Toys"R"Us Joins Walmart, Kmart in Holiday Exclusives After Thwarting Macy's

(MoneyWatch)  Getting its own exclusive kids deal going for the holidays, Toys"R"Us is partnering with LEGO Systems in establishing "Bricktober," a month-long event at the retailer's stores across the United States and online, saluting the bricks that kids still use to build skyscrapers, planes, trains and even intergalactic warships. Toys"R"Us will offer weekly deals on LEGO products through in-store boutiques, special events and collectible exclusive LEGO bricks, while supplies last.

That final point is important. Retailers lately have been turning to short-term sell-through special events ?€" such as Wal-Mart's $298 computer ?€" not only to ensure a little excitement, but also to gain more control over their cost and the inventory associated with them. A season-long promotion, if it works, risks running out of product and alienating consumers, and, if it doesn't, sticking retailers with excess inventory that has to be sold off at a pittance. Shorter-term promotions with inventory that's meant to sell out before interest falls off provides a nice solution. It still does what the retailer wants, getting folks who are aware they're looking at a limited-time deal through the doors fast, while giving them a gander at the whole range of products offered. In that way, the overall effect is, hopefully, a boost in profitable sales. Successful promotions also help keep consumers out of rival stores and, given Nielsen research predicting that consumers are going to try to concentrate their shopping into fewer trips this year, that's especially important in 2009.

Nielsen also says that consumers are going to be on the watch for interesting deals throughout the autumn and early winter. So, the research firm suggests, rather than a traditional focus on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, retailers ought to work the entire fall and keep up the pressure right through gift card season in January.

Toys"R"Us seems to support that opinion at least for the early end of the season with its Bricktober timing. Weekly in October, Toys"R"Us stores and Toysrus.com will offer savings of up to 30 percent off all LEGO products along with additional specials on more than 230 of the brand's construction sets. A construction set deal starts Sunday and continues through Oct. 10, again, while supplies last. Over the next three weeks, Toys"R"Us stores will provide additional bargains, including special offers and gifts with purchase. Outside of the standard presentation, LEGO products will occupy dedicated boutiques in the retailer's stores where the largest assortment of the construction sets will be displayed.

Toys"R"Us plans to offer dozens of LEGO products that can't be found anywhere else in the promotion, including movie-themed construction and cityscapes sets as well as to LEGO-themed electronics. The exclusive new LEGO merchandise provided includes a Star Wars Fan's Choice Anniversary Edition Home One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser and a LEGO Brick Boom Box from Digital Blue, which looks like a traditional LEGO brick, but at 10 times the size and including an AM/FM radio, 1.1-inch LCD display with backlight and MP3 player.

Kmart already has announced a holiday exclusive program featuring Nickelodeon's Dora the Explorer as part of a label, Dora Loves Puppy, that covers toys and other merchandise. Walmart countered with a Garanimals toys exclusive. Ironically, a deal Macy's made with FAO Schwarz before the last holiday season, one that put boutiques loaded with that specialty toy retailer's signature stuffed animals in the department store's outlets, may have been something of an inspiration for all the present activity. That arrangement was severed by Toys"R"Us when it purchased FAO Schwarz this spring. Ironically or deliberately, but something like that.