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The past two weeks I was trying to buy a Nintendo Switch. I ended up getting it from Target for a similar reason; I was able to go on their online shop and see

by kop316 10y ago

The past two weeks I was trying to buy a Nintendo Switch. I ended up getting it from Target for a similar reason; I was able to go on their online shop and see which Target was carrying it. Wal-Mart only had scalpers trying to get people to buy it for x1.5 the price. When I went into a Wal-Mart (As their website said they had two in store), they were out even though their website AND their own stocking inventory said it was in store. When I went to a GameStop, they tried to upsell me to pay for a bundle (which had almost nothing I wanted) for x1.5 the price. Many of the online stores also made it a huge hassle to try to look in a local store without making a sign-in (Best Buy was the worst offender). The only reason I did not buy from Amazon is because of scalpers as well. I also like to buy Music CDs. There's a few record stores around, but I have frequently seen a $6-7 CD being sold for $12-15 at the record stores (This is even assuming I can find the CD I want). I would not mind if I paid an extra dollar or two to support the local store, but asking to pay close to twice the price is not worth it to me.

tzs 10y ago
> The past two weeks I was trying to buy a Nintendo Switch. I ended up getting it from Target for a similar reason; I was able to go on their online shop and see which Target was carrying it. That isn't working for me. It looks like they may have taken it out of their online shop. When I go to the Nintendo Switch section of the online shop there is a notice on the top of the page that it is only sold in stores and that I should check my local Target store, and there is no entry for it down in the product section of the page. I don't see any obvious way to check online if an item is in stock locally except by going to the product page for that item in the online shop, where they also tell you if the item is available for pickup at your local store. Speaking of buying hard to get consoles, I got a Wii on launch day without much effort at all. I knew people were camping out overnight for it, and was not willing to do that. I was, however, curious to see how many people actually did that and so got up that morning about an hour before stores opened and just drove around to see what the lines were like. As expected Best Buy and Target and the game stores had long lines. I went home and then it occurred to me...K-Mart sells video games, but I've never heard anyone talk about camping out at K-Mart for a launch of anything. I'm on the west coast (GMT+8) and it was about a half hour until stores opened. On the east coast (GMT+5) stores would have been open already for 2.5 hours, so I called an east coast K-Mart and asked if they carried Wii. They said they did, but were sold out. So I figured it was worth a shot, and drove to K-Mart. There was a line: two people. They told me they got there about 15 minutes before me. I got in the line, and a little after that another person joined behind me. A few minutes later someone came out from the store and told us that they had two Wii in stock. I got ready to leave because there were two people ahead of me, but they turned around and said they were together and only buying one. The person behind me started making some obvious preparations to rush in as soon as the door opened to try to get ahead of me, but the person from the store said that they would be given out by the order we were in line.
- kop316 10y ago
  They had it when I was getting it, that's interesting. I also used a site called iStockNow, they seemed to be able to scrap from a few websites and tell me who has it in stock. I hope that helps!

by kop316 10y ago

tzs 10y ago

> The past two weeks I was trying to buy a Nintendo Switch. I ended up getting it from Target for a similar reason; I was able to go on their online shop and see which Target was carrying it. That isn't working for me. It looks like they may have taken it out of their online shop. When I go to the Nintendo Switch section of the online shop there is a notice on the top of the page that it is only sold in stores and that I should check my local Target store, and there is no entry for it down in the product section of the page. I don't see any obvious way to check online if an item is in stock locally except by going to the product page for that item in the online shop, where they also tell you if the item is available for pickup at your local store. Speaking of buying hard to get consoles, I got a Wii on launch day without much effort at all. I knew people were camping out overnight for it, and was not willing to do that. I was, however, curious to see how many people actually did that and so got up that morning about an hour before stores opened and just drove around to see what the lines were like. As expected Best Buy and Target and the game stores had long lines. I went home and then it occurred to me...K-Mart sells video games, but I've never heard anyone talk about camping out at K-Mart for a launch of anything. I'm on the west coast (GMT+8) and it was about a half hour until stores opened. On the east coast (GMT+5) stores would have been open already for 2.5 hours, so I called an east coast K-Mart and asked if they carried Wii. They said they did, but were sold out. So I figured it was worth a shot, and drove to K-Mart. There was a line: two people. They told me they got there about 15 minutes before me. I got in the line, and a little after that another person joined behind me. A few minutes later someone came out from the store and told us that they had two Wii in stock. I got ready to leave because there were two people ahead of me, but they turned around and said they were together and only buying one. The person behind me started making some obvious preparations to rush in as soon as the door opened to try to get ahead of me, but the person from the store said that they would be given out by the order we were in line.

kop316 10y ago
They had it when I was getting it, that's interesting. I also used a site called iStockNow, they seemed to be able to scrap from a few websites and tell me who has it in stock. I hope that helps!