How much of the reason is online?

With the closing of all Toys R Us stores as the latest news about struggling retail chains and malls around the country, the blame goes mostly to the behemoth of online retail.

How much of a factor is that? It may be less than it seems.

Toys R Us, for instance, flourished from the late '70s through the early '90s. It came apart in the early-2000s to now.

Looking at what they were selling during these two eras shows evidence of another cause: a cultural failing.

In Toys R Us' glory days, they had Star Wars figures, Hello Kitty, G.I. Joe (small figures), Legos, Masters of the Universe, Transformers, Atari, Cabbage Patch Kids, Rubik's cubes, Smurfs, Strawberry Shortcake and more, when these toys were new, for the most part. By 2018, amidst online competition, Toys R Us was selling many of those to a second or third generation and new offerings that included what...? Any new, genuinely big hit toy lines of the last decade?

For malls, its a similar situation.

After the building boom of the '70s and early '80s, look what strong stores were at malls – The Gap, Eddie Bauer, Banana Republic, Benetton, later Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister and more rare ones like J. Crew. Anchors like the Bon Marche and Nordstrom sold notable new clothing lines and shoes. Later on, what about the Apple Store? Very interesting from their debut in 2001 up until about 2011. Disney stores? A successful addition to malls in the early ‘90s, what’s on a shelf there now from a new movie, cartoon or ride? Pixar's latest half-success is not the same as an Ariel doll when “The Little Mermaid” was new.

When was the last time someone walked into a Banana Republic? Any fun new mall food stores like Cinnabon and Mrs. Field's Cookies once upon a time? Mall movie theaters? Anything playing there you want to see more than once on the big screen?

If online sales are 13 percent of retail today (2017 tally, 11 percent in 2016), what percent was catalog sales before? Say three percent? Two percent. So a loss of nine or 10 percent of retail has led to shuttered malls across the country?

Ten percent is a lot, but what once drew us to certain stores and malls was to see what was new and exciting. Old Navy is still (mostly) strong at malls, but they were never a destination. It was a place to find a pretty good shirt and be excited by the low price.

As it was once said, nothing attracts a crowd, like a crowd. A mall is a receptacle for a crowd. But first there needs to be an initial attraction. What is that now for malls? What was it in the last days, in the the last rows, on the last shelves of Toys R Us?

Toys R Us may yet come back and malls are not finished, but here's to hoping they soon have something more exciting to sell us. Maybe that will help.

Garth Meyer, Reporter