- Jan 3, 2001
- 4,194
- 574
- 126
If you're an old dude you didn't want to grow up cause baby if you did, you wouldn't be a Toys -R-Us kid.
Adios Geoffrey:beer:
Time to say goodbye
- Thread starter 1sikbITCH
- Start date
If you're an old dude you didn't want to grow up cause baby if you did, you wouldn't be a Toys -R-Us kid.
Adios Geoffrey:beer:
- Jan 3, 2001
- 4,194
- 574
- 126
Yep like I said you gotta be OLD. Toys R Us began in the 50s I think. For me it had nothing to do with the store itself. I just remember the commercial running on tv constantly. Toys R US used to be the only game in town until Walmart came along and they'd been bleeding out ever since similar to Kmart, Circuit City, etc. The way of things.
IronWing
No Lifer
- Jul 20, 2001
- 70,095
- 28,685
- 136
Sonikku
Lifer
- Jun 23, 2005
- 15,745
- 4,563
- 136
I scarcely ever saw a Toys R Us in my life. Not a one ever came to my town. Though I did see a tiny "Toys R Us EXPRESS" open in a small space at the Mall, it was only for roughly a month or so for the Christmas shopping season that only happened a few times in the past few years.
KB Toys is the one I grew up with that I miss the most. Price wise they were the highest to start with, but their sales could not be beat. I remember getting brand new non-gold editions copies of Zelda 1 and 2 for $9.99 in the 90's, plus Punch Out!! and a few other major NES games like Star Tropics back when I got the $50 redesigned NES. (My mother had sold my original 80's NES to get out of paying cash to a local carpenter, much to my chagrin) It was also the only store in existance to seemingly ever discount Lego. I sorely regret missing the Black Seas Barracuda. It was a BARGAIN at only $50, but as I had just started college, I was broke as all hell.
Though I do know what you mean about being too poor to shop there with clearance gems like this;
KB Toys is the one I grew up with that I miss the most. Price wise they were the highest to start with, but their sales could not be beat. I remember getting brand new non-gold editions copies of Zelda 1 and 2 for $9.99 in the 90's, plus Punch Out!! and a few other major NES games like Star Tropics back when I got the $50 redesigned NES. (My mother had sold my original 80's NES to get out of paying cash to a local carpenter, much to my chagrin) It was also the only store in existance to seemingly ever discount Lego. I sorely regret missing the Black Seas Barracuda. It was a BARGAIN at only $50, but as I had just started college, I was broke as all hell.
That's the thing. Neither Toys R US nor KB Toys went under as a result of being outplayed capitalism wise. Both were undone by high debt or other bone headed shenanigans that could have been easily avoided. (no, TRUS didn't fail because of the legality of abortion as some nutter butter conservative conspiracy theory websites suggest)
Though I do know what you mean about being too poor to shop there with clearance gems like this;
- Dec 11, 1999
- 16,329
- 4,004
- 75
This. But when I was a kid their catalog was the best thing ever!
Edit: Wait, that wasn't Toys R Us, that was the Sears Wish Book. I think I went to Toys R Us once, and their prices were way too high to get anything.
highland145
Lifer
- Oct 12, 2009
- 43,857
- 6,231
- 136
this. What a shit turd that always turned out to be. Lower quality than walmart's worst and "back ordered until March." Where's my prozac?
They started their clearance in April? They probably did the same thing Circuit City did:
1) Remove all sale prices. Mark everything "down" 10%. In many cases this will actually be higher than the price the item was the day before. Watch as the masses buy tons of over priced stuff thinking they are getting a good deal
2) 1-2 weeks later move the 10% to 20% (Some items won't move up the discount % as quickly)
3) Move up discounts at smaller\less trafficed stores faster. Once discounts approach 50% (or some assigned number) load up excess inventory from those stores and ship it to a higher traffic store
4) Continue discounts until it reaches 90%
You can move a LOT of inventory quickly from 'going out of business sales'. I worked at CC through their liquidation (We were one of the last stores closed) and people came out of the wood work to buy stupid shit. Hopefully the customers were nicer to the Toys R Us people than they were to us. Everyone who ever held a grudge against CC came in to tell us low wage hourly employees how glad they were that CC was going out of business because we wouldn't let them return an opened $30 piece of software 2 years ago. I got tired of that real fast and started making scenes when that happened. Speaking really loudly "Wait so let me get this straight. Because you were out $30 you are glad 30,000 people are losing their jobs? So you're glad Susan over here with two young kids and a mortgage payment no longer has a job to pay for food or her house? OVER $30?!" Our customer service reps got called c*nts on a weekly basis. At least now we could be aholes back but it got wearing real fast. Probably the worst work months of my life
Anyway - hopefully it went as well as possible for all those employees. I also hope they got to take advantage of "Fixture Sales" like we did.
SearchMaster
Diamond Member
- Jun 6, 2002
- 7,791
- 114
- 106
While it's possible they liquidated their own merchandise, there are professional liquidators as well. Merchandise is usually marked UP at first, then weekly or so they'll start marking down by another 10 points or so. My aunt and uncle were liquidators and did very well in the business.
Note: this is different from a legal liquidator.
Note: this is different from a legal liquidator.
The thing is it wasn't Toys R Us that made the boneheaded moves, it was the investors that purchased them in 2005 in a leveraged buyout. Basically the investors put up a little over a billion dollars of their own money and borrowed over 5 billion for the rest leaving Toys R Us strapped with a $400M a year debt service bill. Toys R Us didn't make that decision but they sure had to pay for it and was the biggest factor in them going under, no company could last long term after being strapped with something like that.
http://fortune.com/2018/03/09/toys-r-us-bankruptcy-why/
lxskllr
No Lifer
- Nov 30, 2004
- 57,915
- 8,180
- 126
Babes R Us?! Holy fuck, I've missed out on life! Now I just want to lay on some train tracks or something :^(
Scarpozzi
Lifer
- Jun 13, 2000
- 26,389
- 1,778
- 126
The shopping sprees they used to always market through various contests were pretty awesome in the 80's/90's. There were some awesome toys marketed back then, including original NES games when that video game market and power wheels first were sold. TRUS had the perfect sized store to warehouse all the big yard stuff and bikes where most mall stores didn't have the square footage for the inventory.
It's a shame to see them go, but they were late to the online market and partnered with Amazon if you remember... They split and Amazon had their number.
It's a shame to see them go, but they were late to the online market and partnered with Amazon if you remember... They split and Amazon had their number.
VirtualLarry
No Lifer
- Aug 25, 2001
- 56,541
- 10,167
- 126
I remember fondly going to the TRU near me in the mall, and shopping for NES and later on SNES and Genesis games, and having to take a ticket from the aisle, and taking it to the register, paying for it, and then going up to the "Security Booth" before the exit, and showing them the ticket and receipt, and having to ring the buzzer to get someone over there, to "pull" the game for us. Good times!
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