Toys R Us US Locations Begin Liquidation Sales In Preparation For Store Closings

After a couple of false starts, we can, sadly, confirm that the US Toys R Us locations have begun their liquidation sales as of March 23rd. The latest delay was apparently attributed to a dispute by some of the chain's suppliers regarding inventory they provided on credit, and want to be sure they get paid for - or get the merchandise back. On the Transformers end of things, one big question right now is what happens to Studio Series Thundercracker? It's unlikely stores will receive further deliveries, and aside from an isolated few sightings, this exclusive doesn't look like it'll get to see the light of day. Keep reading for more.


Some important information if you're planning to try your luck at a liquidation sale this weekend:

• All sales are final
It might be common sense, but Toys R Us will not accept any returns of merchandise purchased starting on March 23rd. The store I visited today noted that items purchased prior to that date could be returned during the next few weeks, but any new purchases were final.

• Rewards Points Will Not Be Honored
Stores will neither allow redemption of existing rewards points, nor credit new points for any purchases from this point forward. Whether current balances will be maintained and/or remain valid for the online storefront is unknown at this time. If you do have the opportunity to use your points online, we recommend doing so as soon as possible.

• Discounts
Most merchandise was 10% off. For me that amounts to getting items tax free, essentially, but may be slightly more valuable for other places. Some merchandise like construction block sets are only 5% off at this point. High value items in some categories may have been pre-emptively removed from the stores, however. I personally observed some seasonal (Easter) items at 20% off, and supposedly there are items in the store discounted as much as 30%, but I didn't personally see any so marked.

As for Thundercracker, our best hope now might be to see this quickly turn up in stock on the Toys R Us website if its operations might continue more normally for longer than the brick and mortar locations. Ruling that out, we might see these turn up in quantity at places like Ross. But there's also the outside possibility that someone like Amazon might pick up the whole inventory of this figure and take it over as an exclusive. Unfortunately, possibilities are many right now but clear signs of what will happen are lacking.