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Meh. It's financial survival of the fittest. They'll weed themselves out.
Meh. It's financial survival of the fittest. They'll weed themselves out.
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Liquidators operate on the P.T. Barnum principle. Hopefully, they will get burned by smarter consumers.
@humphrmi: Might want to steer clear of the dehydrated water and solar-powered lightbulbs.
You'd think they'd just sell the stuff cheaper? I'm sure a few people fall for this, but having to keep the stores open and running, electricity and payroll would end up costing them more as the stuff just sits on the shelf unsold. Unless their army of accountants has concocted a master plan of writing off losses or some other creative financing. Bloodsuckers.
@humphrmi: P.T. Barnum never said that, you know. It was a competitor who attributed it to him in attempt to create a bit of bad publicity for Barnum. Obviously it didn't work.
I can never understand why associates would outright lie to a customer. :(
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@puyro: And as a customer I never know how to respond. Other than saying \"that's not true/accurate,\" at which point they respond, \"yes it is,\" at which point I really have no other response but to leave, I guess. It always just confuses me when they lie to me, I know they're lying, and they must know that I know, yet they persist in the lie.
@magic8ball: The appropriate response in such a situation is to LOUDLY inform them how you know they are blatantly lying and suggest to other shoppers that they go get it for a fraction of the price at BestBuy or another retailer. The biggest way you can hurt these guys is to inform the people who don't know better.
@puyro: In this situation, they have every incentive to lie and no incentive not to (except for personal ethics, in which case they'd have found another job long ago). The employees don't have to worry about losing their jobs; they know that's going to happen soon. In the short term they have left, they are paid by how much merchandise they move. The employees are not going to get fired for lying to customers, because the liquidators don't care about repeat business; but by lying they WILL earn one last blast of commissions until the doors close.
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@dwasifar:
I guess that would explain what happened at the Compusa. I was looking into buying HDTVs and was comparing store prices. I asked what kind of warranty the thing came with and how much (I know, I was being stupid). The guy responded by saying he'll be bringing the thing out for me to purchase and went to the back. I just walked out since I was just trying to ask him how much the thing cost.
@WasabiJoe: Heh, I guess he was hoping that his getting the item from the back would somehow make you feel obligated to buy. Personally I would have stayed to get my information and then left. Let him know you're not falling for it.
People fall for this crap though. My girlfriends mom went and bought a bunch of junk and Linens and Things for 25% off. They used to send out coupons for 20% off purchases every 3 weeks since they opened.
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@corinthos: Bed, Bath and Beyond does the same thing! I've gotten 20% off coupons mailed to be every couple weeks since September, or even earlier. Their stuff if so overpriced that even with the coupon, the same thing is cheaper at Target with no coupon.
@AbsoluteIrrelevance: Yeah and they would take coupons from each other too. I always thought they were owned by the same group until recently because almost everything they carry is the same in both stores with almost the same lay out.
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I went to one liquidation sale back when I was like 14 and the CompUSA nearby was closing (this was back when CompUSA was acceptable). I was sooo excited I was practically jumping up and down thinking I'd get some heavy discounts on computer stuff.
Went into the store and everything was over the price it was when it was CompUSA, even at like 50% discounts! My friend and I ended up leaving with nothing except sadness and maybe a bag of potato chips.
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@trujunglist: That sadness was a valuable lesson learned, though. Be proud that even through the excitement, you kept your mind sharp and your wallet closed. Good for you!
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@trujunglist: I actually ended up getting some sweet deals on the compusa closing. Picked up a 500GB hd for $10. Had to wait until the last day of closing and they where desperate. I almost had and shiny new mac mini for $100... got beaten out by some chick with essentially no shirt on...
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I remember in my retail days I worked for a chain that went into bankruptcy, and shut down about 1/3 of their stores (mine being one of them) via liquidators.
People would come in and accuse us of raising the prices before discount, and would call me a liar when I told them we hadn't. this thing is that we really hadn't raised the prices, our merchandise really was that overpriced to begin with.
@VOIDMunashii: That story actually amused me. I love the idea of you trying to convince a customer that the store really is that shit and they refuse to believe you and call you a liar. You just can't win sometimes, can you?
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@shufflemoomin: This was how the Ultimate Electronics liquidation was. They didn't jack up the prices before reducing them it was actually that overpriced to begin with. I knew this because I had gone to one a week before they declared bankruptcy and the start price was the same as pre-bankruptcy. Store was near full at the end of the liquidation since nobody bought anything. No idea where the stock gets dumped after that.
Be careful... since the advent of the Internet, consumers are a lot more aware of retail pricing, and the cost and value of the products they buy.
There are always suckers out there, but more and more people are starting to get wise.
Aren't there laws against this? I know a store in Canada, got fined because one item was always listed as 15% off and never listed at the non-sale price.
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I was in Jackson, MI yesterday and drove by the CC that was closing there. I for a moment considered stopping and seeing what deals they had. Then I remembered that I worked there last year for like 6 months and how much that place sucks.
Plus the liquidators are notorious for doing this, and figured any great deal I could get on amazon without walking inside that place.
This practice really ought to be illegal. Perhaps we should write our representatives in Congress and do something about it?
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@COELACANTH: What, exactly, should be illegal? Pricing items high and then extending fake discounts?
1) Totally unenforceable.
2) Totally over-legislative.
How about, instead of making stuff illegal, the smart people comparison shop and the dumb people get poor, just like has always happened in America. The fleecing of the stupid is the basic engine that keeps our economy chugging, through good times and bad.
Save your paper and ink. Congress could give a crap less about this, especially in these economic times.
Perhaps they'll give the liquidators a bailout after no one buys there crap at over inflated prices...
One thing I wonder is whether 2008 will be the death of gift cards. Why would anyone ever buy a gift card when it could become worthless if the store goes into bankruptcy?
Cash would seem to be preferred. I know people say that if you give cash, you didn't really think about the gift. However, I have never seen anyone get upset when I give cash as a gift. Go figure...
@charmaniac: I am trying to pound it into the heads of my family that cash is the best gift. Its always available, provided you are not in debt and universal, it can be used to buy anything you want. Its also something that everyone can use more of! I don't see how cash can be a bad gift, in fact I think its the perfect gift!
@charmaniac: Exactly. I know some see it as \"tacky\" to give cash but I'd rather have the freedom to spend the money than be forced to spend it in one place I may not even like.
I think a gift card is just as devoid of thought as cash and is the lazy man's gift. I actually had a long chat w/ my parents when they got me Visa gift cards since there were limitations on where they could be used (no gas stations for example) that would not be an issue if they had given me cash. I of course appreciated the gift regardless, but I always try to educate people around the terms of these things.
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@charmaniac: I'd guess most people who think cash is tacky also think that criticizing gifts is tacky, so you're not going to hear it about it from them.
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@charmaniac: And I prefer gift cards myself because I despise having to carry cash. If I ever get mugged someone's going to be mad because all they'll get is a credit card, debit card and my license.
I just have to hope that people give me cards to places I normally go.
@charmaniac: Some people give gift cards so you have some control over how the recipient spends their money. If I give you cash you could spend it all on hookers and blow. At least if I give you a Krogers or Kohl's gift card I know you'll get some food or clothes.
We usually give my grandmother-in-law Walmart gift cards so she won't gamble with the money.
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Solution, visa gift card.
1) Harder to use it on hookers and blow.
2) Can be used practically anywhere that takes visa.
@lordargent: What if people want hookers and blow? Do hookers give gift cards? And where do they swipe it?
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According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, one of the meanings of word \"Liquidation\" is to \"to do away with\". I think that's exactly what's going on here...
Just remember to take your T-Mobile G1 and scan the barcode at Circuit City. If you have one of those Apps, it'll give you local prices and online prices. Pretty handy.
Wish I had one, haha.
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@MooseOfReason: I think the iPhone has an Amazon based bar code scanner app too now. Of course, I'm a G1 user and this was the first thing I thought of. :)
I remember when my previous employer (Sharper Image) closed, people were not happy with the discounts because the items first went back to their list price. Example: Air purifier: list price $299, normal sale price $199, price after liquidation discount $229. Also, all of our clearance stuff went back to the original msrp. Things always get fun though when the discounts start to accelerate. With a week or 2 to go, the liquidators start hitting 70-90% off, and that's when you strike for whatever's left.
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If I recall correctly, liquidators are jackasses on both ends. My family's small hardware store went out of business and it wasn't pretty at all.
@jurijuri:
There must have been a conglomerate corporation owned business like Lowe's or Home Depot moving in right across the street...
I stopped by an Arlington Heights, IL store since I was in the area anyway. I had priced out a specific Samsung 50\" plasma TV beforehand and was curious to see how much the \"discount\" was at CC. I go to the TV displays, and the same exact model that was selling online and at Sears for $900 new, free shipping, and no tax, CC had it priced at $1,299. To make matters worse, the TV had a tag that said \"Last One\". Curiosity made me ask one of the floor sales guy to see if the Last One means 1 more new in box, or the floor model itself. He said it was for the floor model. Before I could start laughing, he went on to say something to the effect of \"A lot of people think floor models are bad, but these TV's have only been on for about 4 months, about 4,000-5,000 hours, and their expected life is supposed to be 100,000+ hours\"
So, in essence, they wanted $400 MORE for a used TV that had been sitting out there for 4-5 months with people messing with it all day. Great thinking
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I have to admit - going to these liquidation sales has the same agony as watching two morons colliding in a car crash. I enjoy watching people picking up the boxes and think they just might be getting a bargain. Perhaps the buyers & the liquidation company deserve each other?
Gordon Brothers hard at work taking care of the public.
Sorry for the sarcasm.
I see this all the time with the word 'sale' anymore .Even alot of Black Friday prices aren't the greatest or cheapest ever run except for a few door busters where there's what like 6 at each store ?
A sale price , a good sale price or a cheap sale price are all different things but most sheeple only see the word sale .
I remember thinking the same thing must've been going on when Media Play went out of business a few years back. I went in there and was surprised by how *not* on sale everything seemed to be, especially since it was the last days of the store being open and half of the shelving was already removed from the store.
@meatee: This is one sale I did well at, of course like every sale it depended on what you bought. Their prices on DVD's and video games were so overpriced to begin with that it wasn't even worth looking at (guess this explains why they went under). The thing is they had the lowest prices on music and everything in the mid 90's but it just went downhill after that and prices just started going up and up.
During the Liquidation sale, once you started getting into the toys and other already reduced stuff the bargains got pretty good and I was picking up things for a buck or 2 each and giving them as gifts. The video game guides on the last 2 days were great as they were running 3 for a dollar and some guides were ringing up like 20 cents each. They took extra discounts on top of their clearance prices too and didn't mark it up to the original price. This was quite a few years ago though and it seems that liquidation sales have changed a bit since then.
However even at 90% off some stuff did not sell...
They also used to have killer sales year round, I remember one memorial day where I really cleaned up because of the coupons they issued and because of how much stuff was reduced.
I went to my local closing CC (City of Industry, CA) and bought a bunch of CDs. These I am SURE I got cheaper than I could elsewhere, as they were fairly new and online + shipping would've been more than the discounted CDs.
everything else: prices sucked. the only other thing I really need is an external hard drive, and I'd just gone to BB and Fry's the week before to price them. CC's prices & selection (to be expected, they WERE closing) sucked.
There were more people there than I've ever seen in that CC before though.
Why even bother when you can go to newegg and get everything cheaper (well most of the time).
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A liquidation sale in December is like a license to print money. Good for them.
I mean if people are willing to line up at 3am and then trample a man to death to save $5 on an off brand, Chinese DVD player, then just imagine how well these liquidators will do. If people can't be bothered to check prices online before leaving the house, then, as they say \"a fool and his money is soon parted.\"
This is not new, nor is it unexpected, in Brooklyn where I grew up, there were stores that had going out of business sales every 3 or 4 months. They would claim, \"we lost our lease, profit from our loss\",\"Huge Savings\", \"Everything Must Go\". Then like magic they would be able to sign a lease extension.
NYC and other places outlawed this practice, so it stopped.
BUT it is your responsibility to know the price/value of the things that you are buying, if you do, these practices will have no impact on you.
PS Wait until they get to the last 5 days of the sale, then you might get a deal if you can find something you need.
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@TrueBlue63: I once tried waiting until the last few days, and the merchandise left was horribly picked over. This was at CompUSA. I wound up getting a halfway decent price on an inkjet cartridge that turned out to be past it's 'best by' date and dried out.
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Wifey & I went to Linen & Things. I knew there were no bargains to be had, but I wanted to see for myself the scam taking place. The signs all said 40-60% off, but the prices were just OK. The quality of the junk on the floor was so bad, I wondered if the liquidators had moved dollar store merchandise in there. I prevented wifey from buying a trashy pot for $19 (50% off). It couldn't have been worth more than $5.00 at best. But shoppers were cleaning the store out!
Disgusting. I'm done with retail. I'm tired of shopping already; stories like this (and the Wal-Mart trampling) make me even less interested. I don't need anything except food and medicine, so I'm not buying any more.
Let's start wearing a button that says:
\"RETAILERS: WE DON'T WANT TO PLAY ANYMORE.\"
Your point is well-taken, but I can't agree that I need to buy stuff I don't need to be a good citizen. First, \"not playing\" is a way to vote with my dollar. And when people start building savings that helps the economy, too, just as consumer spending does. Also, if I'm buying non-essentials, I feel shopping should be enjoyable - not something that requires me to arm myself defensively as if I were parachuting into enemy territory. But when you combine the predatory practices of credit card companies.....the crappy quality of merchandise ... poor or non-existent customer service... and scams like these \"50% off deals,\" shopping's no fun anymore.
@YamkaGlocks: Voting with your money is the best way to combat this. If you find that a store is putting lots of sale signs on items that are not actually on sale, fill out a complaint form and don't shop there. Go to a different store or take your business online. Educate yourself on the practices retailers use to get you to buy more. Educate other shoppers. Don't be afraid to tell people that it will be cheaper online to get what they are looking for. If we all stop spending then the economy will go into the crapper even more than it is now. People will also lose their jobs as more and more retail stores close which will then trickle down to even less spending and an economy that is even worse off. I spend money but I spend it very carefully. I don't load down my cart with non-essential decorative items from Target. Its more about being an informed consumer when you shop then saying you are going to boycott retail and stop shopping altogether.
@YamkaGlocks: Who are you kidding? Of course we want to play. A large part of the allure of shopping lies in the thrill of the bargain hunt. Now it's made all the more rewarding if weâre being savvy about it, and with the proliferation of information being greater than ever before, thereâs no reason why we ought to be taken in by this sort of bullshit. Yes, you can revile retailers for preying on our stupidity and greed if you want to, but they can get away with it time and again without fail is always going to come back to us. Itâs our responsibility for not being savvy enough as shoppers that we abandon all common sense and reason every time a retailer posts the word âsaleâ somewhere, and if you really want to do something about it, your energy would be better spent on educating these ignorant shoppers on the follies of taking a sale at face value. A silent protest might leave you feeling better, but itâs ineffectual, and tantamount to putting your fingers in your ears and pretending like the problem doesnât exist. Itâs arguable that itâs clearly put a wild hair up your ass, and hey, youâre clearly smart enough not to be taken in by this bullshit, so share what you know with other people. You can still shop and be savvy about it and not feel like youâre being taken for a fool, and you can help others to do the same. Whether or not you do is up to you.
there was just a huge article about this in the NYT, but of course, i can't find the article.
So when is the last day of circuit city liquidation? It sounds like the last day is the only good day to try for a deal.
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That Blu Ray player was probably 20 percent off and not 50. Not every single item in the store is going to be a percentage off from what the sign says. As of last week items were 20 to 50 percent off. Week before it was 15 to 40 percent off. This week it's 30 to 60.
Still, all awful deals and you people should be ashamed for even thinking otherwise. Hell at my store the first thing I do is direct people to newegg.com and they still get pissed off. Got to love retail...
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Forget about jacking up the 'list price', how about just bad math? Our one and only CC here that's shutting down had a giant \"All Camera Gear 50% Off!\" sign above their camera supplies. I figured it'd be a good time to pick up a spare battery for my Nikon D80. Regular price listed for the battery? $79. The 50% off discounted price? $59.
Now I'm bad at math, but even I was just standing there amazed thinking WTF??
I always wonder if stores like \"Big Lots\" does the same thing? I'm never sure if I'm getting any kind of deal there.
And the grocery stores with that basket or table of \"discounted close out\" items -- the prices never look all that great to me either.
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I personally saw that exact player at HH Gregg for $199 the weekend after Thanksgiving.
Ironically, however, I went into the GOOB Circuit City nearby and bought a strategy guide for a video game for $0.01. No joke.
I actually did get a deal at the Circuit City closing near me, but only after I questioned the price. The product was a 9600GT video card, which originally launched at about $189. They can be gotten now for $130-$150. The sticker at the Circuit City showed an original list price of $229, marked down to $160. When I brought it to the counter and mentioned that the card had never listed for that much, and that the discount was way over the price it could be gotten elsewhere, the girl checked something on the computer and said, \"Oh! Look at that! It has been marked down again to $99...must be a new price.\" So, I got the card for $99, but I wonder whether the price was actually registered that way, or whether the sales people had instructions to lower the price if necessary to move the products out.
Does this come as a shock? Old news, if you changed out Circuit City with CompUSA, you would notice a very similar pattern. Even with the neon going out of business signs.
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This post has actually taken energy away from my anger at the liquidators and put it towards the people who will invariably all for this nonsense.
@unobservant: FALL!
I fail at fall.