I felt the same!! Lol
Guess who worked at Bain Capital…..Mitt Romney. Look up the American Paper Company and what Mitt did to those workers!
Bain Capital was what they called the Hatchet Men. They take their money, chop jobs and strip down the company to where the services people expect are gone. I worked at Kay Bee’s in the 80’s. The store was always packed with people. As employees, we were told if someone wanted to see a toy, take it out of the box and set it up. It was so much fun playing with everything. We would race remote control cars around the mall after it closed at night and we were still there unloading trucks and restocking shelves. Our manager at the time got caught selling Cabbage Patch Dolls out the back door in the middle of the night for 100’s of dollars. He got busted and was immediately fired. I loved working there.
company man: mentions "investment firms" and/or "leveraged buy out"
the company: (chuckles) I'm in danger
Guess you could say they were the Bain of every company.
@@hoobidibahbidibah8119 Vulture extractive capitalism caused so much destruction in the US economy. It was all built around ninja accounting to funnel money into "investors" (basically the opposite of investors - they raid money instead of investing it) instead of maintaining a healthy business. If the US falls I point my finger heavily at firms such as Bain Capital.
I wonder why lenders shill loan to companies owned by the private equity firms that default that much…is there enough successful ones that we don’t hear about?
@@NozomuYume Leveraged buyouts should be outlawed. They murder every company they come in contact with.
@robloxguy453 Bane Capital
When I was really young, my mom worked at a Regis Hair Salon that was inside of my hometown mall. The salon was directly across from a KB Toys. I actually remember seeing the downfall of that KB Toys. I’d walk over with like $10 to buy a toy every now and then. I even remember buying my mom a blue stuffed dog, a Snicker, and a balloon from there for her birthday. It started off as a pretty busy store. Then, sales and traffic decreases so much that the workers would actually run around the store on stick horses with me. Business was so bad that most days, playing games with me and showing me cool toys was their main job for hours at a time. My mom would try to tell me to leave them alone because they had work and she didn’t want me being a burden. Their manager literally told her that I was no burden because I was the only person who’d come in the store for days at a time.
It was great then because I had entertainment while my mom worked (on days that I had to go with her to work). Plus I ended up never having to buy toys because I was their only visitor, so I played with everything for free.
I still remember the manager and other workers explaining that the store was closing and that they were going away. I was devastated. Lol
Damn my dude, that sounds amazing ngl
"We didn't realize we were making memories, we were just having fun"
Nice story🙂
damn, that was a good short read lol relatable
There was a Regis Salon across the mall from the KB Toys in my hometown as well. I became that store's manager for a number of years before being promoted. On the weekends I used to drive one or two radio control car demos in the mall common area outside our store. The Regis employees would tell me how much they and their customers would laugh when a radio controlled car occasionally would suddenly come into their store, turn around and slowly drive away!! Lol The kids in the mall loved when I took out the R/C demos!! Lol Loved KB Toys!
The 90s were certainly a special time to be a kid...everything seemed amazing lol.....good tv shows, stores like kb toys or toys r us.....
The Arcade and KB toys was the one thing that made those "family mall shopping trips" worthwhile in the 90's when I was a kid, those where great times.
Doesn’t seem that long ago 😢
I'll just be sitting around wondering what happened to a specific company, and 20 minutes later Company Man is like "I got you"
Yup, same here. Company crosses my mind, company man delivers, always. 110% curiosity satisfaction
So many...Child World,Caldor,Ames,Bradlees,Zayres,Bradley's,,, Woolworths, Toys R us.kind of sad.
Replaced by Walmart and Amazon.
@@idontcareanymore2754 Don't forget about Target...
@@Justin-Hill-1987 Who shops at Target?
kb toys used to be the shit back in the 90’s 😭
spongquan episode 9 :/
But it got replaced by toys r us which got replaced by the internet
I love your name and avatar.
I guess that's why I've never heard of them.
EVERYTHING seemed to be the shit back then when compared to things nowadays.
Loved getting LOTR action figures from KB, they always had the best selection and stuff I couldn't find at Toys R Us. Good times.
I used to go there for the exclusive Spawn figures as a kid. I'd spend the whole time in KB while my mom shopped the entire mall.
Your comment does NOT surprise me. I shopped a lot more at KB than Toys R Us because of availability. I strongly believe very bad inventory was why Toys R Us was going to fail eventually (not to mention their mean, uncaring staff). If a slightly smaller chain has better inventory than you, you either change your management style or stock more products to get customers in the door. And don't charge the earth for a measly toy. I don't even remember what I last bought from Toys R Us because their items were expensive.
Ahhh yes...KB Toy's. I worked for a KB from 1996 to about 2000. It was a great first job. I started out as seasonal help and ended up a manager. I was there for the Xmas of Tickle Me Elmo. I learned a lot about human nature that holiday season.
Omg tickle me Elmo! Lol what did you Learn? Please share
I’m an 80’s baby. While Toy-R-Us was like an amusement park, KB was so much more intimate. I always enjoyed a trip there and was able to find the toys I was looking for easily. Miss this brand for my children.
YES!
Toys R Us lasted a bit longer than K-B. I used to take my daughter to Toys R Us every Valentine’s Day to pick out a toy as dad’s valentine to her. After a couple years of doing that, Toys R Us shut down and we miss our valentines “date”. Now I take her to Walmart or Target, but the experience and the feel of the stores is not the same. There’s something huge, magical, almost overwhelming for a kid to walk into a TOY store.
YES!
Toys R Us lasted a bit longer than K-B. I used to take my daughter to Toys R Us every Valentine’s Day to pick out a toy as dad’s valentine to her. After a couple years of doing that, Toys R Us shut down and we miss our valentines “date”. Now I take her to Walmart or Target, but the experience and the feel of the stores is not the same. There’s something huge, magical, almost overwhelming for a kid to walk into a TOY store.
K-B Toys was my and my siblings reward if we behaved while trying on clothes at the mall. It broke my heart when they closed, I loved that place, even more than Toys R Us. It felt like it was more for us, not for our parents. Less like a warehouse too, and we couldn't get lost in there, so we had a longer leash to explore. Lots of good memories!
Right
Well said
What was great about Kaybee toys was they were at every rinky dink rural mall in country, which is where I lived...those big fancy toy warehouses like Toys-R-Us and Children's Palace were just in the "big cities" and we're just a special treat if we happened to be visiting a larger area. Our crappy little mall, as well as the even littler (but less crappy) mall in the small town nearby both had Kaybee, but the nearest Toys-R-Us was over an hour away. And yes, I remember it as "Kaybee", not KB, being a child of the 1980's.
It seems like Bain Capital is like the vampire of the business world. They suck the life out of whatever they touched and then move onto the next one.
I am Bain, and I will break the Toy Man
It's right there in the name.
Mitt Romney is Bain Capital
@@uglyewok6715 wtf does Mittens have to do with this
@@earthwormjim91 He co-founded it lmao
KB was like a mini Toys R Us. Always got so excited for a trip there when I was a kid! They had the coolest diecast cars. Definitely a store missed for sure
When I was a little kid, I used to call K-B Toys “the piggy store” bc the location at my local mall would put a small playpen on the ground outside of the storefront with a little battery powered pig toy inside of it lmao it’s those kinds of nuanced memories that I’ll always hang on to
That's definitely something I remember about them too! The electronic, barking, flipping dogs too.
no way I totally forgot about that!
Funny how life endures through memories like yours 👍
The little barking dog toys bouncing off the sides of the pen
This and the fake raccoon tail in a chip bag
Holy smokes I totally forgot about K B toys... I remember they were in my local mall.. and one day they were gone. This shall be interesting.
ruclips.net/video/H5NYtdnMflU/видео.html .
Yup the KB In my mall vanished over night the next day I went in for work.
As a kid in the 80's, my mom would either take us to Walden Books or KB Toys to reward us for good behavior. Good times
Fellow 80s kid here and my mom did the same! Good times 😊
I remember walking in to B Dalton Book Sellers and putting a small portion of my allowance on the counter to purchase my copy of The Chocolate Touch. And then heading to a novelty-type shop and purchasing jacket buttons featuring Spuds MacKenzie and The Noid. Who didn't love the 1980's?
I miss Walden Books too
My final memory of KB Toys: There’s was an action figure I really wanted that was from the Spider-man cartoon series (it was either Mysterio or The Scorpion) and it was the last one on the shelf. As a kid I had the bright idea of hiding the figure under the shelf and come back to buy it when I have the money. Later I find out that KB Toys had closed and I missed my chance!
Whoa. That sucks man
@@Mas-uy7lm That’s actually kinda sad.
There used to be three places I'd check out whenever I was at the local mall: KB Toys, Waldenbooks, Sam Goody.
That they're all gone is unfortunate; I enjoyed the experience of going into each of those stores.
"Bain Capital" As soon as I heard that name, I knew where this was going: "leveraged buyout" ...yeah, saw that coming.
Those 3 were my fave as well. Go to KB for a PS1 game, go to Waldenbooks for the PlayStation magazine and then Sam goody to listen to cds at the preview station with my dad. Then he’d buy the cd and play it on the way back home. Good times
Those were the Trilogy of Stores at the mall, alright. Throw in an Electronics Boutique or EB Games for good measure.
Yes - and some malls also supported B. Dalton Booksellers, very similar to Waldenbooks.
@@parkb5320 talk about an unlocked memory. EB games was legit but eventually got bought and completely rebranded as gamestop. I haven’t thought about EB games in like 20 years
Same! KB Toys, Waldenbooks, and Sam Goody, along with Babbages, were all in my local mall when I was a kid and they were my favorites!
I will forever be grateful for them because of the fact that they were the only ones in the area at the time who sold Master system's Sega CD games and eventually the last of the Saturn games.
Wait a minute!! I'm pretty sure KB toys never carried Saturn games because of how Sega launched the system early at select retailers and KB wasn't one of them, so the refused to carry Sega Saturn and it's games.
Buck is correct, Sega dropped the ball and said “by the way, the Saturn is out today” and most retailers weren’t ready. KB got pissed, and refused to sell the console
God, it makes me sad looking at the state of toy stores. It's silly, I haven't actually *bought* toys regularly since I was twelve, and I don't remember the last time I bought an action figure as a collectible. Probably Optimus Prime in the late teens to satisfy my inner child that couldn't afford it. But the MEMORIES attached to both Toys R Us and KB toys...God, this is just soul-crushing. I remember lining up on black friday at a KB's and fighting for an N64.
The toy store business model is so fascinating. We went from having tiers of toy stores and video game sellers from Kmart, Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, KB Toys, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Best Buy, Circuit City, PC Richards, and Market 6 etc
KB and TRU was a big part of my childhood. Sadly, future generations of children will never know what it was like to walk through these stores and the joy of their parents buying the toy they want right on the spot.
At least there's still Learning Express Toys with 109 locations as of 2021...
Toysrus is returning
i’m sad i never got to experience polio like past generations did
We all care so much about your childhood, especially you with your uncle Paul...
I miss the early 90s console wars with all the crazy game covers and bringing the slips over to the little window to get the game. Some of the few good mammories of my childhood.
Imagine winning a Sonic sweepstakes there as a kid and proceeding to ride that high for the next several decades of your life
Cue the Captain America "I understood that reference" meme..... XD
You're referring to "him" 😳
And have a life that's arguably better documented than George Washington.
Oh no
growing up in the 80's, kb in the mall, was the spot. fond memories, going in there and heading right towards the gi joe section. thanks for the trip down memory lane, from around 35 yrs. ago...
I wish I could find a KB Toy's warehouse full of Pokémon cards, games, Primal Rage toys and Street Sharks toys. I would be so happy.
Street sharks!!
@@anitaramirez4427 I love them.
It’s next to the government warehouse that holds the Ark of the Covenant and the Roswell UFO.
@@av_oid Go away.
I remember they always had those mechanical animal toys outside the store jumping around. So many memories
yeah i remember they always had the jumping/barking dogs near the front trying to do flips and whatnot lol
Yeah, what@@LotsOfLove4Music said. They carried SMS and other Sega systems, but infamously not Saturn.
They also had those dancing coke cans and the dancing flowers that would react to any sound nearby
Oh yeah. I just wrote that the front seemed crowded. But it was because they had those displays where all the toys were jumping around which made it seem that way.
Noise and motion and curiosity to draw people in. They’d put the toys right up to the entrance-way so that just passing by you’d already be browsing their stuff.
Main thing I remember about KB Toys is they would have this table set up at the entrance with a bunch of toys out the box you could play with. Toys like the wind-up dog that flips, that plastic thing that expands to a sphere, etc. The other thing I remember is my parents would never buy me toys from there.
The Lease Line Demo Table!!! I was a store manager with KB for a couple years before we got the demo tables. For several years after we did every morning myself, or a teammate would have to spend time switching out the previous day's worn out batteries for fresh new ones!! Lol We had boxes of generic batteries labelled as Demo Batteries that would come in with our merchandise shipments!! Customers loved the dancing flowers & Weasel Balls we would sell!! Good memories!!!
I remember my parents dumping me at K B Toys while my sisters shopped for clothes at the Sears next to it. I actually have more nostalgia for them than Toys “R” Us.
I'm a 90's kid and a lifelong toy collector and I have nothing but fond memories of KB. KB Toys is the setting for some of my oldest and clearest memories from my childhood. I can still remember the rush I got when I'd find that new X-Men or Spider-Man figure on the pegs. KB Toys ALWAYS had what I was looking for. Bums me out that things ended up the way they did... same for Toys R Us. But at least we have the memories. I miss those days!
KB Toys brings back memories for me going there to buy NES games 30 years ago as a teen. Goin' love this one!
Hell yeah
And genesis games!!!!! Sega CD too. The slowest machine I ever used hahahahahaha
Hey do a Lionel Play world. I miss that place too! Lol
Same Great Generation here.
Still relative during the 16 Bit era.
Kb always sold games for a little bit higher than everybody else
Same here. I went there once Nintendo games got under $20. It was pretty cool to finally buy games with my allowance.
As soon as I heard there were so many owners, I said to myself "When is the leveraged buyout?"
A few minutes later: "YUP! There it is!" 😂
😆
It's funny how it all comes back around. I grew up in the 80's in a rural area. The nearest mall was an hour drive away. KB or Toys R Us was a treat when we got to visit one. We got 90% of our toys delivered from the Sears Catalog. 40 years later and I'm having toys delivered to my house again.
The photos of the store setup brought back fond memories. I still miss KB Toys, something about their store layouts make me feel something I haven’t in a retail store ever since they closed
We never had a Toys R Us near us, so Kay-Bee toys was the toystore at the mall we went to, *especially* for Christmas.
Was a sad day when they closed.
Sioux City didn’t have a Toys R Us but the Souther Hills Mall had a KB Toys. I bought an Atari Jaguar on close out for $99. I returned it after I realized the included game wasn’t good and there weren’t any other games for it at KB Toys. A few months later, they were blowing them out for $29, no returns. Ah, good memories!
In the 60s and into the 70s, we used the Sears catalog for Christmas toys
Do Hickory Farms. That was a mall staple that vanished rather quickly. It'd be a good topical / seasonal episode since most of their sales skewed heavy to Xmas.
Hickory Farms would be a great topic. As a tot, I often inadvertently bumped into displays there and toppled them, making a mess for employees to sort out. Beef log avalanche! Flubba dubba dubba dubba. Sounded like rubber thunder.
@@FranklyPeetoons I didn't work there long - as they were transitioning from their storefront to a kiosk model - but it was in fact my first job while in High School at the age of 15 (which was legal with parental permish). Did you know 'mold shaving' was a daily tasklist? Because it was XD
Genuinely every time I hear about them I have to wonder how the hell Leveraged Buyouts are allowed to legally exist. You can seriously just get a ton of debt, pass it on to a company you bought with this money you don't have, and say you own that company now and can proceed to hack it to pieces? That sounds hideously unethical and it's screwed over so many good companies. Why is it allowed?
I share the same feelings. I would like to hear some success stories of leveraged buyouts. There has got to be at least one, right?
Look no further than what happened to Sears 😬
@@Sogard22 Hilton Hotels and Petsmart if you can believe it. The former for $25 billion and the latter for $9 billion but both still thrive. For reference, Toys R Us when they went under only had $5 billion in debt. It's less about debt and more about what you're selling and if it's liable to sudden dramatic downturns. Be it 9\11 for airlines, Walmart for any given retailer like Ames or Bradlees, or the internet for just about everything else. You need either a shitton of capital to get you through hard times or you need a business practically immune to dramatic shifts in competition that could cripple your business at the drop of a hat. Hilton is owned by Marriott and very profitable so they're propped up and we'll always need pet stores regardless of the economy or mitigating factors so Petsmart is sustainable.
How am I supposed to buy into Private Equity if leveraged buyouts aren't allowed? I'm also considering HM Prison. Nice little earner...
KB could teach a master class in maximizing retail space. They had a similar model to Radio Shack: small store broken in to 3 parts: store front with toy stacks built from the floor up to draw people in - even better if the toys moved or made sounds; mid-store where the cash register was as well as the video games and some more expensive items. Cash register area also used to stack toys for impulse buys.; the aisles where the bulk of the toys were organized. End cap drew you in, but then really tight aisles and toys stacked to the ceiling on shelves. Just maximizing the retail area. Very dense.
I remember being on holiday as a kid in the US and my parents got me the NES at KB Toys for Christmas after playing for hours with the display unit. First real console I had and many fond memories of that day and trip.
Yep, I remember seeing them on shelves and on display. The base unit ( or whatever they called it without the included Mario and duck hunt game) and the other ones with the game...
There's more to talk about. I used to be an Over The Road truck driver and most of us hated delivering to KB Toys. Their distribution center was located in Phoenix, AZ and all drivers who has been there know it's a pain driving I-17 north fully loaded. But the worst part is delivering to those stores, most malls aren't made for sleeper cabs pulling 53 foot trailers and making drivers tailgate the loads, that means the driver has to move the load to the end of the trailer. That's hard work because every box is put on the floor of the trailer and you have to move everything yourself,( a small box of batteries is no joke) you also have multiple stops. Some truck companies wouldn't tell the driver about the extra work involved. The unloading is a pain, the store supervisor has to mark off every single item on their printout, sometimes they aren't informed of a delivery, so they don't have the people to unload, (that happen to me, took almost 2 hrs. just to get some extra help).
Others may look on KB fondly, but do you know why they always ran out of popular toys and couldn't tell you a restock day? I think Wal-Mart found out how KB restocked their stores. KB store managers never ordered toys. KB in the 2000s had a computer program that tracked sales of each product sold, it was connected to the cash register, the info was sent to Phoenix so when they got resupplied, it was based on what was sold, no one could order more of a best seller. It was supposed to be more efficient, but after talking with these supervisors they complain about this problem. I believe this resupply system was also a major contributor to their downfall.
Often times KB couldn’t GET more of a particular item. The stores (WALMART) could buy more. So if some became available, they were favored. Don’t forget , so much is manufactured overseas. They can’t always put production back in gear and get it here in time.
Then again, the TRU higher ups that came in and displaced the buyers already in place? They repaid favors (from their TRU days)for their favorite vendors, buying junk that couldn’t be sold. Eventually, like a game of Tetris, no money was made, nothing could be bought. Simple math. It’s a shame. There were so many good people working there.
Interesting take. Thanks for sharing! And as we are more aware than usual, truckers are vital to the economy. Thanks for the hard work! I’m sure your work bought a lot of joy to kids all over back in those days!
Thats very interesting, sorry it sucked for you but thanks for educating us
@@Ikusabe thank you.
@@clauderain4888 You are welcome.
I absolutely loved reading the comment section and taking a trip with you all down memory lane. This was a great video! ☺️
I worked at a KB store a long time ago and I remember issues with the closeouts
They packed so much in at times that you couldn't get it all out and managers had no authority to mark anything down or get rid of stuff so items like seasonal or holiday stuff just got put onto shelves in back for the next year. This killed stores as that was unsellable in next season
You know the second Bain Capital comes into a Company Man video, things are about to go south for the company.
It's always the same story whenever a private equity firm gets involved.
I loved KB. Their discount bins help me build inventory for when I started my own toy business :)
Got fond memories in the early to mid 2000s going to KB Toys whenever I was in the US. Glad to know what happened to them when the store was something else in the Florida Mall when I went in 2009
I think the last thing I ever bought from them was The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. It was a special edition that I had preordered from them because the cartridge was gold colored and it came with a guidebook. My little brother loved that game too, he learned to play it through completion and I'm pretty sure that's the main way he learned how to read.
And if you still have that game, it's probably worth more than you paid for it. I think that game sells for like $80-100 on ebay now for the gold one.
KB Toys got me just as excited as Toys R Us as a kid. Good memories.
Yup and easier to get your parents to take you there since you were already in the mall.
I bought a lot of toys at KB Toys when my son was young. My mom and I had a lot of fun shopping there, and one year surprised each other for Christmas with these cute baby dolls with hilarious, realistic expressions. I still have mine to this day, though my mom passed almost 20 years ago. I always preferred KB Toys to Toys R Us personally. Toys R Us was just too big and I hated dealing with the grumpy crowds.
I always thought of them as the "more expensive with less variety" store. But they would occasionally sell outdated video games from 2 previous console generations. I found NES games there when playstayion 2 was about to come out.
A Gift Certificate to KB Toys used to be a prize during the Double Dare Obstacle Course
My cousin and I were mall rats in the early to mid 80’s. Our local mall had a Playhouse Toys, that became Circus World and finally KB Toys. We got tossed out there once due to having a lightsaber duel (an open crate of toy light sabers was too tempting for us) in one of the aisles. Good times!
I’d like an FAO video. Their stores always looked so cool and they were so iconic!
Man, as a Floridian, I've watched all of my childhood disappear. From Toys R Us and KB, to the woods and fields, it's all been replaced with apartments. Everything's gotten further away from my town both physically and temporally due to ever-growing traffic congestion.
I loved KB Toys and would always find a reason to slip in there when at the mall. Damned shame that all the toy stores I knew as a kid are gone now.
FYE, EB Games and KB Toys were my go to when I was 7-14 years old. Tbey were great places to go and hang out while my mom was shopping for clothes.
FYE! Bringing back major memories
FYE is still around, albeit barely hanging on though.
A short paranormal story here:
During 8th grade my friends and I walked into a KB Toys looking for the ouija board. I remember seeing it all the way on the top of a shelf, but after thinking about buying twice we decided not to; we were unsure if we wanted to play it after all. Remember walking away from that aisle and just as we turned into the next one the freaking thing fell off the shelf and slapped the floor so hard. When we turned around to look what it was we rushed out of the store; we ran like we never did before lol. It’s funny now but I remember we were freaking out then.
KB Toys was my favorite store during my childhood. Thank you for finally making a video covering them, it depresses me beyond belief how they ended, but I'm grateful I got to experience them during their peak and had so many opportunities to visit their stores during the mid to late 90's all the way until 2009 when they finally shut their doors. I will always cherish the memories I made going there.
Fun Fact: I was born and raised in Pittsfield, MA, where KB Toys was founded and headquartered. KB Toys was absolutely my favorite store when I was a kid. We had two, the main "Flagship" stand alone store and the one in the local mall. We didn't have a Toys R Us so KB was the end all. Great video CoMan.
My story sounds a little unreal, and might have some fuzzy childhood memory recall issues, but I'll tell it anyway.
My Grammy used to work in the mall, as one of those perfume ladies at Filenes (later, Macy's). Every Sunday my mom would bring my brother and me to have lunch with her at Brighams (miss that place). At the time, I was about 9 or 10 and a huge Pokémon fan, and this was right around when the Pokémon Gold and Silver versions were so close to being released. I had followed the rumors and speculation in Pojo and Beckett magazines and couldn't have been more excited.
We go to lunch with my Grammy one Sunday and she says her friend who worked in KB Toys gave her something to give to my brother and me. She proceeds to pull out a copy each of Gold and Silver, which weren't even slated to hit the shelves yet. I almost cried I was so happy.
Playing the game just makes me long for a deli sandwich, some ice cream, and a trip to KB with my Grammy.
I have a similar memory actually. I was a huge Pokémon fan around that time (still am obviously) and would often go to the mall and shop at K B Toys and Game Stop back when Game Stop was actually likable. I have such fond memories of finding merchandise that wasn’t found anywhere else. Including getting one of those Tamagotchi like Pokémon Pikachu LCD pets and it’s colored sequel Pokémon Pikachu 2. I still have the colored one all these years later but I haven’t put a battery in it in years though I was mindful about taking the last battery out. Such fond memories. I remember when they were closing and I bought a ton of old Pokémon card booster boxes on the cheap. Wouldn’t be able to find those that cheap anymore since the individual packs from those sets can go for hundreds. Would sell the Skyridge boxes but part of me would feel guilty about it because I paid only $10 each for the boxes and they go for much more than that....
Your story reminds me of growing up in Boston.
@@mattberg6816 I'm from the Boston area, so it would make sense!
When I turned 18 I applied for a job at KB Toys and Walmart. KB Toys never called me, but Walmart did. I'm kind of glad because not even a year later the KB Toys in my mall close down. I would have been unemployed and had to start the job hunting process all over again.
KB was my favorite mall store until about 9-10. Then EB and Babbages became my favorite. I remember my dad noticed I had been drawing pictures of Resident Evil characters and it was 1999 a year after RE2 came out. He took me to the mall, and got me a used copy for like 12 bucks, and a copy of the first game for like 8 bucks. 2 certified bangers for under 25 bucks. I even washed his car to say thanks for that. Awesome year 😍
Finally, KB Toys was one of the biggest part of my childhood! It was first mall store experience, I remember the animatronics in the 1980s, too bad there aren’t anymore toy stores in the mall anymore!
Ahh my childhood. About cried when I saw the logo. My store had a 3 for $10 deal on old toys so I always felt like a king when shopping after getting my allowance. Thanks for the memories 😭❤️
Thank you for this. I needed the closure.
looking back it’s kind of wild how much of childhood during the recession was like living in a post apocalyptic world. I didn’t realize it at the time, but seeing the effect of failing business was just so normal. Stores closing in the malls, empty fountains, remnants of past extravagance. Specifically thinking of all the sad failing malls and the six flags in my area showing lots of wear like missing pieces of attractions
I used to beg my parents to let us go to KB Toys anytime we went to the mall. Most of the time it was just to look, but I was well aware that it was the best place around to buy a toy lightsaber.
Would love a video on FAO Schwarz. Their "Welcome To Our World Of Toys" song still gets stuck in my head sometimes.
FAO was awesome, never really got much due to the insane prices but man that store was fun to go in. Actually that’s probably part of why they’re gone, lots of foot traffic but how many people were buying 8’ tall stuffed dog for $1200?
Same
It saddens me to watch these on toy/game stores I grew up damn near living in as a kid but I always appreciate videos like these keeping the memories alive
I lived 2 blocks away from a K-B toys and hobbies shop, from the years 1978-1988, and loved going there with my cousin. My favorite toy to get from there was Shrinky Dinks, and Color Forms.There was so much too choose from in this store, and there will never be another like it. Childhood memories. Thank you 😊
The original logo with the toy soldier was the best and honestly...the best remembered.
It's like when Sci-Fi channel became Syfy. We all knew it was the same thing...but with a stupid rebranding.
*If they come back...please tell them to use the original logo. Thanks.
YES! they barely show anything good anyways. Might as well be siffy there's no "sci" in their "fi" lol. I remember in middle school they used to show old reruns of druids and ewoks cartoons, and sci-fi movies from way back. It was amazing. And mst3k. In 6th grade (1996) I was such a fan I got a Sci-fi channel hat, messanger bag, squeeze alien toy, and a coffee mug from their catalogue. It was the first time I'd watched a making of special, they aired that star wars special and it blew my mind as a kid ("from star wars to jedi"). Their rebranding sucked as much as mtv not showing music videos anymore. 💩 sandwhich.
When i was a kid, i would save up the change from my moms purse, take it to the grocery store "Value +" to exchange for cold hard cash, then go to the mall (usually with around $100) and feast on as many Dragon Ball Z and Power Rangers toys imaginable. I would buy toys under $5 and essentially was the happiest kid on earth.
RIP
What was great about Kaybee toys was they were at every rinky dink rural mall in the country, which is where I lived...small town USA, small mall with Penneys, Sears and Woolworths as the anchor stores and not much in between. Those big fancy toy warehouses like Toys-R-Us and Children's Palace were just in the "big cities" and we're just a special treat if we happened to be visiting a larger area. Our crappy little mall, as well as the even littler (but less crappy) mall in the small town nearby both had Kaybee, but the nearest Toys-R-Us was over an hour away. And yes, I remember it as "Kaybee", not KB, being a child of the 1980's.
Company Man, I have to say you do a great job with these videos. As someone who studies business management and hr in college, you can tell I enjoy business very much and I always look forward to your latest video. This was a great video because it was about a company I've never heard of. I don't know that we've ever had a KB Toys near where I live. You did a great job of teaching and informing me about this business that I honestly knew nothing about. Anyway, keep up the great work!
I appreciate that!
When I moved to the states at four years old, the area where I and my mother lived had a KB Toys location literally a block away. We would go there all the time, I have so many good memories of the place. I remember when we would walk in on the left side there would be a table with a glass panel that had all the accessories for electronics in it, and just behind it on the wall, it displayed all the video games at the time, they were behind a glass panel window for display. The games were mostly for Nintendo consoles, such as the DS and GameBoy. Then when you went deeper in the store there would just be isles and isles of random toys, nothing was ever labeled, only the barcodes on the toys. It was like someone threw all the toys everywhere and left, it was fun. It made it sort of like a mystery when you were trying to look for something specific, digging through the piles of toys. Good times, I miss my childhood. I'm gonna go cry now.
My aunt used to work at the headquarters building in Pittsfield, MA. Considering that K.B. Toys was the place I got my first bicycle, it was sad to see them go.
Our KB toys was next to a pet store in our mall, you can imagine how much my mom would have to make us enter the mall at a different entrance, to try and avoid them both. Too bad for her they were across from the Payless. 😂😂😂
This was literally the only store I could enjoy as a kid, seemed like the mall was a terrible place to me as a kid without either this or an arcade... then I learned Barnes and noble had comics etc.. and I moved there 🤣
Company man is definitely one of the best youtubers. Not only has he never had a video that sucks or I disagree with but he always uploads regardless.
my only issue is so hard to wait for his new videos to come out lol
@Safwaan you prolly just a hater. He’s gotta do some type of research to put out these videos.
@Safwaan ok so he just came up with all these stuff then.
@Safwaan then why do you watch it?
I remember going to Kay-Bee Toys almost every time we went to the mall.. and leaving with nothing almost every time as well. Good times.
I spent three years working at KB Toys. Holidays were rough. You develop a new level of hate for Christmas and Black Friday after spending the holiday season having to deal with angry parents who went Christmas shopping too late.
I remember KB Toys and also Something To Do which was a cool hobby store chain. I’d enjoy a video on them as well. Always educational and fun watching your channel 👍
That was my STORE when I was younger!
KB Toys was lit back in the day, it was one of my favorite places to go as a kid.
KB always had a badass aisle toward the back with old/outdated stuff and I absolutely loved sitting through that as a kid.
You never seize to impress me, I've been subbed since the kmart video and the videos keep getting better.
My mom used to work at KB Toys when I was a child. We were just talking about it some time ago and this is giving me such nostalgic feels 🤧
I wonder what that must have been like. Having a parent that works at a toy store. You musta had new toys all the time. The closeouts becoming clearance closeouts.
I've been noticing over time that Bain Capital is a company you never want knocking at your door.
Frankly investment firms in general but man, Bain really seems to take the cake.
Yet these companies seem to go for it
They take the cake, lick off the frosting, hollow it out, then drop it as fast as they can.
@@Mr._E couldn't have said it better myself lmao
LBO's have started to gain popularity during the pandemic. Unsurprisingly BlackRock is a major contributor to it's rise. Another company you definitely don't want knocking at your door.
That place was magical when I was a kid.
I never went to toy'r'us much, but I did go to the mall a lot. Since toys'r'us was bigger and more spacious it didn't feel as cozy to me.
I'm glad you did this video! They were founded and headquartered in my hometown of Pittsfield, MA. I remember when they closed, they put something along the lines of "Thank you" in the windows of their HQ building. Sad...
Absolutely I'll never forget the smell and blue carpet.some of the best treasures as I kid I ever found was at kb toy stores.
I always liked KB toys, I never bought much there, but when they had those closeout deals, I would always scoop stuff up. Definitely a part of my childhood for sure
Don’t ever get rid of this intro video idc what anybody says that’s the absolute jam
This was always a favorite store of mine. I liked Toys R Us, too, but since my family was lower income when I was a kid, it was my only chance to get toys. Fond memories...