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We visited a Babies R Us store that's about to shut down — and it was a mess

All Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores are set to be closed or sold soon. We went to a Babies R Us that was about to shut down to see what it was like.

  • Back in late January, the company announced plans to
  • We recently visited one of the Babies R Us stores that was winding down its operations as part of the January announcement. It was a disaster.
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Toys R Us will be closing or selling all 735 of its US stores after filing a motion to liquidate its US business last week. The toy retailer had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September.

Toys R Us had already said in January that 170 of its Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores would close, and many of those locations have started going-out-of-business sales. The company's liquidation filing last week will trigger clearance sales that could begin as soon as Thursday at the locations that had not already planned to close.

Babies R Us stores will be closing as a result of the liquidation as well, though its website will remain running for the time being.

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We visited a Babies R Us store that has been preparing to close since January to see what it looked like and to see what may lie ahead for other Babies R Us and Toys R Us stores once clearance sales begin at a wider scale.

This is what we found:

The Babies R Us I went to in downtown Manhattan had been set to close since January. Employees said it's expected to close by the end of March.

Because of the coming closing, this location was not accepting returns or coupons.

Signs like these were hanging all over the store and were the first thing I saw when I walked in.

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Everything in sight was marked down, often more than once.

Toys were especially steeply discounted, with price cuts of up to 50% off the original cost ...

... and some toys had signs advertising additional markdowns. Even the displays the toys were on were for sale.

There were a lot of boxes that had never been unpacked, many of them torn or falling apart.

There were half-empty displays in the middle of the store ...

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... and it only got worse as I went farther back.

Many shelves had only one or two seemingly random items on display.

As I ventured farther into the store, I found entire rooms that were empty.

The boxes on display in this nearly empty room were torn and clearly had been moved around a lot. Many pieces of merchandise here were marked as the last of that product available in-store.

Hoping the second floor wouldn't be as depressing as the first, I went upstairs. These signs were at the bottom of the (nonfunctioning) escalator, so my expectations were pretty low.

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The signs weren't exaggerating. There were still displays up, but they were abandoned. It felt as if the store had been closed for weeks already.

The only sign that the store still existed was the sight of an employee in a Babies R Us shirt, walking around the floor and playing music from his phone.

There were more massive sale signs, even though there was no merchandise.

I walked up to the third floor to find all of the store fixtures and displays for sale. It was a mess — the floor was literally falling apart, and I had to climb over merchandise to get around. The two employees on this floor were just sitting down and talking.

In the back corner of the store, there were tables covered in baby mannequins on sale for upward of $75. A lot of them were damaged or being sold for parts — it was bizarre and unsettling.

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The learning center was dark and eerie ...

... and I had to walk through a maze to get back to the escalator.

Along the way, I passed a few more empty rooms.

As I was walking to the exit, I noticed that even the soda and small merchandise by the register were on sale. There was no line and very few people working. The store looked as if it could close at any minute, and it showed what the future may hold for the remaining Babies R Us and Toys R Us stores.

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  • Toys R Us reveals closing dates for liquidating stores — and clearance sales will start this week
  • Here's why Toys R Us couldn't be saved
  • Toys R Us will close or sell all of its US stores
  • Toys R Us is closing all its US stores — and blowout clearance sales could begin within weeks
  • Toys R Us gift cards will expire in 30 days
  • These companies will be the biggest winners when Toys R Us closes its stores
  • We visited one of the last Toys R Us stores to open — here's what it looked like
  • Toys R Us says a 'perfect storm' killed the toy chain — and it blames Amazon, Walmart, and Target

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