Toys R Us, which has established over 50 stores in Asia under Hong Kong-based Master Franchisee Lee & Fung Group's Convenience Retail Asia unit, is set to open its first store in mainland China in November.

The US toy retailer operates over 1,200 stores in 34 countries worldwide, and is opening the new location in Shanghai. "We're currently focused on getting the one store up and running and the opening of that store will be in mid-November," says Pieter Schats, Chief Executive Officer of Toys R Us in Asia. "Early next year we'll sit back and review, and decide how to expand the footprint both in Shanghai itself and in some other cities in China. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of retailers that are occupying middle-income mass-market toy retail."