Wal-marts Black Thursday BS

[H. Cromwell]

My wifeand I decided to purchase a new gas grill as a Christmas present for us. I saw this grill at Wal-Mart.com "on sale." I ordered it and it came in to our wal-mat store...I picked it up Wednesday. I had paid $167.48 w/tax

While looking over the Black Friday sales fliers in Thursday mornings paper, I see the exact same grill on sale at 6pm Thursday at Wal-Mart for $99. Needless to say, I called them. I was told to go on line and request a price adjustment and that I'll receive the difference as a gift card.

I received an answer to my email today. Wal-Mart will not price adjust Black Friday sales prices. You would think someone might have alerted me to the sale when I ordered the grill. I'll be letter writing to corporate headquarters complaining..probably a waste of time.

[JI7]

1. it was probably one of their sales you can only get if you are willing to deal with the crowds

during that time.

[tina tron]

2. They call those "door busters"

and they are scams

[JI7]

4. i have seen those and they have a lot of restrictions on those also

like coupons can't be used so people who think they would get an even greater deal usually find out they wont once they get there.

and of course all the other crap with limited stock, must buy between specific hours etc.

[joeglow3]

3. Not uncommon

If it was, no one would go to the store. That price is intended to be a loss leader to get you in the store. Kind of presumptuous of you to think YOU should get that price online when no one else can.

[backscatter712]

5. Funny, they have enough money to afford to play these promotional games...

but they cry poverty when people ask them to raise their workers' wages...

This is why I never shop at Walmart. Not online, not on Black Friday or any other Friday, or any day of the week that ends in "y".

[1KansasDem]

6. That $99 price was for limited quantity that were at that sale price.

To get that price you have to get there early and stand in line. Don't be number 11 in line if they only have 10 grills
Ad clearly says "while supply lasts".

[johnp3907]

7. It's Wal-Mart.

What did you expect?

[Common Sense Party]

8. $68 is a small price to pay to not have to stand in line with bargain-mad

shoppers and assorted loonies.

You obviously thought the price you got was a fair price...UNTIL you saw the Black Friday ad. You still got it at a fair price.

[Ilsa]

9. Return the grill. Get a refund.

Then buy the same one on sale. If they are out of them, walk out and try Lowes.

I'd return it on principle.

[H. Cromwell]

11. Why I didn't return it

I am dealing with sciatica so lugging the box back into the station wagon driving the 15 miles again to Wal-Mart and getting it to customer service would have been daunting. I expected upon returning it that I would Not be able to just rebuy it at the sale price...I expect that they would have had to 'restock' my return and I'd have to get another one (if any were left) off the sales floor.
IF that had happened I'd have probably gotten arrested or at least escorted out of the store....so I just sucked it up and I just finished assembling it. It is a nice 4 burner (5 with the side burner) gas grill.

[KT2000]

10. It was a complicated scheme

for Black Thursday. They had X number of items for each of their "doorbusters" or what they called events. People lined up at the items they wanted, they were covered in black plastic and the people hoped to be in the allotted number of that item. If so, they got wristbands. At 8 PM they lifted the plastic and the people left over were allowed to come back at 10 PM.
The people who were included had to pick up their items by 10 PM. What was left over (the ones people didn't pick up by 10) were sold to the people who had come back at 10.

There were lots of "event items" so just about every aisle had lines from 6 to 8. The actual time the items were at the really reduced amount was probably minutes.

[SheilaT]

12. Almost invariably the deeply discounted

items for these sales are in very limited supply.

I seem to recall knowing, or reading somewhere at various times exactly how many of certain deeply discounted things were actually available.

I recall one year wanting something or another and my brother who did overnight stocking at Target telling me they'd only have something like eleven or twelve of those things. I was able to get what I wanted at a different store that was well stocked.

This is a long-winded way of saying that some of these sales are shell games.