It's all explained here: http://hardtogetonline.com.

Anyway, good luck...It's what I will be using.

http://a-zgrabber.com

Hope it helps anyone trying to track down one of these for Christmas.

i am using a tool recommended by a friend, http://www.FrontLineGrabber.com to track Amazon.com stock so when the zhu zhu pet becomes available again in-stock at $8 dollars Retail price i will be the first one to know about it and grab mine.

i hope to get mine for my kids, resell prices are too high

I work in retail too, and a couple of things I know:
(a) We get to see flyers for the upcoming month & are instructed NOT to tell customers of upcoming sales.
(b) When we get a shipment in of something that is hot and going on sale within the next 2 months, we hold stock for that event. Even if it is one or two just to say we have stock.

Considering that there was a very specific limit (50) stores could have been instructed to make sure they kept 50 of these pulled for the event. And if there is some kind of Zhu Zhu shortage, and TRU decided to not plan ahead, why even e-mail blast the event at all? Or at least be willing to give the first 50 customers rain-checks.

P.S. The fact the store wasn't even open early as the ad clearly states tells me this was an epic fail on TRU. Kudos to you for supporting the company you work for, but even you must realize that is horrible customer service and/or terrible planning on TRU's part. Try not to take it personally... I don't when people have harsh criticism of the store I work for. I just give the best customer service possible while trying to apply any sucky decisions management makes, while being sympathetic. As a co-worker of mine recently said, "I'm wearing a hat & apron... you think decision makers have to wear hats & aprons? I'm right there with you man."

(In my store, however, they did actually send out a print ad advertising the hamsters on sale, and that ad was coordinated/printed several months ago.)

They're sometimes featured on morning TV shows as "the hot toy for this year" in early fall, but if you don't religiously watch morning shows, you'll miss that too.

If you don't have kids of your own or nieces/nephews/cousins/etc. to buy for, it's pretty easy to never hear about these until they're part of a news story about a soccer mom fistfight at Target.

But yeah, they gain popularity by simply being a neat toy advertised in a really eye-catching commercial ad nauseum on a children's programming channel. Then someone's friend gets one well before Christmas for his/her birthday and everyone gets a small hands-on demo. It snowballs from there and kids start begging for the toy for Christmas.

That's my guess, at least.

guess i was wrong lol.

@mamalicious: it is a failure in this case. You don't advertise something you don't have. They should have made sure those shipments were received prior to sending the email. I understand that the suppliers are not sending them/creating demand, but you shouldn't arrange a sale around something you don't have yet.

Except the OP was responding to an emailed ad, which could have simply not been sent out when it looked like the inventory would not be there, or if it was sent out, a follow-up email could have explained the situation.

Bunch of idiots.

I've got a 6 year old who has requested them for Christmas, I work in a store that sells them, and I couldn't even get one.

You do realize that those flyers and ads are printed in advance, don't you? They don't just print them the week before, more like MONTHS before. So, sounds like it's not just Toys R Us trying to be sleazy - the shortage of Zhu Zhu pets is pretty much across the board for all discount retail store.

@GitEmSteveDave_IsSlacking:
Teh bunnyfone is the greatest part!

@Colonel Jack O'Neill: Yes, let's take advantage of people so we can make a buck. People who do this are essentially taking toys out of the hands of children who would otherwise be getting them at Christmas, but can't b/c their parents can no longer afford the marked up prices. If people who wanted to make money off of them would stop the greedy grab, there might not be a shortage and all of the kids who wanted them could get them.

If you are not on webcam: No.

If you look hot: No.

If you are a couch potato who eats naked on camera: Please stay away.

Last week, Sports Authority advertised the Razor Powerwing for $20 off the normal $100 price; my son is salivating for one of these for Christmas and the grandparents won the lottery for that gift. Not only did SA not have any in stock, they didn't even know what they were. My Dad finally located one store that had one is stock, so he was able to get it, but had to drive quite a ways.

This past week, TRU had four in stock, and at the same sales price as Sports Authority. They also gave my son a refund on a MP3 player he had bought Saturday night and went on sale $20 cheaper the next day. I don't shop there often, but lately I've found some deals that even Wal-Mart can't beat.

Stores in Paramus cannot open on Sundays.

[www.nytimes.com]

@mavkato:

I think IKEA too, but I've read that's because IKEA stores are franchised and a few of the US IKEA stores aren't owned by the main US franchisee, but by another franchisee who doesn't partcipate in national promotions.

Toys R Us held them for me when I called the day they said they'd been on hold, but a manager told me that they'd changed the policy "that morning" when they saw the crowds outside and that it was a "pain in the ass to do this." However, since I had been told before I could place them on hold, the manager said "I guess we'll have to put up with having them on hold for you." There were other comments made, but the long story short is that I got those toy hamsters, after more rudeness at the actual store- but lost a LOT of faith in how Toys R Us deals with customers.

I contacted their customer service team and was basically given an auto-response of "we're sorry" and "we'll do better with this."

Reading this article of this instance has reinforced, to me, that they really didn't do anything to get better, nor really paid attention to my email or the feelings of their customers. I for one personally hope someone at Toys R Us reads this and gets the wake-up call they desperately need.

While it does seem a bit underhanded, it might not be the store's fault. They could have been shipped what the warehouse thinks was said items, but really the warehouse messed up and shipped a case of hello kitty puppets.

Also, I don't see anywhere where it says the store(s) is/are going to open early. It only says to get there early, which if they had had stock would be a given if it's limited to the first 50 households, you wouldn't expect to go near closing time and expect to get anything.

@PsiCop:
I bet that's how this whole robotic hamster thing started- someone told little Susie she had two female Zhu Zhus, and Little Suzie learned about robotic hamster lovin's real quick-like.

(Or at least I will be on for 2 hours at least. Others might come and go.)

as an aside... amazon also provided reviews that steered me away from this particular toy. didn't sound like a good buy to me.

;)

Sell them on ebay for $50 each.

Have a nice little profit of $40.

After all fees and everything, maybe you come out with a $35 profit.

Sounds like Toys R Us should go ahead and do rainchecks if it was their failure.

Look forward to Toys R Us's response to this post. Looks like they created a train wreck and not the thing you want to do when Wal-Mart is selling more toys than they are these days.

Amazon has them for around $35. Yeah, that's right. $35 for an $8 toy.

We were happy with the outcome.

Yes, this is off topic, and apologies for that, but had to tell people somehow :P

We did a Sykpe meetup last time to coincide with the Consumerist meetup in NYC. It was relatively sparsely attended, but it was fun.

We are having another one Today at 7PM CST again on Skype. If interested, please add mostly.harmless.42 to your Skype contacts, and mention that you are from Consumerist.

Oh, and unlike last time, this time we have a topic for the meet up as well. So that should help with the silences ;)

If I happen to run across one in a store, I will be tempted to buy one for my feline children.

...And maybe for myself too, a little.