So, I went to my local target under the assurance that there would be a clearance rack for games. I looked up and down through the entire electronics section and I couldn’t find anything.
I went to look at the 360 rack… and I found the clearance games mixed in with the rest. A couple copies of riddick and ninja blade were tagged.
Thats it.
Dave, you have the Target to end all Targets.
Back to $49. That was fast.
Yeah, by the time I got home and actually was ready to purchase I noticed the price had gone up. Plus I had too much time to reconsider, and due to both it kind of lost its impulse-buy attractiveness. Oh well.
I am SO going to my target tomorrow.
Amazon’s Deal of the Day is Mario Tennis (Wii) for $19.98.
Did you look in the linen section or the automotive parts sections? No - I’m not kidding.
What he said.
Target has a really really wierd tendency to put clearance items in the strangest places; at least the ones in Oregon do.
It’s like “Hey, lets put a children’s clothing endcap right over here in the pet isle. Because people that buy cat food have kids too!”
RickH
5328
It’s not weird if you’re aware that Target and other retail stores sell the right to have a vendor’s product on a high-visibility endcap. This means (1) that endcaps are always changing, (2) good endcaps [those facing the major aisles] are worth more than bad endcaps [those facing walls], and (3) electronics vendors [which rely heavily on impulse buys] are more likely than other vendors [such as car accessories] to spring for an endcap.
This means the clearance endcap goes where nothing else has priority. I’ve seen the one at the Targets I frequent move on average every two months, or sometimes vanish completely if there’s not enough red-tagged merchandise to justify one.
Honestly, finding Target deals has become a meta-game of its own.
I think what happens with those endcaps is they use the ones that are not paid for by a vendor, so if all the ones in electronics are paid for, then they’re going to put the games elsewhere.
Also, they will often leave the games in the regular videogame case until they get down to a price below $29.99. I think that’s simply a theft prevention measure for the most part. Usually the first markdown for a $59.99 game is $41.98. If your Target’s stock gets sold at that price, you’ll never see the likes of the endcap I pictured above.
And I’ll be honest, I live in an area where people seem to take even part-time near-minimum wage jobs relatively seriously. So they stay on top of this kind of stuff because they know they get to keep their job. I say this with confidence having employed lots of folks from the city and surrounding area when I was working at EB and running a video store for about six years of my life.
Target probably has company-wide rules for clearance pricing, and these stores are simply more on the ball about clearing out that stock. They seem to always have the red tags on games as fast as they can be applied.
Barnes and Noble does a similar thing with books. I’ll look online and they’ll have 1 in stock at the local store. I dash over and go to where the book should be but it isn’t there. I go to the counter and ask for help, they don’t know where it is either, but assume it’s hidden somewhere on a display rack, but they aren’t sure where because there isn’t a specific system in place for placing books in some of these places. So my guess is as good as theirs.
Depending on how much I want that book at that moment I may or may not keep looking for it, but Amazon.com is soo much easier.
After the first time you did that, wouldn’t you start calling first?
These days most clerks just look on the website - same as you.
I go into Borders and someone asks if I need help, and so they take me over to the Info-Kiosks that have computers connected to the net which go to their website and then type in the information for me slower than I might, sometimes incorrectly …
Sure, but they are also customer service representatives at the physical store. Which means if you ask them to hold a book for you, they need to go and get it.
Did you read the part where I said the red-tag clearance games were mixed in with the regular games? I found them, they just don’t have a rack.
Yes, I read it. My Target has a number of red tag games mixed in with the regular games. The serious red tag deals however are in the hidden end-cap.
I don’t recall this being posted yet: Elite Beat Agents for $10 w/free S&H. Qt3 thread on EBA here.
That’s a good point … Call to reserve. Provided anyone picks up, you should be set.
I remember purchasing a game for pickup once from BestBuy and the site assured me someone would stow it away until I arrived. When I went to customer service and showed them the order, they walked me back to the rack and picked it up for me.
Strangely, for all my disdain for the in-store process, and my preference for web in general, I still prefer shopping in a store to buying online. I have a strong need to grasp something tangible in order to feel complete in my purchase. I just don’t expect any useful assistance from staff for the most part.
Squee
5339
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/1699/
Looks like Sword of the Stars complete with the new expansion for $16 is the Steam weekend deal. It doesn’t mention it in there, but on the “New releases” tab on the front page of the store, the icon says “Save over 50% this weekend only!”
uddi
5340
For the record, I’ve done the store pickup thing at Best Buy a lot now, and I haven’t had that happen to me yet. Annoying lines with slow staff? Sure. But they always had the game ready.
