---
title: "Toys R Us Returns for Holiday Season With New Tech Partner"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/fb0a27c0-81c0-4c92-97a9-5269fd27f3f4
source: "1851 Franchise"
original_url: https://1851franchise.com/toys-r-us-returns-for-holiday-season-with-new-tech-partner-2710534
category: "Retail"
industry: "Retail"
topics: ["Technology"]
published: 2019-07-18T15:10:20.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T02:31:39.334Z
image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/37711aea431edeaa26668cec8ccdd9988935.jpg
---

# Toys R Us Returns for Holiday Season With New Tech Partner

**TL;DR:** Toys R Us is making a comeback for the holiday season with two permanent locations in Simon Property Group's malls, partnering with b8ta for an in-house technology platform. The new stores will be significantly smaller than their predecessors, scaling down to 10,000 square feet.

*originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2019-07-18. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/toys-r-us-returns-for-holiday-season-with-new-tech-partner-2710534).*

## Story

Toys R Us is making a comeback for the holiday season with two permanent locations in Simon Property Group’s Galleria mall in Houston and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, New Jersey. The new stores will be significantly smaller their superstore predecessors—scaling down to just 10,000 square feet from the previous 40,000. The brand’s new tech partner b8ta will be working to make the most of these smaller spaces with an in-house technology platform to both grow online sales and track better sales analytics.

In 2018, the brand shuttered 800 U.S. stores as a result of its massive debt load, competition from ecommerce retailers such as Amazon, and failure to invest in stores. As the retail landscape changed rapidly over the course of a few years, the former market giant struggled to keep up.

Richar Barry, president of Tru Kids and former chief merchandising officer of Toys R us said as reported by CNBC, “I don’t think there’s many times where you can take such a great storied brand as Toys R Us and get a chance to repaint the canvas.” Barry continued, “While we have a smaller footprint, we believe we will present a super exciting set of experiences in the store and products.”

## Entities

- 1851 Franchise (publication)
- Retail (sector)
- Amazon (company)
- holiday season (topic)
- Toys R Us (company)
- store format (topic)
- Simon Property Group (company)
- tech partnership (topic)
- retail comeback (topic)

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Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/toys-r-us-returns-for-holiday-season-with-new-tech-partner-2710534). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/fb0a27c0-81c0-4c92-97a9-5269fd27f3f4).