Liquidation company will handle it. Likely to be very few actual deals.

Sad. Used to ride my bike there for GI Joes.

Well that’s sad. Around here they were the last good toystore left... overpriced maybee, but they had it!

dang , wonder when stuff will start getting marked down

i also have fond memories of exchanging the paper slip for nes/snes games back in the day.

except i bought shaq fu there... still have it cib if anyone is interested ;P

They usually jack the prices back up to full retail or more, then say everything is "up to 25% off!", then baby step the savings up until everything's gone, most of it at more than it cost before the fake sale by sheeple who think they're getting a deal. There are almost never deals at liquidation company sales until the last day or two, and only if there's something you want left, which is rare.

i got some sweet deals on some video games at circuit city during their sell off

Not saying it CAN'T happen, just that it's unlikely. I usually don't bother even looking until they're 70-90% off the last week or so, which is actually about 30% off a good street price.

KMART and Sears are doing this in our town right now, and it's the same game. OfficeMax just did it a year or so ago. Same company handles almost all these.

It is very sad.

Also all part of the master plan. As time goes by, this will continue, one step at a time. Then, someday a time will come when there is only one place to buy everything. And guess what? All that free shipping? Gone. Those lowest of the low prices? Gone. Everyone will be locked into the monopoly and forced to their terms. They are in it for the long game. Patient and ruthless.

At least Bezos is paying for all that evil with his hair.

Yes. This is why I buy most things from the retailers. I have had no problems getting price matches from the big ones: Best Buy, target, Kohl’s, Walmart.

I always loved going to toys r us!!

The last thing I purchased there was my Nintendo Switch with Zelda a couple days after the launch. They also sometimes had decent deals on games if you watched their inserts. Buy one new game and get any other title 50% off? Not too bad...

My best memory would be stopping in on my way home from work to play some Mario on the newly released N64 until I was able to find my own machine to purchase.

First Toy City and now Toys R Us.

I could see the writing on the wall when I took my daughter there in the 2000s. A huge superstore with none of the cool toys like we used to have.

Sad day indeed. It will be missed. RIP.

So where do you go to shop for kids toys now? online has nice pictures but you can't touch them.. or am I dating myself and all of that is passé now.

Walmart, of course.

Sad. Can’t say I’m surprised though.

It is a bummer to see this, I remember playing A LOT of video games on the kiosks there back in the 80s and early 90s.

Amazon gets another fatality

ToysRUs could have made it. A long time ago they should have made all the stores smaller and thinned the number of stores down.

Sad. We had Toys R Us shops in France too. I wish there were shops like this when I was a little kid. Would have been Paradise!

I worked there as a kid when they sold TI-99's, Coleco Adams, Vectrex, Atari 800, Commode 64, and all those sweet carts... too bad they didn't pay well enough to afford'em -- except when the TI-99 was going for $50!
You haven't lived a full life until you've stacked cases of Huggies 15 high and challenge your workmates to "rock climb" the cardboard dipey wall...
And here's my vest I found after a closet remodel a few years ago, complete with Mr. T + Q*Bert mashup badge. @!#?@!

S3920001 (resized).JPG
S3920002 (resized).JPG

Selling video games at Toys R Us was my first "real" job. Man, I loved that job.... Real, real sad to see the place closing.

I have to say, I'm a little disappointed that your screen name isn't "Mr. Sluggo"

Unknown (resized).png

I’m pretty sure that their stayin open in Canada. At least for now

An American tragedy considering this company 20 years ago had a complete monopoly on not only the Videogame Industry but the entire Toy Industry. They were on the verge of buying THQ, Playmates & Hasbro 20 years ago and accounted for over 27% of all videogame sales....hardware & software. This is truly a sad day in American History.

Grew up as a kid going to my local Toys R Us which when you were a little kid was Paradise! There was nothing like Toys R Us and there will never be anything like it again.

Some will say they didn't change with the times but that's BS. You can pretty much blame Cell Phones & Cell Phone Technology for ending childhood at a younger age than previously.

GameStop will be the next chain to take a GIANT CRAP! Expect them to close half their stores over the next two years!

Hmmm, the obverse confirms it...

S3920030 (resized).JPG

Man - I used to take my kids to Toys 'R Us ALL the time when they were little. Hard to believe they're now gone.

This is the big toy store (now LONG gone and nearly forgotten) from my youth growing up in the Chicago suburbs that preceded TRU's rise:

The best T'Я'U job: spending Sunday assembling gym set floor models. Customers would see us doing this and then hire us (on the side) to assemble their new set in their backyard.

Best returns: those crappy Taiwanese kids bikes broken in half because kids rode'm as if they were BMX bikes.

Dammit... you beat me to the Geoffery the Giraffe reference.

My old childhood Toys R Us has been a Best Buy for years. I wonder what it'll be next.

I'm not really sad to see them go. I had multiple bad experiences there, they made it such a pain to buy anything like video games. Amazon didn't kill them, they did themselves in. It's finally getting to the time where all these companies that treated their customers the worst (Blockbuster, Toys'r'us, Gamestop, etc) are finally feeling the downside of doing that for years. Gamestop probably will be next, and they kind of deserve it to. I remember when they used to jack up new releases by an extra $5 over MSRP because they were the only local place to have enough copies. People don't forget stuff like that, or at least I don't.

It's going to take longer but some of the other notorious areas for bad service/screwing you (cable companies and rental cars) will be the next areas to be done in.

Taylor34. Agreed. Its like with Blockbuster. It was better to have them around, but I wasnt crying for them when they left. Toys R Us and Blockbusters best days were 20 plus years ago. Bad customer service galore.

I did love there 80s jingle though.

I'm fairly certain that is Jenny Lewis of The Wizard fame as the redhead girl. I recognize that curly haired boy with the glasses from a movie as well, and some in the comment section claim that is Urkel on the swing.

Explanation from a few months back:

Forceflow. Fascinating vid. For those who don't want to watch it, it says that in 2006 they did a leveraged buyout, which gained them 6.6 billion in debt, and with declining sales in a crowded shrinking market they buckled. So sad that greed by the banks and a few investors lost our economy 33k jobs.

This is a terrible contagious trend. We are all to blame for things like this with internet shopping. Not that this is the only cause for their demise.

The government needs to step in and tax heavy on internet sales or this will be the fate of all but a select few stores.

Also brick and mortar retailers need to be willing to start price matching all major on line prices if they are to survive.

If these things happen it will draw people back into store which not only helps the store but all aspects of commerce , auto, fuel , jobs manufacturing of products , upkeep of buildings ect ect

Online also kills is the spontaneous purchases. Buying a tv online you buy the tv, at the store ( hey maybe I’ll get some wiggets and stop for lunch )

Continue down this path and there could be a total breakdown in the economy....... That’s just my thoughs.

Something has to change and soon. We need to get people back in stores and away from their computers. Personally I would gladly pay 5 or so dollars more for a 100 item if I can physically see and touch it. Also if there is an issue I can return it the same day

Hope someone has an answer soon or good mid income jobs will be much more scare.

The one here in town closed up probably ten years ago. I have there sign. The building has been sitting vacant every since. Also both of the Kmarts in town have closed up as well. People must love Walmart for some reason.

John

IMG_0134 (resized).JPG

Crazy thing is John ....... I have seen WMs close stores this year.

That's awesome!!

John

I think a lot of people are missing the real reason they are closing....a failed leveraged buyout by Bain capital. They piled massive amounts of debt onto the company, and the interest alone is choking them to death. The pimps at Goldman Sachs did the same thing to the company I work for, and we are still digging out from a crippling debt load 10 years later. But hey, the investors made out okay!

climbing the diaper wall? heck no! making a fort out of them and having a place to nap during your break was the best

I remember that we also used a wall of diaper boxes to keep the employees separated from the mass of "customers" that were literally clawing, kicking and biting each other over the damn cabbage patch dolls back in the early 80s

I'm sure that I've still got my vest somewhere as well

Wait, tax some to keep others open? That's not a good reason to use the tax code. Taxing all internet sales is coming, and already happens on most Amazon sales. There are 26+ states with distro centers and they cover over 2/3 of the US population - and they charge taxes in those states. So clearly taxes are not a significant differentiator any longer.

I thought they were in trouble before the buyout, but ultimately that and a bad business plan did then in. Everyone go look at the Walmart thread - there are dozens of old stores mentioned there that closed long before the internet and Amazon took over. Retail is hard, highly competitive, and Amazon is not the only reason stores close.

Ironically, one of the largest contributors to the internet and ecommerce has THE busiest retail stores I have ever seen - Apple. Always a line for sales or service, and the customers are almost always happy to be there.

This is sad news as I used to go to Toys ‘R Us all the time when I was younger to buy Nes and SNES games. It was always great when they had a prized title in stock. Going out of business is part of capitalism though, for better or worse. Hopefully the employees can find jobs elsewhere that they enjoy.

Just like in Demolition Man soon all stores will be Amazon

Yeah, dollfights in aisle 12! Crazy people after those cabbage-head kids -- and Strawberry Shortcake dolls... my only regret is not buying Star Wars crap and storing it NIB for 30 years! Think of the $100's you'd make today!