Monday, November 19, 2007

A Retail Wii Experience

I just thought I'd share a little story with you all.

As you guys may or may not know, I work part time at a local retail store in the electronics department. Yesterday morning, we got a large shipment of 60 Wii's in to go on sale. Of course, there was a large line starting at 6 am for the systems, and we didn't even open until 9. I was brought in to work early to help with the sales.

We handed out tickets to everyone in line. One ticket per family. This would guarantee these people would get a Wii, and it was the only way we were selling them. We were wanting to be as fair as possible. Everything was going smoothly. I was having a blast, because these people were all so happy to be getting Wii's. You could tell most of them were parents buying X-Mas gifts, which I thought was awesome.

But then there was this group of kids in their later teens or so who somehow got a hold of several tickets. We caught them jumping back into the line after buying a Wii with different clothes on. When the got up to the register, my manager explained that we would not be selling them another Wii because we watched them jump back in line after changing shirts, and we already sold them one. They proceeded to argue, saying "We have a ticket, so you have to!" My manager just kept saying "Sorry, you already got one. One per guest, that's the rules." The kid wouldn't give up, he just kept saying "So what! I have a ticket! I want another one!" This is where it gets good, because all the customers then started yelling back at the kid. "Some of us are trying to buy these as gifts for our kids, and people like you are keeping us from getting them!" I sat back and smiled while all the other customers yelled at these punk kids until they finally gave up and left!

It was a great site to see people who really wanted a Wii to give as gifts triumph over a bunch of punks who were obviously trying to make money off of them.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Methinks they were buying them to resell on eBay for a couple grand...

Mandalorian30 said...

Yeah, exactly the reason I'm glad they were stopped. But getting a couple grand is a bit much. Heh. I don't think Wii's are going for much more than $300-$400 online, despite being wildly popular at the moment.

Stina1 said...

The kids probably had bought Wii's before at the store kept the ticket to get one and went home and copied it. That way it was like they had tons of tickets to get as many as they wanted. Long shot but its possible.

Who has that kind of money to go out and buy that many Wii's though? Its insane.

Mandalorian30 said...

No, this happened in a 5 minute span. No way they could have left the store and come back. More than likley, the cashier they went to first just forgot to take their ticket. Or they had extra people standing in line for them when the tickets were handed out.

Stina1 said...

Yea thought about that, kids are sneeky like that. Plus they should have known they were going to be able to get 2 if they brought a change of clothes to change into and buy another one.