This appears to be a well-timed delivery: Babies R Us, after shutting its stores when parent Toys R Us liquidated in 2018, is returning in the United States a week after a deal to save rival Buy Buy Baby reportedly fell apart.

Babies R Us, under new ownership, is scheduled to open a 10,000-square-foot flagship store next Wednesday at the American Dream megamall in East Rutherford, New Jersey. But the competitive landscape it faces after a roughly five-year absence from the brick-and-mortar retail scene will still not be welcoming, according to Neil Saunders, a managing director at research firm GlobalData.

"With the exit of Buy Buy Baby, there is more opportunity for Babies R Us," Saunders said in an email to CoStar News. "However, the brand still faces an uphill struggle as it has to compete with generalists like Target and Walmart, both of which do extremely well in baby products."

That's not all, Saunders said: "Online competition has also grown and has increased consumers’ focus on price. Success will ultimately come down to Babies R Us creating a good proposition with compelling products and great service, something it struggled with previously."

New York-based WHP Global, the owner of the Babies R Us and Toys R Us brands, said in January it would be reviving the baby-goods retailer with a store at American Dream this summer. WHP Global also said it was looking to roll out nationally Babies R Us, a specialty retailer of baby products and merchandise. The company debuted a Toys R Us flagship at the massive mall in December 2021.

In the first half of the year, there have already been a number of store bankruptcies and even liquidations — retailers including Buy Buy Baby's Union, New Jersey-based parent Bed Bath & Beyond, as well as Tuesday Morning and Christmas Tree Shops — as consumers hit by high inflation are more careful about spending.

Bed Bath & Beyond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April, and ultimately failed to find a buyer for either its namesake chain and Buy Buy Baby stores. Leases for those locations are being auctioned by A&G Real Estate Partners, and the intellectual properties of Bed Bath & Beyond and Buy Buy Baby are being sold to two different firms.

A&G has already auctioned 109 leases, most of them for Bed Bath & Beyond stores, but also for two distribution centers and 20 Buy Buy Baby locations. In that round of bidding, Burlington Stores is acquiring 44 leases; Barnes & Noble, four leases; Michaels, eight leases; Aldi, one lease; Macy's/Bloomingdale's, one lease; and PGA Tour Superstore, one lease.

A&G plans to conduct a second auction for 273 leases, for Bed Bath & Beyond and Buy Buy Baby stores, located across 45 states next Wednesday. All Buy Buy Baby stores are slated to be closed by the end of the month.

American Dream offers entertainment options as well as stores, and its owner, Triple Five Group, has stressed that it wants its retailers to offer shoppers experiences. In line with that, the Babies R Us store will have interactive features such as a stroller test track, a "Bon Voyage" photo opp station, a nursery design center, and a baby registry lounge.

The tale of the Toys R Us bankruptcy and liquidation offers a scenario about how at least one retail liquidation panned out. Toys R Us, burdened by debt from a leveraged buyout, filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2017. It liquidated in 2018, resulting in all its banner stores and the Babies R Us chain closing. The brands were later acquired by Tru Kids.

WHP Global, a brand management firm, in 2021 bought its majority stake in Toys R Us and Babies R Us and set out to revive them domestically. Babies R Us has licensed stores outside the United States, and the brand "can be found in more than 20 countries with digital sites, and over 100 standalone and side-by-side Toys R Us branded stores," WPH Global said in January.

Bed Bath & Beyond had tried to sell Buy Buy Baby, considered its crown jewel, separately from its core chain. The parent company went so far as to schedule a separate auction for Buy Buy Baby's assets, which was canceled after Go Global Retail, owner of kids retailer Janie and Jack, expressed interest in buying the chain. But it couldn't reach a deal to acquire Buy Buy Baby, according to CNBC.

So this week the bankruptcy court approved the sale of Buy Buy Baby's trademark and digital assets to Dream on Me Industries, based in Piscataway, New Jersey, for $15.5 million. Overstock.com, headquartered in Midvale, Utah, is acquiring Bed Bath & Beyond's intellectual properties for $21.5 million.