From its humble origins as a Washington, DC children’s furniture store in 1948, Toys ‘R’ Us became one of the biggest retail giants for toys and other children’s products in the world. But that was a long time ago, and the reality now is that TRU’s closing all its stores.
With all of their stores in the US shutting down operations within a few months, one must wonder what’ll happen to the products they still have on shelves and in stock. Liquidations are already underway to clear them out, but certain products were put by TRU on a “NO” list.
That list also happens to include LEGO, in particular the latest sets that have just started releasing. Rather than included them with the ongoing product liquidations (seeing them go for so much less), TRU will now be returning their LEGO stocks to LEGO, without any attempt to sell any sets.
The above however doesn’t quite answer what’ll become of the LEGO Toys “R” Us exclusives such as certain polybags or the Bricktober sets, many of which would’ve already been planned for by LEGO throughout 2018. Since LEGO Bricktober is tied to TRU, giving them to other retail chains won’t do.
An alternative for LEGO’s TRU exclusives now that the US stores they would’ve been shipped to will no longer be, might be to re-label them or release the sets and polybags in their own stores. This is similar to Funko which had started selling their TRU-exclusive flocked Geoffrey figure themselves.
Liquidation of most other products in the US Toys “R” Us stores will be kicking off as early as this week. It’s a sad day indeed for the old toy giant, though there’s been talk that they might possibly sell their name and logos to interested buyers for legacy branding.
