The Branded Pantry

These two (in their Jammies) get the award for the “most self entertained” shoppers during our excursion to the Grey Thursday => Black Friday promotion at Walmart.

I do believe we have discovered that shoppers want to be entertained, and are perfectly willing to join in and become part of the “event” when they sense an opportunity.   In addition to these two we encountered folks dressed up as their favorite footballers, although that may have been their natural state.

Fun at Walmart.  Who’da thunk?

In Grey Thursday => Black Friday I detailed my trip in the Grey Thursday event at my local Walmart.

I was able to observe my eldest daughter and her husband, two Ubershoppers, in their natural habitat.   When I encouraged the idea of visiting the Walmart, the two immediately hit their tablets to determine the environment we were likely to find and to understand the rules around the desired product, a Blue Wii for $99 which my other daughter wanted for her kids.

They found that the product was on a first come first served basis, limited inventory and was to be released during the 10 pm promotion as opposed to the items made available at midnight.

We hustled to Walmart, found a just vacated parking spot a block away and hurried into the bedlam at just after 10:30 pm.

We scurried, as best we could, to the electronics department (picture).  We did not see any Blue Wii’s.  A question to a clerk ended with a chuckle and a terse “long gone.”  The Ubercouple said not to despair but wandered about to listen in on conversations, hoping to hear about new stock.     I simply eyed a cart containing the Blue Wii hoping the cart owner would become distracted with some other bright shiny object.

Patience paid off as a rumor surfaced that there were indeed Blue Wii’s about over in some back corner.    The Ubershopper one began a systematic search and found a two layer pallet of the Blue Wii’s hiding in behind the light-bulbs, guarded by two fierce looking Walmart ladies.  It was determined that we needed a ticket to release one of the Blue Wiis and so we were summoned by smart phone to help guard the pallet in case a flood of ticket equipped consumers showed up.

Ubershopper number one went into “sweetheart mode” and convinced one of the two protectors to escort her to the “holder of the tickets.”  Ticket secured, we picked up the elusive Blue Wii momentarily ecstatic, until of course we realized that we had a two hour wait to check out.

Ubershopper two and I headed up to see if we could find an approach that would give us a shorter line.  We found one, but still had 20 or so shoppers with carts ahead of us.   Ubershopper number one stalked other lines and put in a smart phone call to tell us that the lines in electronics had become confused opening up the two center checkouts.  She pounced on the lapse and we arrived just in time to have a slightly bewildered young fellow check us out and ask where we had found the Blue Wi.

We were out the door by 11:06 pm with a Blue Wii strapped across the hood of the car.

Huge amount of chatter about whether Walmart’s call to start Black Friday at 10PM Thanksgiving Day was awful, smart or both.

I do not know how the sales numbers came out but I can tell you that it was a smash mouth hit in the Lake Zurich Store.  On a whim, my two daughters, son-in-law and I decided to check out the action and got to the store just after 10:30 pm.

OMG:

• The lot was jammed up.  Absolutely full.
• Streams of shoppers were already heading back into the lot, most with a bag or bags, or some sort of big box electronics.
• The cart bays in the vestibule were completely empty.
• The checkout lines were enormous, snaking across the entire width of this super-super-center (see picture, yep that is the checkout line.)
• Walmart had a ton of personnel and most seemed helpful, although a few seemed simply dazed.
• Walmart had a two stage deal setup; one beginning at 10 pm and the second beginning at midnight.  The midnight items took up a second main aisle parallel with the checkouts.  The displays were fully wrapped in transparent wrap so the goodies could be seen but not taken (sort of ) and each deal was marked with a balloon with a price.  Some folks were simply sitting on the floor, with already packed carts waiting for the next frenzy at midnight.

Clearly the objective to tap consumer’ purses early in the process worked very well.  It was clearly delineated on Walmart.com prior to the event and it seemed to have a hold over effect, as the lot was still full Friday afternoon, while Target and Costco were not so much.