"The Incredibles" lunch-time Walmart experience (1 Viewer)

[LanceEAR]

I want to preface this by saying that I don't frequent this forum too often so I don't know if this is a common occurrence. The only search results I found similar dealt with the $5.97 bargain bin.

Begin rant:

The short version...

A friend wanted to pick up The Incredibles at Walmart at lunch on Tues. We looked around the store but couldn't find the dvd anywhere so he jumped in the line of five or six people planning to ask one of the "associates" for the dvd.

As it turns out, some a$$hat bought every widescreen copy of The Incredibles in Walmart, as well as another new release. Every copy! Isn't there a limit one can buy?

He went through four cases. He was opening them and the lady was ringing them up as fast as she could. Unbelievable.

Is this a common occurrence?

Thanks for reading.

 

[Chris Duran]

Every copy? That's kind of hard to believe, but it depends on the store. Is that store usually pretty busy? Our store received over 400 copies of the Incredibles WS version and that's not including the about 200+ versions of the other Wal-Mart exclusive version with the PC CD Rom. But it could be possible, people are crazy.

 

[LanceEAR]

I should have said he bought every remaining copy: at least two boxes.

I was estimating about 50-60 copies of The Incredibles. Plus he bought two boxes of another new arrival - I think it was Ladder 49, I'm not sure. His receipt was about 2.5 feet long.

 

[Phil Tomaskovic]

Maybe he owns a video rental store?

 

[LanceEAR]

In that case he would be considered a "dealer", wouldn't he?

Almost all stores limit or prohibit "Dealer" purchases. If that were the case I would think he would be required to purchase through commercial channels instead of as a traditional consumer.

 

[Nick T Robot]

If he owned a video store doesn't buy his movies in the usual wholesale way, I would think it was a very small store and wouldn't want to have that many copies of 1 film on hand.

What was the price at Walmart? maybe he's going to eBay them, and since you can't mark them up that much, he's got to move a lot of them to make any profit.

It doesn't make much sense.

 

[Dax P]

Related topic. The Disney Store is evil.

I wanted the beautiful portfolio of Incredibles lithographs. I do this for most of the Disneys (not the direct-to-video ones) and all of the Pixars. They're very nice little collectible items. You pay an extra $5 or so for them than you would elsewhere during Release Week, but it's worth it to me.

The Disney Store has chosen to only carry full screen copies of The Incredibles. Unacceptable, obviously.

They won't let me keep my portfolio of lithographs... I have to give it back to get my money back. Complaint call to their corporate customer service line- they didn't care, the video business, the guy sais, is such a 'miniscule amount' of their overall business, and there isn't 'sufficient demand' from their customers to carry, you know, BOTH versions of what is/very probably will continue to be- their biggest release of the year.

I'm torn. Want the portfolio. Do NOT want to accept the expensive coasters they've sold me... do NOT want them to have my sale. Could take it and attempt a no-receipt-somebody-screwed-up even-exchange at Target or somewhere, but... bothers me.

Bidding on a portfolio on eBay, but I don't wanna go over $10 for it, really...

The Disney Store SHOULD have cared about selling me the theatrical release of my favorite film from last year.

I won't be shopping there again (and I've bought lots of Nightmare Before Christmas snowglobes and 'stuff' and Pixar things, over the years).

Ladies in the store were nice, and sided with me.

Guy on the complaint line was fairly rude (of course, he couldn't give me what I want, and that colors the conversation, but... no, he came off pretty 'ugly'- his attitude was that my dissatisfaction was completely unimportant).

Anyway. My girlfriend bought her's at Best Buy yesterday (and their print/premium was really cool-looking), so I was able to spend a little time with it... marvelous and thorough extras... love it, love it, love it...

 

[Michael.M.C]

Sometimes Walmart and other retailers first week prices are less than what a rental stores' supplier charges. So, he buys lots of a popular title liek The Incredibles, rents them for a month, then sells his excess for about $10 each.

Think of it this way, he may have paid about $16 (with tax) at Walmart, rents each for a month averaging say $40 in rental, then sells it for $10. Net profit may be about $30 - $35 each.

Who is going to ask if he is a dealer at Walmart and why should they care? No Walmart has a rule against "dealers" anyway. Their money is as good as yours.

 

[Kyle McKnight]

How is that related? It has nothing to do with a Walmart experience which is what this thread was started for. You could always exchange your FS copy to Best Buy with your girlfriends receipt, and get yourself a WS copy.

 

[john mcfadden]

Movie Gallery is only renting the full screen edition

 

[Phil Tomaskovic]

depends how picky BB is. Aren't the widescreen & fullscreen different UPCs?

 

[Mark Philp]

It is usually up to the store management, either local or corporate, to decide if there are limits on purchases. I don't think there is any law regarding it. It wouldn't surprise me if because Wal-Mart buys in such large quantities and gets huge discounts that their opening day sale prices might be cheaper than the wholesale price to a small local store.

 

[Jerry Almeida]

When I was a manager at Target we used to get people who would by cans of soft drinks by the pallet full. I've talked to them and they said that our prices are better than they can get from the distributers. So they fill up their vending machines with what they get from Target and Wal-Mart.

We never limited their purchases, unless it was specifically documented in the weekly advertisement.

 

[Dax P]

Kyle, related only in the 'purchasing Incredibles this week' way. I understood that the original poster was discussing Wal-Mart and mass-buying. I normally would have posted an anecdote like this in the Weekly Round-up thread, but saw this topic (which was in Coupons and Bargains before being moved to the more appropriate Retailers Feedback forum) and decided to relate my story here. Yeah, it was 'iffy' placement on my part, but I just needed to vent (but didn't need to start a discussion in its own topic, I didn't think it was THAT important...).

And I do think Phil is right about the UPC and sku #s making the BB receipt plan a tricky thing... worth a shot, but I could see it not working...

 

[MattGreene]

use the widescreen slipsleeve (with the upc) and put your fullframe dvd inside then return to best buy for a switcheroo.

 

[Nathan_F]

If that's not outright illegal, it's certainly highly unethical.

 

[MattGreene]

i'm sure that Dax will do hard time for the great aspect ratio caper of '05

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Just another reason why this trend of putting slipcases outside the shrinkwrap is stupid- not only do stores stick price tags on them, but less ethical people can switch them with a higher-priced title to get it for a lower price.

 

[Jerome Grate]

The video store in my area, (still alive because of porn) had the Incredibles ready for renting a whole week in advance as well available for sale, the full screen version. I asked him how much for the copy for the heck of it and he said 25.99. I said I can get it on Tuesday 15.99 why even sell it for that much. He said he pays approximately 18.00 per copy hence the reason for the high price. Now getting to the this guy, if that's the going rate for video stores to buy for renting, then they make a bigger profit when they buy it far cheaper from Walmart than the video distributer. Unethical, yes but unfortunately as far as Walmart is concerned a sale is a sale.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I work for a video/music retailer, but a lot of times I still get the loss-leaders at Target and similar stores for less than with my employee discount, since we don't get anything below wholesale cost.