Brickset ForumShopping at LEGO or Amazon?
Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
[US] 2013 Year End Clearance
Shopping at LEGO.com or Amazon?
Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
Recent discussions • Categories • Privacy Policy • Brickset.com
Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 26.5K All Categories
- 15.5K General
- 3 Announcements
- 3.1K Collecting
- 3.7K Everything else LEGO
- 1.7K Building and Techniques
- 2.3K Brickset
- 14 Ambassador
- 1K Introduce yourself
- 379 The Database
- 434 Brickset.com
- 311 Forum Operation
- 15 FAQs
- 13.8K Shopping
- 1.7K Shopping USA/Canada
- 336 Shopping Elsewhere
- 10.9K Marketplace
- 1.2K Other
- 568 Community and Events
- 261 Photography/Video
Brickset.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, the Amazon.com.ca, Inc. Associates Program and the Amazon EU Associates Programme, which are affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Comments
My guess is that WM finally figured out inventory management to maximize profit and minimize loss.
Also, at another Target, the Holiday Train poly wasn't showing up on the walkway price scanners. I took it to checkout, and $1.19 was the price. Have fun searching the stores :D
I have read a lot about Walmart from seemingly well-informed folks in a lot of threads, although it is possible I have missed some, and I was hoping for some insight for such people on this situation, to help me judge how often it is worth swinging by in the weeks ahead.
I just scanned through several pages of the "shopping section" (I assume by that you mean "Shopping USA/Canada" subforum) and also did a search, and I'm not sure which thread in particular you mean as I do not find one called "Walmart Clearance", but in any case I asked the question because it did not seem to fit with any pattern I had observed in the past or read about. I believe the purpose of these forums is to share and seek information and I fail to see how your post advances that purpose.
If your Walmart was anything like mine, the shelves were quite bare of Lego 1.5 weeks before Christmas. I said this before Christmas, but I did not expect after Christmas sales with all the huge Lego deals out their before Christmas.
No reason to clearance stock if you do not have stock or only have little stock.
I would assume those that did have stock would have simply moved items off the floor for now. They were probably store anomalies compared to most other Walmart store, so there probably was not any corporate directive to discount. Either they will discount later or not discount at all.
Whatever the case is, Walmart is not playing at anything, and yes, most stores by me did get rid of most their inventory well before now. Big Box stores just went a very different direction this year.
I'd next to guarantee that the stores aren't pulling the stuff and storing it in a container until next year. They usually at least try to put them in the clearance aisle/area for a while and try to sell them at full price before they pull them to the backroom.
Technically, sometime this week (probably Wednesday), all remaining Christmas items will actually be coded as salvaged and sent to local Goodwill (or other thrift) stores.
If you find one on the shelves after it has been salvaged, it will not scan at the price scanner, and at the register, it will either say "item not found" OR prompt the cashier to enter a price. I've gotten many many "salvaged" items sold to me for $.01 or $1 depending on the supervisor/manager.
Technically, they're not supposed to sell them to you, but most of the time they do.
I have seen it before where a couple months down the road, they find a box of a certain item somewhere, and put it on the shelves at full price.
I haven't bothered tracking down a manager...yet.
First, it was a $4 item at full price, then it was marked down. Now it is so old it isn't even in the system anymore.
Frankly, why not just give it to you. :)
@LegoFanTexas - I think what happens behind the scenes is they "mark the items back up" before donating them, so they can claim the largest amount of a donation.
In doing so, they likely look at their on-hands, mark the items back up, "donate" the inventory and corresponding dollar amound, and reduce the on-hand to 0. That essentially clears the books for the entire Seasonal/Holiday category.
The reason they tell some people the item "can't be sold" is because it would create a negative on-hand for the store, which can result in inventory numbers being goofed up and P&L implications.
It doesn't seem like much for a single item... but multiply that times 2000 stores and millions of transactions, and it could add up to millions of dollars a year for Target Corp.
Multiply lost sales by "2,000 stores and millions of transactions", and that's millions of dollars of opportunity cost, both to generate revenue, and to build goodwill with your customers.
As a business, you can only write off what you paid for the inventory, not what you "wish you sold it for".
Sometimes for old or hard to price items, you can write off fair market value, but if you didn't sell them for 39 cents each, then it is hard to say FMV is $4. :)
For example, if I donated a UCS Falcon that I paid $500 for, it would be reasonable at this point to take a $2,500 tax write-off, that is clearly FMV. These polybags don't really meet that requirement. :)
Note: I'm not a CPA and I don't play one on TV, but I have donated tens of thousands of dollars worth of inventory over the years and taken a lot of write offs, and I do have a CPA do my taxes. :)
When they can mark it back up* (reply due to LFT in a moment), they are going to make more money on the tax write-off than they are by selling that item.
Realizing that they are primarily in business to sell items, not donate them, they do reasonably try to sell them for a few days at 90% off. The goal here is to minimize the work they need to do in processing the goods to be donated. (The process of marking items back up to count then, package them, and in some cases deliver them to a charity often costs quite a bit in labor.)
At the very least, however, they can claim whatever they paid for it, which is certainly more than $.39. Maybe more in the range of $2-ish.
Lets say Target actually did pay $2 each. When they sell them for 39 cents, they record COGS (Cost Of Goods Sold) as $2 and gross income as 39 cents.
The difference, they write off on their taxes.
It really makes no difference to their bottom line if they sell them for 39 cents or donate them outright, but there is far more labor in donating them than in selling them out the front door, and selling them for 39 cents brings in happy customers. :)
You're certainly correct: where there's a will, there's a way... but that it true with everything :)
I would not suggest hiding merchandise though in order to attempt a HUGE discount. It is dihonest and illegal and I will laugh my butt off when you get arrested or kicked out of a store for it.
As for hiding merchandise, while I certainly think it may be morally-questionable, I'm actually not sure that there's anything illegal about it. You're not shoplifting, and you're certainly not guaranteeing that you'll even get the items for a discounted price.
That being said, Target can (and will) trespass people for any number of reasons they see fit. This would certainly get your banned from Target.
(Target could probably try to make a case on the basis that you are defrauding them, but it's not likely they'd go through the effort and expense of doing that. It's a heck of a lot easier to trespass someone...)
I was simply stating that it is a technique that could be employed by an individual highly motivated to get a discount on an item.