I went to Wal-Mart at 11:30 last night looking for their new shipment of Wiis. Their printed advertisement indicated that there would be 7 in stock. My wife talked to a store worker earlier and they said that they had some in the back that they would put out at midnight. I figured that 11:30 would beat the rush.
I show up and the two that they had were already sold to two other people. Now, usually I wouldn’t write or complain about this. Oh well, it’s sold out. I was one of the ones at the front of the line that got to see Episode II with Alice Cooper and Dan Harkins (and hear rumors of a re-opening of the CineCapri firsthand two years in advance). People at the back of the line didn’t share that same experience.
I understand queue dynamics.
The issue that I found, though, was when the store manager called a nearby branch. That Wal-Mart had already sold their Sunday copies on Tuesday of last week. The store manager tried to turn off the speaker phone quickly and said, “Really? You’re not supposed to do that. I’d heard a lot of our stores had done that. Yeah, I’d bet you have a line of angry customers. Have fun with that.” It sounded kinda fishy.
The reason I write is because Wal-Mart is not following company policy with distribution of product. Instead of the meager 7 consoles they get 2, and instead of waiting for Saturday/Sunday they sell the following week’s supply a week early. I think that Wal-Mart can do whatever they want to because they are Wal-Mart. What can I do to change it?
Wal-Mart has a GNP that is higher than around 150 other countries. They could buy Denmark if they wanted to. Here’s something that I find funny. I first noticed Wal-Mart’s practices after reading Mustard Seed vs. McWorld. Here is a link to where you can buy the book…from Wal-Mart! At least they’re not blocking the sale of a book that is so critical of them.
I leave you with this:
Mr. David Glass, President & CEO
Wal-Mart
702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716
phone: (501) 273-4000
fax: (501) 273-4894
email: letters@wal-mart.com
Semi-related posts:
Well, while you wait, you can always purchase a WiiHelm in anticipation for late night Wii marathons… http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/wiihelm.shtml
Heck, all of ThinkGeek’s new products this month are pretty good……
I managed to pick up a Wii at the Wal-Mart, there were 7 in the display case. I didn’t ask when they got there, but you better believe I went ahead and picked one up (much to my wife’s chagrin!) before I started making a scene. Next day, the remaining six were gone. Supply and demand.
Yeah, Peter, only a FOOL would pass up this month’s offers.
Monkey – The display had 1 PS3 and a bunch of XBOXes. There was a sad void where once was Wii.