Wollongong and Shellharbour staff will be among hundreds of Toys ‘R’ Us and Babies ‘R’ Us employees who will lose their jobs within weeks as all 44 stores close.
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Administrators McGrathNicol told employees on Wednesday the retail business is winding down after all interested parties withdrew from the sale process.
The collapse of the Australian stores follows the failure of the US Toys ‘R’ Us business in March. The chain of toys and baby goods stores has been trading since entering voluntary administration in May.
Administrators of the TRUA business have announced that all stores across Australia, together with the head office and distribution centre at Regents Park in Sydney, will close progressively in the coming weeks.
On Thursday, the Wollongong store on Ellen Street was still open and trading at 10am.
Staff were unable to comment about the future of the Wollongong and Shellharbour stores, but the Illawarra Mercury understands they will close in the next few weeks.
The Wollongong store, on Ellen Street, is an express outlet that has limited range available.
The Shellharbour store, on New Lake Entrance Road, is a combined Toys R Us and Babies R Us superstore. There are 17 Toys R Us stores in NSW.
The Administrators will now proceed to liquidate the stock via the store network.
TRUA’s online ordering system will be closed On Friday morning, with all open online orders to be delivered to customers where goods have been paid for in full and the stock is available.
Around 700 permanent staff will be affected by the closure across Australia.
All accrued employee entitlements will rank as priority claims against TRUA and are expected to be paid by the Administrators in full from proceeds from asset realisations.
In addressing staff on Wednesday the Administrators thanked them for working with them constructively during the process.
In the wake of this week’s news several changes have been made to store policies.
- Gift cards will be honoured until July 5 2018 provided customers spend an additional equivalent amount in a TRUA store.
- Gift cards will not be honoured after July 5, 2018.
- Existing lay-bys will be honoured until 5 July 2018 provided the outstanding balance is paid and the stock is available.
Meanwhile on Friday morning Toys R Us announced the beginning of its closing down sale storwide including the Wollongong and Shellharbour stores.
