Ha, I remember we used to visit the "Atari bus" parked in KMart parking lots and it was definitely a crap shoot as to whether or not the cartridges actually worked.

 

$6 in postage maybe...
But then u have boxes... packing...
And labor

The usps isnt doing that for u  

 

As far as I could remember, the company didn't hoard stuff like that in our DCs unless it was product that had to be special ordered/ship to store (premium swing sets, bigger trampolines, bigger pools, etc) Out of curiosity, what kind of merchandise are you referring to? Whoever was in charge of our product buying at HQ wasn't the best in the industry.

 

Better than an empty store I guess. Though I suppose it's appropriate: supporting a holiday of spirits from within a corpse.

 

Yup, that's where our Spirit is gonna be this year too.

 

Montgomeryville, PA TRU has 2 signs for holiday temp stores.
'Halloween City' & 'Toy City'.

 

mainly target, bbts, and ebay

 

Specifically, Marvel Legends. Many exclusive box sets that had been sold out online for months started appearing or reappearing in stores. As I recall, Titans Return Arcee sold out online and then started hitting various physical locations as well. Surely there are more but I hated the clunky website and barren local stores too much to document in more detail.

There was also Commemorative Series Sideswipe that sat in a warehouse in Canada until being dumped on KB Toys years after that line ended and shortly before they went under.

 

I don't remember any reports about TR Arcee, only Grotusque showing up in stores. Arcee didn't sell out until about a month before the bankruptcy announcement.

 

Were the Marvel sets available only online and at bigger locations? I remember seeing only a few of the Ant-Man 2-packs before the liquidation. Smaller stores like mine never got the newer ones in (like the Hive pack, if I remember correctly) physically until the liquidation.

TF wise, are you referring to the Grotusque pack? I believe Arcee was long gone before the liquidation days and Grotusque was online only up until the DCs were emptying out product. I admit the website needed a lot of work.

In regards to Sideswipe, that was way before my time as a TRU employee. I'm pretty sure I was still in 4th maybe 5th grade when I bought Sideswipe at my local KB Toys lol. Although some quick research points me to that Toys R Us cancelled the Commemorative Series line in 2004 before Sideswipe reached full distribution, allowing KB to buy remaining stock/becoming a KB exclusive. Sideswipe (G1)/toys - Transformers Wiki

 

No. My area got the Hydra, Mary Jane, A-Force, and Scarlet Witch box sets. The first three trickled out, sold out online pretty quickly, and then a year later showed up again in liquidation.

Except...Sideswipe (with Skids) was wave 8 and Stepper (with Astrotrain) was wave 9. There was usually 4 or so months between waves. I picked up Skids and Stepper in stores and we got Astrotrain via HTS. Even if that weren't the case, why Toys R Us would take possession of them and then just sit on them for over a year, cancellation or not, is a mystery. I never saw the massive clearances here that some places did but surely they would've done better selling at $15 in stores than whatever fraction of $15 they received from KB (they sold for $15 there).

 

I've personally only seen the Scarlet set. I'm not sure why in regards to Sideswipe.

 

Hahaha I was just coming on here to post that, but I have something to add.  

I got you, bro.

 

Wait... Is that the TRU in Mentor, Ohio?!

 

Sorry, not sure. Found it floating around fb

 

Toys ‘R’ Us cancels bankruptcy auction, plans to revive brand
And it's coming back from the grave after 5 months.

 

Kind of. Like I said in another thread, they're keeping the intellectual property because they think they can milk the international stores for more money. But in the U.S., they sold off all their infrastructure. Let me repeat, they sold off all their infrastructure. At best, we may see the TRU name branding exclusive toys at Dillard's or Party City or something - but I just can't see the investors who own the brand buying back all the infrastructure at a loss after they sold it off. Not to mention the damage the previous owners caused with vendor relationships...

 

For real?!?

 

Oddly it's easier to start on a clean slate, so maybe as an online store, with new online store infrastructure.

Whatever way they come back it would need new modern infrastructure.