Sad news tonight for Toys R Us Australia. Following the fall of the US and UK counterparts the Australian branch has also now entered into voluntary administration.
Insolvency and restructuring firm McGrathNicol was appointed voluntary administrator of Toys ‘R’ Us Australia (TRUA) and Babies ‘R’ Us today. McGrathNicol intends to keep both businesses operating while it investigates options for a sale of the businesses.
After what happened in other regions I think the odds of a last minute savior would be minimal, but not impossible.
My thoughts are with the staff during this uncertain time. Toys R Us employs over 2700 people nationally.
Initial reports are that the appointment of administrators has had some immediate and significant impacts on the business. Firstly, Toys R Us stores will no longer be offering refunds on items. This is not a huge concern for LEGO products as you can go directly to LEGO for issues like missing parts.
The change that will have the biggest impact is that gift cards and vouchers will only be honoured if you spend an additional equivalent amount. That means if you want to use a $50 gift card your purchase must be at least $100. While this sucks for anybody with a high value gift card it is better than nothing which legally the administrators could do.
If you have a gift card I suggest using it immediately. If you have existing lay-bys I would also be either cancelling those or paying them out. As bad as it is for Toys R Us, administration can also be messy for customers.
Toys R Us have been an iconic brand for so many years it would be a shame to see them go completely. At this stage I think it’s too early to be thinking about what sales may eventuate from this situation.
Thanks for letting us know Michael. This is indeed a sad day for all concerned.
This is sad news but I’m honestly not that surprised either. The thing with the gift cards suck though especially if you can’t afford to spend double.
I visited two Toys R Us’ a couple of days looking for 75933 T. Rex Transport which appears to be a TRU Exclusive, as usual not in stock. They only seem to have it in stock for very short periods which is very frustrating as there’s is the only chain that sells it. Maybe if they go under another chain will be able to stock their exclusives more reliably.
Will they honour accumulated vip points, or are they void now?
Void apparently…I read this online
“The stores will also continue to offer VIP discounts, but shoppers will no longer be able to accumulate and use points earned under the VIP program.”
This sucks as I had a reasonable amount of points stacked up. Should have used them when the overseas stores folded
Shame toowomba only jusy came out of the dark ages and got their first toy r us store 6 months or do ago….. Short lived… Sad.