Toys"R"Us Brings the Magic of Its Stores to the Online Experience

Toys"R"Us is Asia’s leading retailer of toys, games, leisure equipment, and educational products. Headquartered in Hong Kong, it operates over 470 stores with more than 10,000 team members across Asia, including Brunei, mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. It also licenses more than 85 stores in the Philippines and Macau.

Complementing this physical presence is the brand’s new ecommerce experience which is powered by Commerce Cloud. The Salesforce solution has helped Toys"R"Us simplify merchandising while delivering a unified experience that’s tailored to the needs of consumers across Asia.

Tim Halaska, Regional General Manager of Digital Strategy at Toys"R"Us Asia, acknowledged that bricks and mortar would always have a place within the company. However, COVID-19 and changing consumer preferences had led to a more significant focus on ecommerce.

“Toys"R"Us is all about the child and the interactive experience they get when they walk into our store,” said Halaska.

In the past, ecommerce for Toys"R"Us was managed independently by each local market. This led to time and money spent on maintaining multiple websites. It also took the local teams’ focus away from value added activities like sales and marketing. So as more markets came online, Toys"R"Us decided to centralise ecommerce with Commerce Cloud.

“What we’ve done is create a regional team to manage ecommerce using one platform that runs across all markets. That means our regional team can keep things running and take care of maintenance while local teams focus on what’s important to them which is driving sales locally,” said Halaska.

It has taken Toys"R"Us just one year to launch new mobile-first websites in seven markets. This has included a new website for Singapore, which was launched just before the COVID-19 pandemic and supported a significant increase in local sales.

In addition to the time saved maintaining the new websites, Toys"R"Us is able to leverage economies of scale to launch websites in markets like Thailand where it previously lacked an online presence. The company is also able to quickly bring on new franchise partners and integrations.

Ecommerce has now evolved from a side operation to an integral part of the Toys"R"Us business. All products available in-store are available online for the same price. Promotional offers are also valid online and offline, so no matter where a customer chooses to shop they can enjoy the same deals.

“One of the things we’ve really focused on is the customer journey and creating alignment between the online and offline experience. So now when an email goes out about a promotion in-store, the customer can also purchase that product online straight away,” said Halaska. “Commerce Cloud makes that omni-channel journey more seamless and helps us deliver equally amazing experiences to each market, no matter if it's big or small.”

These experiences include personalised product recommendations enabled by Einstein and instant enrollments into Toys"R"Us’s Star Card Loyalty Program. The program allows customers to earn points in-store and online and provides them with access to exclusive offers and events. In exchange, Toys"R"Us is able to track and understand its customers’ behaviour and provide more personalised experiences. This includes promotions tailored to the interests of customers in each market.

“We can now see the customer’s journey from in-store to online. We’re excited to delve into that further and use those insights to connect with customers in new ways. For example, we can send customers information that’s tailored to the age of their child,” said Halaska. “And what we hope is that the child will keep coming back and go on to raise their own Toys"R"Us kid. Then, everyone will be happy.”

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