After Toys-R-Us closed their doors, many companies rushed in to grab their share of the market left behind. We’ve covered Party City staking their claim within the toy industry. They plan to rent out the abandoned box stores left behind and sell toys during the holiday season.
Amazon has also stepped up their toy game by expanding their toy sales. A lot of ecommerce stores took advantage of Toys-R-Us’ closing by buying up the remaining clearance items as prices were slashed, and resold them on their sites at regular price.
Now, Walmart wants in on the fun. On Thursday, the Walmart website launched their new shopping designation specifically designed for babies and their needs. It’s been dramatically increasing their baby selections for the past year in preparation for the launch.
The website will allow you to design your own nursery so you can choose the right styles that match the look you’re going for. Over the course of the last year, Walmart added over 30,000 items related to all things baby, which has helped online searches for baby items grow over 40%.
This section of the market has allowed Walmart to remain competitive with Amazon and has been a part of the larger overall redesign of their website. Midsummer is also the time when most babies are born historically, so the release of this section of their website is perfectly timed to meet demand and spark interest.
“It also follows efforts to create a new in-store experience in the baby department in more than 2,000 stores across the country,” said Lauren Uppington, the vice president of Walmart’s baby division.
Other stores aren’t going to sit by idly and let Walmart steal all of the fun. Target and Amazon have been making waves themselves within this industry.
Target has been making moves to expand their own private-label brand Cloud Island and offered free gift bags to future moms if they register at their stores. Amazon took things several steps forward by famously throwing Kim Kardashian a baby shower earlier this year, who returned the favor by plugging Amazon to her over 70 million followers.
These are the moves Toys-R-Us and Babies-R-Us should’ve been making all along to stay competitive within their niche, but in their abrupt absence, has left their competitors all fighting for a piece of the market.
This also proves without a doubt how powerful online shopping has become, sucking in a larger portion of all shopping dollars spent with each passing year.
