Babies R Us is moving into 200 Kohl’s stores later this year, including five in the Chicago area, in a new partnership, the retailer said.
Chicago-area locations include a store in the city’s Bucktown neighborhood and suburban locations in Elmhurst, Norridge, Hodgkins and Batavia. The newly outfitted Kohl’s locations will start popping up in August, the company said, and all 200 stores should be ready in time for the holiday season.
The Babies R Us shops will range from 750 to 2,500 square feet of space and be located next to Kohl’s baby and kids’ sections, the company said. Kohls.com will also offer an expanded Babies R Us supply online.
The partnership was first announced in March in an effort to broaden Kohl’s reach with younger customers.
“We see significant opportunity in the baby gear category, and partnering with Babies R Us is another example of how we are finding new ways to optimize our assortment and further establish Kohl’s as the go-to brand for families,” Kohl’s CEO Tom Kingsbury said in a statement at the time.
This is not Kohl’s first foray into the store-within-a-store concept. The Wisconsin-based retailer added Sephora makeup sections to its stores beginning in 2021. That partnership exceeded $1.4 billion in sales last year, the company announced in March.
Projected sales are expected to grow, Kohl’s said, as the company plans to open some 140 more Sephora stores in existing Kohl’s locations in 40 states by the summer, including some in Illinois. This will bring Sephora products to a total of over 1,000 Kohl’s stores, with a full rollout planned by 2025.
Kohl’s partnership with Babies R Us mirrors one Macy’s entered into with affiliate brand Toys R Us in 2022, when the brands announced Toys R Us would open in all Macy’s U.S. locations including its Chicago flagship store on State Street.
The store-within-a-store concept offered Chicago shoppers an opportunity to buy Toys R Us products in person since the company moved primarily to online sales after closing its bricks-and-mortar locations in the wake of its 2017 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
