Toys R Us to sell off its trademarks, including 'sex-toys-r-us.com'

EMBATTLED retailer Toy R Us is well known for its wholesome family-friendly wares — from Barbies to board games and bikes.

But a fire sale of its intellectual property in the US to pay off creditors in the wake of its bankruptcy has led the store to place a price tag on some very salacious items.

Alongside the Geoffrey the Giraffe logo and the Babies R Us trademark, the firm is also putting up a series of racy URLs.

If you ever wanted to own kinkytoysrus.com or sex-toys-r-us.com you’ll get your chance at an auction next month.

Ihatetoysrus.com and toysrussucks.com are also available to the highest bidder, reported Reuters.

The company never used the web addresses but rather purchased them to prevent their use by anyone else. With the company shuttering its US and UK stores, it no longer cares if someone starts selling adult toys under its trademark.

Bob Phibbs, a brand specialist and chief executive of the Retail Doctor consulting firm, said he was surprised at the extent to which the company went to protect its brand property.

“They just went crazy,” Mr Phibbs said. “I’m sure they were laughing and drinking Red Bull and then just came up with every iteration they could.”

Mr Phibbs said the long list of domain names owned by the company revealed the allure of the Toys R Us brand. The company registered dozens of domain names: lodges-r-us.com, bistros-r-us.com, recipes-r-us.com, burgers-r-us.com and even cigars-r-us.com.

“It shows the power of the brand,” Mr Phibbs said. “The ‘R’ Us is the key to the brand, not the Toys.”

Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy protection last September and after frantic attempts to restructure the business finally waved the white flag in March when chief executive David Brandon told employees the retailer’s more than 700 remaining US locations would go along with 33,000 jobs.

“We’re putting a for sale sign on everything,” Mr Brandon told employees in a conference call. “Frankly, all anyone has to do is offer one dollar more [than liquidators].”

Shortly afterwards, the UK and Irish operations also shut up shop.

However, Australian entrepreneurs who have dreams of opening their own Toys R Us branded stores here may need to think again.

Toys R Us in Australia continues to trade as normal with speculation the company may bundle the business up with the Asian stores and sell the whole lot off, potentially as a stand-alone operation under the same and much-loved brand.

But if you want to start up a business called “adult-toys-r-us.com”, now’s the time.

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