Will Customer Ire From Today’s Rip Off Stall the Wal-Mart Christmas Season?

I was certainly surprised to read about this today, because all the Wal-Mart stores in my area (8 in a 20 mile radius) tend to almost never answer the phone.

So imagine my surprise when I read that Black Friday items were being “assigned” to customers who called yesterday, and that when customers appeared early this A.M., deals mentioned in ads (without any mention of the practice) were not available.

PCWorld tells the entire story, though doesn’t say if the information was gathered  only from one store in Tracy, Ca. (it might be interesting to know where the phone actually gets answered!) -

Black Friday customers who arrived at the Walmart store here, expecting to purchase an e-Machines laptop for the $198 Black Friday price were surprised to find the entire shipment of 37 units had been assigned to other customers the day before.

A store manager admitted that the only way for a customer to know that tickets allowing later purchase of the machines were being distributed early would have been to call the store and ask.

Such tickets are used by other stores–such as Best Buy–but were not mentioned in Wal-Mart’s Black Friday advertising, which only said the laptops would be on sale from 5 a.m. until 10 a.m.

“That really sucks,” said one unhappy customer when he learned he could not purchase a laptop, despite at the store at 5 a.m. when the sale was supposed to start “How was I supposed to know to call?”

The Walmart manager, named Mark, said other tech products had been pre-sold in the same way as well, but did not elaborate.

Still other products, supposedly available for the entire day, did not go on sale until 5 a.m., despite the store having been open since midnight.

Mark, the store manager, said the company changed its Black Friday strategy this year, following the death of a security guard, crushed by customers when a Long Island opened on Black Friday 2008. This year, the Los Angeles Times reported two minor incidents on at Walmart stores on Friday.

“There are some things we need to refine,” the Tracy manager said when asked why someone who arrived at the advertised time–5 a.m.–was unable to purchase the advertised laptop. It appeared that customers who lined up inside the store as early as 3 a.m. had not been told the item would be unavailable.

It is unclear whether the early ticket distribution was done at Walmart stores nationwide or only in limited areas. It appeared other computers, including a $298 HP model, were also pre-sold.

This is the sort of thing that leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths, considering that many rely on television and news ads that are nationwide in their scope.

I wonder if this might further change the way in which these companies do business on the Thanksgiving weekend. It is getting so odd here in Southern California. So many stores are now open on Thanksgiving Day, it will soon cease to be a major holiday, being relegated to the status of Mother’s Day or Father’s Day – nothing to become too excited about.

I have seen this become so different over my life. It used to be that the Friday after Thanksgiving was when you recovered from the eating, drinking, and interacting with all the members of the extended family. Now it is  Thursday that is simply the countdown to the absolute insanity of the shopping madness that does not recede until the Sunday night following.

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shopping madness! Let me know when these are featured on ad at Wal-Mart…

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