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It does look good!

Excite'R'us

LOL, and you guys on here are betting your business on the same practice.

Played tourist in my home town. My daughter is in 4th grade and in California that means doing a unit on California Missions. So we went to Mission San Diego. The girl has to do a photo essay, write a one page report, and do a “scavenger hunt” at the mission. In all my years of living here, I’ve never been. There are a few other missions we could have chosen to visit. And no doubt, all her other classmates will choose those missions (School is only 15 minutes away from the nearest one). But we figured it’d be boring to do the same thing 25 other kids are doing.

Excite'R'us I think ExciteMart might be more appropriate.

I went to a TRU on Saturday and I also saw it pretty crowded with virtually no in your face kind of sales aside from a few small signs and such. I was looking at a Disney Ariel polybag that had a sticker price of $3.99. When I went to a scanner it priced out to $4.49. I didn't even bother going to a cashier to double check. I threw it to the side, walked out and looked back while shaking my head. You can certainly love the nostalgia of being in a toy store as I have throughout the years. You can even relive that nostalgia and feel the magic again if you have children and see it all again through their eyes. But when you realize that a corporation is bent on not learning from their mistakes and choosing to go out on the terms that got them there to begin with...well, I say (insert flipping bird emoji).

I've been collecting them for 20 years. If your looking for lego on CL start searching 'arcade' while your there. I have gotten plenty of games for $50-200 over the years. Stay away from the multigame crap though. They make a great place to store lego boxes.

There are two strong independent "Mom&Pop" toy store chains (2-3 stores each) in my area. Both sell LEGO sets in addition to the typical brands you wouldn't find at WM TRU or Target. One of those stores has a LEGO selection that rivals most of the major retailers around them. I think that local Mom and pop shops that sell LEGO sets will do well once TRU shuts it's doors. These stores are all about the hands on play with the product before you buy concept. Here's a pic taken last year as an example. (there are two more walls that size)

Hello, We noticed that you purchased a gift card to Toys”R”Us and/or Babies”R”Us on our marketplace within the last year. Unfortunately, these retailers have indicated that they will be closing a number of store locations in the coming weeks. Toys”R”Us has announced that April 15, 2018 is the last day to redeem unused gift cards. If you have yet to redeem the value of these gift cards, we encourage you to do so as soon as possible. Please click here to find a store near you, or visit www.toysrus.com to redeem your eGift cards online. Here at Raise, we strive to provide the best service and policies for our members. Unfortunately at this time, as stated by our 1 Year Money-Back Guarantee we are unable to provide refunds for brands that have gone out of business. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and ask that you contact Raise Member Services with any questions. We appreciate your business and hope to continue help make your money worth more for years to come. Sincerely, The Raise Team

Well, I'd like a big "R" from the outside of the building. It would look nice on our garage all lit up.

They may already have made all the sets they are going to. Perhaps it´s worth making a list of all the 2018 TRU exclusives to see which other sets could be affected.

That's not at all what happened here. The investors put up $1.3 billion of their own money for the buyout and collected $200 million in management fees, which means they lost $1.1 billion on the deal. The three investment companies that bought TRU ARE the shareholders. They took the company private. As for what thombockerman said about how it's sad that they arranged it so that the debt was put on the company and not the investors, that was no special arrangement. That's just how it works for any corporation and would have been the case even if this leveraged buyout had never taken place. A corporation's owners are not responsible for the debt of the corporation. The corporation is its own entity.

I think someone was asking about the stand from wicked brick, just got mine and seems really good, nice and sturdy.

Got one step closer to getting one today. I asked my wife if I could and offered to relinquish my birthday and christmas present credits..lol. She didn't really say no, but then it sold out on Amazon...

Star Wars Resistance Bomber 75188 dropped to $79 at a handful of Walmart stores today. Not a huge break, but a decent discount if you've been wanting one. SKU: 946006306 UPC: 673419267618

I'm sticking this message to the top. April 15 isn't that far off.

that was my 2nd choice after the costume

revival: at argos in the UK this has been reduced ~40%. not sure if anyone's interested...

The TRU near me employs associates that I really applaud them for. There is a woman who is missing her hand and a man who works there who has Tourettes. I know there are specific rights held by people with disabilities, but I do wonder how hard it might be for them to find employment. As much as many of us might not like the company practices, there are a lot of people who will be out of a job in the next 60 days and that is never a good thing. I hope that TRU offers some kind of placement support after this is done but Im not going to hold my breath.

I asked if I could by the Geoffrey costume they used for events. I was told not at this time, still have hope but expect the manager to scarf it

That was me. I ordered one as well and should be here this week. Pricey, but it's a very cool stand and will reduce the display footprint quite a bit I would think. Thanks for the pictures.

This is interesting... K.B. Toys looking at a return to fill the TRU gap? http://toynewsi.com/news.php?itemid=30792&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

When I was in 4th grade we hade to pick a Mission and build it out of sugar cubes. Somehow I wound up building a gold mine and writing a report on the gold rush instead. We won’t discuss how long ago that was.

Thestral is really cool. A definite upgrade from the Fantasy Era skeleton horse.

I own a pinball machine aswell.... Nice Refinery Metallica

Lego Movie (Blu-ray/DVD) : $5 at Target.com

It's still alive in Canada ... for now.

Wife just found one new at Target clearanced for 559... bite, right? I don't know I can afford it to keep but maybe resell?

It's hard for me to believe. Obviously, financially it was easy to see coming. But I'm sorta awe-struck in a sad way. Like you just never thought it would not be there. Toys R Us just is. It's like as a little kid watching reruns of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and then finding out that he had died. Or, as I can say first hand, losing a grandparent. Obviously, it's two very different things, and losing a cherished family member is much more somber than a company shutting down, but still. Sometimes I get really sad when I think about my grandparents that have died in the last few years. When I'm in a store, and melancholically remember to myself "Hey, just a year ago I was walking right through this very aisle with grandma." Or driving by their houses and knowing they're not there. It's hard to take in. There's that lack of control, that you can't do anything about it. And I'm sure in years future, seeing those old abandoned store buildings, or that have been converted into something else, and all the empty parking lots will be hard to take in. I've gotten those same feelings with K-Mart. It's nostalgic. K-Mart was magic to me in my early childhood, before we got a Wal Mart in my small town. It was the only big, non dollar-store type store we had. The Little Caesar's pizza place we had in it and doing the coloring sheets on the tables. Those early-mid 2000's LEGO's on the shelves. 5 y/o me riding around in the cart with one of those big plush character pillows I had grabbed off the shelf. Putting stuff on Layaway with my grandma. And then my K-Mart shut down about 2 years ago now. And she died around the same time. And every time I drive by it, and see the imprint of the removed K on the building, it makes me sad. I'd like to go into a K-Mart again sometime before the last ones close down. The nearest one's about an hour and a half away but I'd make it just for the experience. We didn't have a Toys R Us in my town. The closest was in the city about 2 hours away. So, about once a year we'd go into the city for some big outing or shopping trip and stop by. It was so exotic to me, like Disney World. A whole store instead of just a few aisles. And alot of the really big $200+ sets that I'd only ever seen in shop at home catalogs. And now to think in the near future, that'll all be gone. Abandoned buildings where children once ran though the aisles. And one of them was me. It makes me sad. Something that always was there growing up just isn't any more. I feel the same way about K-Mart, about my grandma, about Robin Williams, and now Toys R Us. I just hope we don't lose Chuck E Cheese anytime soon. I don't think my childhood could take it.

Actually, we're thinking about this all wrong. It's in the life-cycle of a business. Amazon is the Sears and Roebuck of the 21st century. Think about it. When Sears became big in the late 1800s and into the 1900s, Sears was a mail order service and their catalog, which was inches thick, was golden. I know people who ordered prefab houses through the Sears catalog in the early 1900s. Then they began opening stores and the rest is history. I'm not sure how many know this but Amazon began opening their own store fronts last year. They will simply replace the stores that are going out of business until another company is the new upstart and does to Amazon what they're doing to everyone else. I just hope I'm around to buy stock in that company... lol.

This is a super silly debate, but If we're saying gravity had any factor, I'm guessing that the Dreadnaught from Ep8 was far larger than the asteroid in Empire and would have exterted more gravitational pull. That said, the Ep8 book says something about it being launched and magnetically targeted from the clip (the lower portion of the bomber). So it's not just a dumb magnet, it was targeted. It would be why they had to get so close, directly above the thing. Is it silly,,,,sure. So is the concept of laser light arcing back on itself through a special crystal that is contained within a small handheld device.

Maybe they need to run a raffle?

seriously doubt speed champions is getting dropped. pretty sure its only a tru exclusive in north america. you can buy speed champions directly from amazon in the uk and europe. speed champions might possibly end up being shop at home exclusive in usa which in the end might actually be a good thing for investors living close to a lego store since there will be limited avenues for buying them. actually all the tru exclusive sets from various themes will be more attractive as investments if there are going to be that much fewer places to get them . i just don't see Target and Walmart opening up already contracting lego shelf space for a new theme when they are already cutting back space. i spend very little at tru since the nearest 2 are both 56 miles away.

I do wonder if a Charles Lazarus - clone took over in 1994. Lazarus was getting old by that time but he built the TRU empire. He's mentioned in a book I’m reading now, Console Wars. I liked his spirit. When no retailer would stand up to Nintendo's absurd strict 1-way policies about no returns and not being able or discount poor selling games , the old man told Nintendo “ok” and did it anyway. Anyway like Sears and countless other companies, TRU didn’t properly adapt to strict competitors . from my experiences, things went especially bad affter the buy-out. ”But Toys R U's biggest albatross was its massive debt load since private-equity firms Bain Capital, KKR & Co. and Vornado Realty Trust took it private in a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout in 2005.”

All they needed to be was the cheapest toy retailer in the world and things would have worked out. Bad news for LEGO... http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/09/investing/toys-r-us-closing-hasbro-mattel/index.html

That's what will happen. Once the millennials start dying off, they'll talk about the days when they could go into a store and know what they are buying. The death of store fronts is a bit disheartening, because it will allow companies like amazon to just sell tainted crap. I can't tell you how many lego sets and star wars items i've bought directly from amazon (not 3rd party) and it came thrashed. It was worse than any backwoods walmart that doesn't have cameras on the aisle. I pretty much know that if I buy from amazon, it's going to be thrashed 8 out of 10 times. Walmart.com is just as bad.

Also known as the IT dumpster fire.

This is a first after all these years. Target shipping decided I wanted my entire EBay order shoved in one box, so they unboxed the last set and just folded the Lego box down before taping it up to ship. ?‍♂️

Impromptu lightsaber battle against my kids for 30 minutes last night. I am out of shape.

Still there .... I unlocked the thread, but maybe the whole section of the forum is locked.

Burned remaining rewards and a 10% off gift card bought from TRU the other day and got me a brick bank. Just got the shipping confirmation today. As much as I am annoyed at the TRU tax and their inability or reluctance to innovate, this is the store that got me out of my dark ages twice. Back in 2002 when I purchased a 4x4 off roader and again in 2011 with space centre. I will always remember as a kid going with my friend to browse for hours at all the toys. It's sad but expected to see them go.

I asked the live chat-based CS about the very same thing, the rep said that this was their lingo for an online order going to the warehouse to be fulfilled. I guess it's just different terms for the process than what we might be used to with LEGO SAH, for example. She indicated that the estimated delivery window should still be valid. I worried that they were waiting for the vendor to fulfill the inventory so that they could ship it out. I'll keep holding my breath until I actually get a shipping confirmation. I did complain once to CS about losing $50 of rewards dollars on an order that they cancelled and she gave me $100 as an apology. Of course, that assumes that there would be anything left to use them on or anyone available to help. Might be cyclical. If Amazon benefits from other brick & mortar businesses being their showroom, then when they disappear and the cost of business goes up because of all of the free returns or free returns goes away, I can imagine a market opportunity for "catalog showrooms" and try-before-you-buy opportunities to make a comeback, especially as one-day or same-day delivery gets perfected. Also, as the brick & mortars go away, the loss of revenue will drive governments to find ways of taxing e-commerce and warehouses more and more, as that cost goes up, a brick-and-mortar might become viable again. Will probably also make a difference how much revenue is lost through credit card fraud versus shoplifting + credit card fraud at a physical store.

I didn’t make it out yesterday so I ended up burning my gift cards today. Thankfully they had a few sets on sale. It almost felt like free lego ... I spent my remaining rewards online earlier this week - order status is “awaiting fulfillment” so I’m a little concerned it will get cancelled and I’ll be SOL on the rewards. Could be worse ... could be one of the countless employees oblivious to what might happen [emoji20]

Note the price. Note the seller. A first in the UK I believe. 75192

Defo would have bought a good amount at that price. Easily shift them for a fiver a piece in some places if you didn't want to hold on to them.

Ah, thanks. I had not seen that image. The basilisk is underwhelming, but that Nearly Headless Nick figure is outstanding!

AGREED! However, I got in at $49 USD for the Cantina so I'm not losing anything but I am still surprised I don't get ANY interest at 97 bucks plus shipping on Ebay. It appears to be 128 on Prime right now. I thought so too. Maybe this set will become more appreciated now that you can get Wuher to serve drinks. They go well together, despite the waste of an extra Greedo & Han. The rest is needed. Finish the other half of the bar More booths Cool new Pod (film accurate looking) Cool new trooper Half the cost, and thankfully no wasted Luke Speeder that we ALL have by now. Now imagine if they did a battle pack with say, Hammerhead, Walrus Man, Dr Evazan, and some other Random Alien, and the buildable is another table. They could do that 2 or 3 or 4 times and I think SW fans would eat it up.