[US] 2013 Year End Clearance

starfire2

Hiding merchandise is defrauding a company. You would be doing it in hopes to get a larger discount. That my friend is illegal. If I could lose my job and potentially be arrested for it, so could you (the arrested part).

CircleK

^ while I would never condone hiding merchandise in order to nab a discount, I highly doubt that anyone, employee or non employee, would ever be arrested for doing so. Moving an item from a shelf and placing it somewhere else in the store is not against the law and it would be almost impossible to prove intent. The person may have moved items bc they were hiding them, or maybe they just decided they didn't want them, or they thought that is where they went, and so on and so on.

I worked Loss Prevention for years. The more likely scenario is that a person caught doing something like this repeatedly would be asked to leave the store and never come back. A lot of people are shocked by this bc they think that they have a right to be any place they consider public and that right cannot be taken away. Kmart / target / Walmart, etc can ask you to leave anytime they want for any reason they want and you can be banned for life. If you choose to return after being told not to come back well then that is when the arrest happens for trespassing.

tamamahm

starfire2 said:

Hiding merchandise is defrauding a company. You would be doing it in hopes to get a larger discount. That my friend is illegal. If I could lose my job and potentially be arrested for it, so could you (the arrested part).

That is making an assumption that it is being done for the larger discount.

Growing up, there were times my mom would creatively move a product behind other items, because she needed to return with the money, or she ran out of time to buy it that day and planned to come back the next, etc.

None of that was defrauding or being done to get a discount, but rather a fast 'hold' my product system.

BTHodgeman

^ and ^^ - Agreed.

@starfire2 - As an employee, you can be terminated for it because the company has a policy against it. (Understocking is what they typically call it in the retail word.)

Store policies are NOT law. While the store can terminate its employees for violating policy, the worse the store can do to a customer is ban/trespass them.

As others have said, an AP person may get suspicious, but good luck proving that person's intent. There is nothing illegal about moving merchandise within a store.

wagnerml2

And, if I'm not mistaken, that is why the retailers have employees front the shelves every day, so that "misplaced" merchandise can find its way back to the correct shelf space (In addition to making the shelves look nice.)

dannyrww

The Lego Store still had eagle polybags for 48 cents when I went yesterday. They did say I could only by 5 at a time now though. I'm really surprised to see so many of these so cheap (I have over 30 now). I did get a couple of target ones for 39 cents (TMNT and Friends) but I actually had to do some searching to find those. Is anyone else still seeing eagles?

BTHodgeman

Nope - not up here. The eagles have been gone for a few weeks.

And I also didn't get many 39 cents polys from Target this year. There's definitely some increased competition....

jadedanc

Haven't been able to find a single eagle polybag down here in La @dannyrww

FenrisAkashi

Eagles gone in Tigard, OR.

krklint

@BTHodgeman, I figured your hunting would become easier once I moved to Miami ;) I guess some newer, younger tribesmen filled in the gaps I tried to leave for you :p

BTHodgeman

@krklint - Sadly, I don't even think it's the Lego diehards... I think it's the couponers/deal-seekers and their Facebook pages blasting out every deal as it goes live.

I get pretty good information on which stores are going 90% when, so I could plan to go to stores in a certain order and be reasonably certain of picking up a ton of stuff. Now I usually can only find Lego at 90% off in the first store I go to.

Of course I'm not upset. It's just the nature of retail these days. :) Bottom line, it's good news for Target. I do a lot more buying at 70% off now.

Is it any easier in Miami?

dougts

man, I have never seen LEGO get past 50% off at my local targets, and that's for the undesired sets. The vast majority go at 30%. 70% would be a dream

BTHodgeman

@dougts - to be clear, I'm referring to the polybags in the Seasonal section.

Regular Lego will never go past 70%, and that's only for sets that start at 30%. Sets that start at 15% will never go past 50%.

dougts

heh. my local Target sells out of seasonal polys at full price. I never even find them usually

BTHodgeman

They did a better job at inventory management this year to be sure.

The Train polybag was a big hit. I bought 3-4 at full price, and I think I ended up with only 7 or 8 at 50% off. (I went to 15 stores on December 26, and that's all I could find. Most of them were found in the wrong spot, on the base shelf, behind boxes, etc.)

I was able to get endless amount of the TMNT and the Friends polys at 50%, but the Friends were mostly gone at 50% off.

Only TMNT made it to 70/90% here, and even that was a struggle. I was lucky and got an entire box at 70% off since I found one store still stocking the shelves with merchandise from the backroom.

wagnerml2

Anyone find any new discounts at Target today? Mine were resetting the shelves and most everything was gone.

prevere

BTHodgeman said:

They did a better job at inventory management this year to be sure.

The Train polybag was a big hit. I bought 3-4 at full price, and I think I ended up with only 7 or 8 at 50% off. (I went to 15 stores on December 26, and that's all I could find. Most of them were found in the wrong spot, on the base shelf, behind boxes, etc.)

I was able to get endless amount of the TMNT and the Friends polys at 50%, but the Friends were mostly gone at 50% off.

Only TMNT made it to 70/90% here, and even that was a struggle. I was lucky and got an entire box at 70% off since I found one store still stocking the shelves with merchandise from the backroom.

I never even sniffed the train polybag. Lego really needs to do a whole line of mini train sets. Emerald Express is a nice touch. But the market can handle about 10 or more just like it.

binaryeye

wagnerml2 said:

Anyone find any new discounts at Target today? Mine were resetting the shelves and most everything was gone.

I checked my local Target yesterday but they had absolutely nothing discounted. They've seemingly been in the middle of resetting the LEGO aisle for the past couple weeks; e.g. a couple single sets from different themes will appear, then a couple more single sets from different themes, then a few of the LEGO Movie sets, etc. They did have some Lone Ranger on clearance about a week ago (Silver Mine Shootout at $57, ha!) but it's all gone now.

In general, the late summer resets seem to be a better time to find stuff on clearance.

Russell844

@prevere, need some trains? I have extras.

ecmo47

One of my local walmarts has red-stickers some sets. The LOTR Goblin King is back on the self for $69.00 and the Priz-whatever Mandalorian fighter is $39.98. Some other sets had a clearence tag but were full price.

canon03

BTHodgeman said:

...I went to 15 stores on December 26, and that's all I could find...

That's what I call dedication.

Thanos75

I checked my local Target when I got off work today. They had cleared the LEGO isle and moved the clearance stuff to its own isle. They had lots of LoTR sets...Helms Deep, Pirate Ship still at 30% off. They had one Epic Dragon for $83. A couple LR Silver Mine shoot outs and one Train ...both still at 30% off. Only stuff they had at 50% were some assorted Galaxy Squad sets. I did pick up some of the Chima LEGO cases with the building plate in them for $3 each.

scotty12

wagnerml2 said:

Anyone find any new discounts at Target today? Mine were resetting the shelves and most everything was gone.

I'm in Iowa and most and the very few things clearanced were already gone at 15%. As of today there were some Galaxy Squad and some SW Geonsian ? at 15% off still and 3 Hobbit Goblin Kings at $84.xx. No change...but I found 1 LOTR Pirate Ambush that had been lowered to $69.xx (with $84.xx sticker showing). Employees either didn't find it because it was behind the Goblin Kings or they hadn't gotten that far because everything else was taken off shelves and put on endcaps for clearance.

prevere

Russell844 said:

@prevere, need some trains? I have extras.

Thanks. I'll think about it. I have some crushed boxes from TRU, but I'd like some nice boxes.

BTHodgeman

canon03 said:

BTHodgeman said:

...I went to 15 stores on December 26, and that's all I could find...

That's what I call dedication.

Well, we do have them about every 2-3 miles up here in MN. Only took me a couple hours.

rocao

prevere said:

Thanks. I'll think about it. I have some crushed boxes from TRU, but I'd like some nice boxes.

I think Russell844 means the Xmas train polybag

Russell844

^ yes train polybags, not boxes :)

Rainstorm26

I was at WM tonight and found one TLR Stagecoach marked down for $18. Was that a good deal?

BulkheadX

better then the $39.97 ninjago set I saw awhile ago at a WalMart on clearance for $39.00! lol

ninjagolightly

I picked up a LOTR Pirate Ship Ambush for $50 today. It was still marked at $85. KEEP CALM AND USE THE SCANNER. Lone Ranger and everything else was still at 30% off, both sticker and scan. It irks me that I never found any 39 cent Kraangs, I would have gone to town on those.

legomason

@ninjagolightly What store? Target?

madforLEGO

Rainstorm26 said:

I was at WM tonight and found one TLR Stagecoach marked down for $18. Was that a good deal?

Pretty good deal, I'm not sure if it ever went for under 18, I think I saw it for 16-17 and change during Amazon's insane Cyber monday sales

@legomason I think the Kraangs are only at Target

goshe7

^Kmart 50% off clearance. I think it was $14.50 final price for TLR Stagecoach.

wagnerml2

^^ Yes, it was actual $13.50. I found five of them at that price I think

krklint

@BTHodgeman, last year I had zero luck with polys reaching 70%. After Christmas this year, I scored big due to an employee stocking the Friends Ice Cream poly in the wrong aisle (price tag and all). So at 70% off I was able to buy 130 of the Friends poly. I only found 4 of the holiday train poly at 70% off, and I could have purchased about 50 of the TMNT polys, but only bought 10 of those.

To be honest, I knew someone in the Midwest who wanted/needed every Ice Cream cart available, so this year I purchased for resale. Normally I buy these up to use during my 3rd year University Technical Writing course; but a bonus $300 off of my first Lego sale in over a year made it so I can finally purchase the Ewok Village... which wasn't going to happen, otherwise.

The good-bad-ugly of Miami is that there are about six Target stores within 15 miles of my home... so these after-holiday sales are a bit of an Easter egg hunt for me.

BuriedinBricks

All of the TMNT were gone before they hit 70% around here. I bought like a half dozen at $1.99, which gives me a fun little stash. I found a single Friends Ice Cream cart at one Target, which likely was reshopped back to holiday clearance because it wasn't there earlier in the week.

I have no patience to hit multiple stores for these. I guess I would if I could count on a quick sale, but it usually takes at least a year for me to profit off of them and I don't want to sit on a few hundred for that long.

ninjagolightly

legomason said:

@ninjagolightly What store? Target?

Yeah, my bad for not specifying.

mrseatle

Ugh. The two walmart near me have no working scanners. One employee told me how to use the one at the paint counter, but another employee chastised me for using it...

BrickDancer

.

chuckp

@ninjagolightly Thanks for pointing out the LOTR Pirate Ship Ambush discount. Grabbed the last copy from my Target today. No shelf tag indicating any sale, so I would have totally missed it. Thanks again!

pharmjod

@mrseatle you can use the walmart app on both iphone and android while you are in store to have a portable scanner. I just open the app up as soon as I walk in a store and switch it over to store mode and rarely even bother with using the store scanners.

legogregors

Amazon warehouse has EV3 set 31313 for $284 I'm original(damaged packaging). With Barnes and Noble coupons specifically excluding Mindstorm this may be the best deal for someone who wants to build.

Thanos75

My local Target still has three of the Pirate ambush sets on the shelf. They scanned at $69 today. The manager said they will be another mark down Thursday.

mooman66

Kmart began their 50% off clearance toys sale yesterday, but no Lego to be found at my two local stores. Plenty of TLR on the shelves, scanned them all, but no dice. I'm in Baltimore.

starfailure

(my Kmart has had 50% clearance going on for the past 2 weeks.)

wagnerml2

Mine too, but the lego was long gone.

ecmo47

Found this today. Clearance tags, but no clearance prices. Bummer!!

wagnerml2

Hit two of my local KMarts today. Had clearance toys down to 75% off. Aisle was decimated. Looked likew a bomb went off. Nothing by Angry Birds star wars left.

LegoFanTexas

ecmo47 said:

Found this today. Clearance tags, but no clearance prices. Bummer!!

Not clearance, but the train is $10 off RRP, if you want a copy, now is the time, it is EOL.

ecmo47

^ You are correct. But that was the only copy and the box has issues as you can see.