Toys No Longer Я Us

Lots has been written about the demise of Toys Я Us, which has announced it will close all its stores. What The Washington Post writes about this business failure deserves our attention.

The change in the number of children born in the previous 12 years (and thus sitting right within the Toys R Us demographic), tracks closely with the company’s changing annual revenue.

But it’s nonetheless apparent that Toys R Us’s fortunes rise and fall with the population of its target market.

And that’s why the company’s demise should worry the rest of us. Toys R Us focuses on kids, so it’s feeling the crunch from declining birthrates long before the rest of the economy. But it’s just a matter of time before the trends that toppled the troubled toy maker put the squeeze on businesses that cater to consumers of all ages.

Worry about the drop in births has college administrators scrambling to determine how to serve previously unserved demographics in order to, as we wrote the other day, "keep the doors open and the lights on." It should worry the military, and the car dealership down the street, too.