In the wake of last year’s liquidation, the brand will be opening stores in a joint venture with software retailer b8ta.

Toys R Us is making a comeback for the holiday season with two permanent locations in Simon Property Group’s Galleria mall in Houston and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield’s Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, New Jersey. The new stores will be significantly smaller their superstore predecessors—scaling down to just 10,000 square feet from the previous 40,000. The brand’s new tech partner b8ta will be working to make the most of these smaller spaces with an in-house technology platform to both grow online sales and track better sales analytics.

In 2018, the brand shuttered 800 U.S. stores as a result of its massive debt load, competition from ecommerce retailers such as Amazon, and failure to invest in stores. As the retail landscape changed rapidly over the course of a few years, the former market giant struggled to keep up. 

Richar Barry, president of Tru Kids and former chief merchandising officer of Toys R us said as reported by CNBC, “I don’t think there’s many times where you can take such a great storied brand as Toys R Us and get a chance to repaint the canvas.” Barry continued, “While we have a smaller footprint, we believe we will present a super exciting set of experiences in the store and products.”

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