Toys R Us is preparing a major expansion of its physical U.S. retail network ahead of the 2026 holiday shopping season, with plans to open 120 new standalone stores across the country in partnership with Go! Retail Group. The September 17 announcement represents a sharp acceleration of the brand’s return to American brick-and-mortar retail and is expected to increase its standalone U.S. store count to 160 locations by the holiday season. The company currently has about 40 standalone stores in addition to Toys R Us shops operating inside Macy’s locations nationwide.

The scale of the rollout gives the expansion significance beyond the toy category. Toys R Us was once one of the most recognizable specialty retailers in the United States, but its former domestic operating company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2017 and subsequently liquidated its U.S. store base. WHP Global acquired a controlling interest in the Toys R Us brand in 2021 and has since rebuilt its American presence through a partnership-driven model rather than attempting immediately to recreate the chain’s former national network.

The latest expansion puts Go! Retail Group at the center of that strategy. The Austin, Texas-based operator has experience running seasonal and specialty retail concepts and began working with WHP Global on standalone Toys R Us stores after the brand outlined a broader U.S. expansion strategy. Under the new plan, the two companies will use the critical holiday period to extend the retailer into substantially more communities while maintaining the partnership-based approach that has characterized the brand’s revival.

The 120-store increase is especially significant when measured against Toys R Us’ current standalone footprint. Moving from roughly 40 locations to 160 would quadruple the number of standalone stores available to U.S. consumers during the season. The company has not positioned the expansion as a simple return to its previous big-box model. Instead, its recent retail strategy combines standalone locations with department-store concessions, airport shops, military retail locations and other formats designed to place the brand in multiple shopping environments.

The stores themselves will emphasize products tied to some of the strongest trends currently shaping the toy business. Toys R Us said the new locations will carry a curated selection of toys, collectibles and gifts associated with brands and properties including LEGO, Barbie, Hot Wheels, Pokémon and KPop Demon Hunters. That merchandise mix reflects the growing importance of licensing, fandom and collectibles, which have expanded the addressable toy market well beyond purchases made solely for young children.

Industry data provide a favorable backdrop for the timing of the expansion. Circana reported in August that U.S. toy industry dollar sales increased 17% during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, while unit sales grew 12% and average selling prices increased 4%. Games and puzzles, building sets, arts and crafts, action figures and other collectible-oriented categories were among the areas recording strong gains. Licensed toys rose 24% and represented 39% of total toy sales during the period.

The demographic composition of that growth is particularly relevant to Toys R Us’ strategy. Circana said adult-only households accounted for 55% of toy sales through June and increased their spending by 16%. Sales of toys for adult recipients aged 18 and older rose 25%, while spending for recipients aged 12 to 17 increased 33%. Teens and adults together generated nearly 60% of incremental industry dollar growth in the first half of the year. Those figures illustrate how toys increasingly function as collectibles, hobbies and fandom-related products as well as traditional children’s merchandise.

That broader audience may help explain why Toys R Us is incorporating content creation and entertainment elements into selected stores. Some locations will include Creator Studios, dedicated spaces designed for influencers, creators and toy companies to produce content, unveil products and stage launches or special events. The format links physical retail more closely to social platforms, where collectible products, unboxings, launches and character-driven merchandise can generate substantial consumer attention.

Select stores will also include candy shops and cafés, according to the company. Those additions move the format further from a conventional transactional retail model and toward a destination-based experience intended to increase customer dwell time. Rather than relying exclusively on shelves of merchandise, Toys R Us is seeking to combine shopping with entertainment, discovery and events — a strategy increasingly used by retailers attempting to give consumers reasons to visit physical locations despite the convenience of e-commerce.

The retailer’s executives are framing the expansion as an opportunity to restore the sense of discovery historically associated with the brand. Jamie Uitdenhowen, executive vice president of Toys R Us at WHP Global, said the company is expanding through a variety of channels so consumers can encounter the brand in hometown stores, Macy’s locations, airports and Navy Exchanges. Go! Retail Group Chief Executive Gideon Schlessinger said the larger store network could reach millions of customers and create destinations capable of drawing repeat visits.

The standalone rollout is only one component of the current expansion. Toys R Us is also extending its presence in travel retail. The company said its first new shop-in-shop at Orlando International Airport opened in August through a partnership with WHSmith North America, while another Orlando airport location is scheduled to open in summer 2027. The company also operates through Navy Exchange Service Command locations, extending the brand to military customers and their families.

The multi-format strategy reduces the need for Toys R Us to depend entirely on one kind of real estate. Department-store concessions provide access to established Macy’s traffic; airport locations target travelers and families; Navy Exchange sites serve a specialized customer base; and standalone stores allow the company to build more complete branded environments. Taken together, the formats show WHP Global using licensing and operating partners to extend Toys R Us’ distribution while keeping the brand visible across different consumer touchpoints.

The Macy’s relationship remains an important part of that network. Toys R Us previously established branded shops inside Macy’s stores across the country, giving the toy brand national distribution before its standalone footprint recovered. That arrangement demonstrated how the Toys R Us name could operate as a retail concept inside another chain rather than requiring a fully independent national store system. The new standalone expansion adds a much larger layer of dedicated physical locations to that existing distribution model.

For shopping-center operators and landlords, the rollout may also provide a high-profile seasonal traffic generator at a time when physical retail continues to evolve. Toy stores have historically benefited from the concentration of purchasing in the final months of the year, when gift shopping drives significantly higher consumer traffic. A nationally recognized specialty brand opening more than 100 locations within a compressed seasonal period therefore has implications for mall, outlet-center and shopping-center traffic as well as for competing retailers.

The expansion does not, however, mean Toys R Us is rebuilding the same business that disappeared from U.S. retail in 2018. The company’s current footprint remains far smaller than the former chain’s pre-liquidation estate, and its ownership and operating structure are different. WHP Global manages Toys R Us as part of a broader brand portfolio and relies on operating partners for much of the physical retail execution. That structure gives the company flexibility to test locations and concepts while building distribution without relying solely on a traditional corporate-store model.

The holiday rollout will provide an important test of that model on a much larger scale. Opening 120 locations requires inventory allocation, staffing, merchandising and real estate coordination during the most important period of the toy retail calendar. Execution will matter because holiday demand is concentrated and missing peak selling weeks can materially reduce the economic value of a seasonal location. Go! Retail Group’s background in seasonal retail provides an operational foundation for that challenge, but the scale of the 2026 program is considerably larger than Toys R Us’ recent standalone footprint.

Merchandise selection will also be critical. The U.S. toy market’s recent growth has been unusually influenced by trading cards, collectibles, licenses and products connected to established fan communities. Circana reported that games and puzzles increased 45% in dollar sales during the first half, building sets grew 22%, arts and crafts increased 20%, and action figures and accessories rose 10%. That pattern favors retailers capable of responding quickly to fast-moving licensed products and collectible demand.

It also makes the physical-store experience potentially more important than headline industry growth alone would suggest. Collectibles and fandom merchandise can benefit from product drops, community activity and social-media attention, all of which can create reasons for consumers to shop in person. Toys R Us’ Creator Studios and special-event plans appear designed to connect those behaviors directly to its stores. If effective, the model could help differentiate its locations from general merchandise retailers and online marketplaces that compete aggressively on price and convenience.

The retailer is rebuilding at a time when the boundary between children’s merchandise and adult consumer categories is becoming less distinct. Building sets, collectible figures, trading cards and licensed products increasingly attract buyers who regard the products as hobbies or expressions of fandom. For Toys R Us, that evolution potentially increases the number of customers who can be served by a specialty toy store and creates opportunities for merchandising around entertainment releases, sports properties and cultural trends rather than relying solely on traditional age-based toy categories.

Toys R Us’ international network also gives the brand a scale beyond its rebuilt U.S. footprint. The company said the brand generates more than $2 billion in annual global retail sales through more than 1,680 stores and e-commerce operations across 37 countries. The figures underscore the distinction between the collapse of the former U.S. operating company and the continued global value of the Toys R Us brand, which remained present in international markets and has subsequently been expanded through licensing and retail partnerships.

The U.S. expansion therefore represents both a retail growth initiative and a broader test of brand durability. Toys R Us is attempting to translate decades of consumer recognition into a modern distribution model built around partnerships, flexible physical formats and experiential elements. Unlike a conventional nationwide reopening program, the strategy gives the brand multiple routes to consumers and allows different formats to serve different markets.

The timing may be unusually favorable. With U.S. toy sales posting their strongest first-half growth in years and older consumers contributing heavily to the category’s expansion, the 2026 holiday season gives Toys R Us a chance to reintroduce standalone stores to a consumer market that is broader and more collectible-driven than it was when the former chain liquidated. At the same time, the holiday period will provide a demanding real-world test of whether traffic, conversion and repeat visits can support a materially larger physical network beyond seasonal enthusiasm.

For the wider retail industry, the outcome will be closely watched because Toys R Us embodies a broader question facing legacy brands: whether established names can return to physical retail without recreating the expensive store structures that previously failed. The 120-store initiative combines brand recognition with outsourced operating expertise, flexible locations, digital-era merchandising and experiential concepts. Its performance during the holiday season will offer an indication of how far that model can extend as Toys R Us continues rebuilding its U.S. presence.