Toys ‘R’ Us Inc. has announced that they will be acquiring eToys.com from The Parent Co.  The Parent Co. filed for bankruptcy this past December.  The financial terms were not disclosed.  Other websites included in the deal are BabyUniverse.com and ePregnancy.com.  All of these sites will be operating in the same web portfolio as Toysrus.com and Babiesrus.com.  The acquired websites will remain in operation under the same.

Chris Byrne, the content director at timetoplaymag.com stated that this acquisition may help boost the online presence for Toys ‘R’ Us.  “Toys ‘R’ Us has been investing heavily in making their online experience really strong,” added Byrne. “The ‘eToys’ brand name has had some cache and I’m sure they got a great deal.”  The Parent Co. has been looking for alternatives for their owned businesses since they filed for bankruptcy.

The Parent Company (NASDAQ:KIDS) filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday.  The Parent Company runs several Internet retailing companies such as eToys.com, MyTwinn.com, BabyUniverse.com, Dreamtime Baby, ePregnancy, Babytv.com, Poshtots, PoshCravings, and PoshLiving.  The Parent Company filed the Chapter 11 along with their majority owner D.E. Shaw & Company.

This move was ““an unfortunate but necessary and responsible step to preserve the company’s value for our stakeholders in light of the ongoing challenging retail environment,” according to Michael J. Wagner, CEO of The Parent Company. Retailers as a whole had one of their worst holiday shopping seasons with the exception of Amazon.com.  To try and win Internet retailers to eToys, the company offered 60% of on over 1,300 toys and games.  Clearly this wasn’t enough to woo customers to buy a significant amount of goods from them.

About eight years ago, eToys filed for bankruptcy and KB Toys bought them out for about $5 million.  Three years after that, KB Toys had to file for bankruptcy.  KB Toys had to file again this year.  Now they are having going out of business sales.  It’s been a rough year for retail everywhere.

[via NYT]