R Most of us grew up as a Toys R Us kid, which is why there were so many people who were upset when the national chain announced that they were closing their stores earlier this year.
While people were getting nostalgic over the company’s theme song and iconic mascot Geoffrey the giraffe, there was one man who decided that he could create something positive out of a sad situation. A mystery man decided that he would buy out his entire local Toys R Us store.
The store was supposed to be open for shoppers for one more day but the mystery man cleaned them out.
Employees at the Raleigh, North Carolina Toys R Us reported that the mystery person spent more than $1 million on toys.
Instead of helping customers, store employees spent the last day boxing up the remaining toys and placing them on a truck for the mystery man.
But what would a grown person do with $1 million worth of toys? Toys R US employees said that the man planned to donate the toys to children in need.
Local customers showed up to the store on the last day for bargains only to find that it was bought out.
“Wow. Awesome man,” customer George House told CBS 17.
“Oh wow, that’s nice,” said Vivian Smith.
“Maybe it’s Bill Gates,” guessed Hailey Rawles.
Instead of being upset that the store’s doors were prematurely shuttered, shoppers were pleased by the news and were curious about who the mystery man was.
“Oh, that’s so nice. I’m happy to hear that,” said Erin Sampson.
“That’s great. I’d like to know who it is,” customer Danyel Smith told WNEP.
“I like the idea of donating the toys. That’s pretty rad,” Dan Paulson told WNCN.
Employees confirmed that the $1 million sale of toys wasn’t solely purchased from the Raleigh store.
“It didn’t happen all at this location. We don’t have that much inventory. It happened at various stores. They likely went through the Raleigh liquidator,” a store employee told CNN.
Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy in late 2017 but weren’t able to make any financial improvements. They announced they would be closing their 180 stores because of it’s $5 billion debt in January 2018.
As a result, they began their liquidation of stores in March.
Thousands of workers were laid off as a result. The last United States Toys R Us stores were closed on June 29, however, stores will remain open in some other countries like Canada.
“The company’s operations outside of the U.S. and Canada, including its operations in Europe and Australia and its approximately 255 licensed stores and joint venture partnership in Asia, which are separate entities, are not part of the Chapter 11 filing,” a spokesperson told Newsweek.
Employees marked the closing of their stores with a photo of Geoffrey the giraffe standing amongst the store’s empty shelves and waving with a suitcase.
The company’s social media page suggested that there might be more to Toys R Us’ story than we currently know. Learn more about the mystery toy shopper’s $1 million purchase of toys in the video below.
