sleaziness?? in new jersey?? say it aint so!

Thats pretty sleazy. And kind of pointless, they would be better of announcing they have a bunch of them and putting a sign out front. They are going to sell, all they did was blow a sale if there were 2 people headed for it and one missed out.

This should make Nintendo happy. If enough Best Buys are doing this, then they can ride the shortage hype train for just a little bit longer.

I would love to hear a cellphone video of the announcement. Without documentation, the post has a slight smell factor of a Circuit City employee casting false claims against their leading competitor.

Maybe it was just a test. I know that Best Buy has a new promotion coming out for the Wii and most have a bunch in storage right now.

hey bada-boom bada-bing, let's sell the last wii.

Sorry...sorry...sorry. That was just uncalled for

Two of my friend's worked at that Best Buy. Not really surprising to me. Though I did buy my Wii there too last year.

And Jersey dwellers wonder why New Yorkers hate them so much.

Nu-uh.
Salesclerks at Best Buy being dishonest with the assistance of management?
Color me unsurprised.

The BB near my house sets them out on a folding table with the accessories, games, etc when they get a shipment of Wii in.

This isn't the sleaziest thing I've heard of when it comes to selling the super rare ultra valuable Wii. I know someone who works at another electronics retailer and when ever a shipment of Wiis comes in a few will mysteriously end up behind a box of whatever, until at the end of the day some 'lucky' employees happens upon them and buy them for themselves. Of course the first ones are for personal use but the vast majority of them are sent straight to eBay to turn a profit. I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of the Wiis found on eBay came from scams like this.

I got mine at a Best Buy. I jokingly asked the person in the game area expecting to hear a no and he said yes, and they had 7 left. Didn't seem to lie, in front they had 7 stacked with someone guarding them at all times.

Heh, at least those New Jersey blueshirts weren't claiming the "last" Wii fell out of a truck.

@Omi: Hardly a "scam" per se. I worked at a computer/electronics retailer at my University for two years, and this happened with almost all of the hard-to-find products. Employees get first dibs. That's part of the perks of working there, and was fully sanctioned by my store manager. He let people take home Wiis on friday (they were released on a Sunday), and take home copies of Halo 3 the day before they were released.

When I worked for Best Buy, they would let employees purchase new release DVDs on Monday night after closing when they were to be released the next morning. I think that's the case everywhere.

What's wrong with pushing a product with enthusiasm like this? Better than idiots sitting around not helping anybody. It's called "puffing" and is perfectly legal.

The law knows that selling involves making the product look bigger and better than anything else available. In this case the product is so good, people have "supposedly" purchased all of them.

What difference would it make to you if it was really the last one or not? Would it make you like the product any less?

This goes beyond "puffing." "Puffing" is making a statement that's opinion, not factually true or false. Saying something like "this is the best video game system ever and it's way more fun than the Xbox 360" is puffing.

When you start outright lying about objective facts ("this is our last one in stock"), that crosses the line into deceptive marketing. One could argue about whether this violates various consumer protection or false advertising laws (not that anyone's likely to bring suit). But it's sleazy regardless.

@mgyqmb: Its not the case everywhere and actually illegal according to the conditions set forth by the producers of the games and movies. Selling early is breaking the street date and you can be fined.

I'm just bitter becasue my manager is an asshole and doesn't allow this kind of stuff. He refuses to let staff or family of staff buy any "hot" item on launch date. I could understand not letting the staff use their discount on the launch date, but to not let us buy at all sucks.

I see they've caught on. The Morgantown, WV Best Buy has done this with specific items for a while now. You should have seen them pushing Bioshock this way a few months ago. Myself, I find it petty...

If it's happening at one Best Buy, it must be happening at them all. Right?

Wow... what an irresponsible post.

@BigNutty: It introduces an element of stress/duress that wouldn't be there otherwise. In other words, "buy it now or miss out!". So they want you to put down your money instead of saying "hey, I don't need it after all" and leave.

@lalahsghost:

I have not had a single game I could not buy on release day when I walked into the first store to get it. Seems kind of silly to promote something that silly.

@mgyqmb:

This is a big no-no. Companies do not tolerate that behavior, and corporate will come down hard on them if they find out as this can get them fined from the manufacturer.

Imagine Microsoft finding out and you pissed them off to the point they refused to send you any new shipments for 2 months. The amount of money lost would be ridiculous.

interesting.... in kansas BB will have a line of people out front if they announce they have wii's, no need to push them at all.

I wish the Consumerist had a vote for banning IDs. BigNutty is simply a troll without any useful opinions or advice. He simply makes ridiculous comments supporting whatever slimy corporation is under the microscope...

So they put all the Wii's that they have out in the morning and they sell out right away, or they let them slowly trickle out and give people the chance to get one throughout the day. Gives the lucky ones a nice story to tell. Either way they are all going to sell, "last one" or not.

This sort of reminds me of those furniture stores that have giant "going out of business sale" signs posted all over town. Of course the lame thing is that they've been going out of business for the past year or so. Another stupid marketing tactic.

@jacobsor: They are saying its the last one, at a standard price. Nothing fraudy about that. Its an issue when they try to sell it higher then normal like that, or if they lied about something material, like warranty length.

that seems so dumb though, why not put all of them out and allow as many people to buy them as possible. say you said "this is the last wii" and 5 people want it. bb just missed out on 4 wii console sales for nothing.

this tactic isnt so fradulent as it is just plain dumb. the bb near my house displays wiis like how shadowfalls described, a bunch stacked up and someone kinda guarding it.

When I went to best buy a Wii and asked if they had any, the salesman said to go look for games while he goes back and checks. When he came out, the guy comes up to us and asks, "How long have you guys been looking?" and reveals the Wii from behind his back like he was doing us some massive favor. Apparently we were lucky because this was the last Wii they had.
I kinda figured the guy was lying, and his whole attitude pissed me off, but I didn't really care because I just wanted the Wii. Which, by the way, I have been throughly enjoying.

@mgyqmb:

That's odd. The chain where I work puts customers first, and will fire your ass pretty quickly if they can prove you're doing any of the mentioned things (stashing product, etc.), though obviously there's no real problem with buying product on the day of release before anyone else - though for the Wii, customers got first dibs.

The only Wii that didn't make it into customers' hands on release day was the one we threw up for a demo. AFTER release, employees got to them first, but there's really not much wrong with that - but if an employee had one on "hold" and a customer came in asking about them, out the door it went.

@BigNutty:

As others mentioned, this isn't "puffing," this is illegal conduct. Deceptive advertising.

@LatherRinseRepeat:

"Going Out of Business" sales DO last ages. Business owners don't say "Welp, I'm closing up" and lock the doors the next day unless things are REALLY bad.

Instead, they scale down the number of employees and continue to sell (slowly) until a sufficient amount of inventory is gone, covering various costs. In some cases (cf CompUSA), the business has already been sold to a liquidation firm, and that firm is simply selling through all of the remaining inventory. For something like a furniture store or an automotive dealership, these things can take several years - people often open them up without understanding just how slowly the product moves, and the effort required to bring in fresh customers.

That said, if a store is "going out of business" for a year+, and they don't seem to be running low on inventory... something is fishy.

This is the least of Best Buy's problems.

Nice work with setting the Macbook homepage to our fave website:)

one sold every 55 minutes with this technique...hmmm. i think they might sell them faster if they just put them all on the shelf.

At least they were selling them.

@mammalpants:

Yes, I agree. I want to buy all that I can & sell them on Ebay for twice the price. Thanks for sticking up for me.

(Just kidding. I was a lttle miffed at Best Buy when I started reading this, but from the above angle it kinda makes sense.)

unless it was followed by "that I have in my hands" its another low blow for buy more. sheesh

what Wii shortage?

I went to Costco on Saturday and they had a pallet full of them, must have been 75 easily.

@mobbo: If its got the corporate name on the front of the store, they are representing the entire chain. Just because other people haven't written in or specifically seen it at other stores doesn't mean it hasn't or won't be happening.

I find it annoying that if I was looking for a hot ticket item at one of these type stores and they had a secret stash that they should technically be selling and not pulling this crap with, I'd definitely make it a point not to shop there any longer.

To put it simply:
My time > your sales technique scam.

Deceptive Business Practices, anyone?

This just seems like a moot point. If they put them all out they'd be gone twenty minutes after the store opened.

There is nothing wrong with this practice. Not in this case anyway. Consider the alternative: Letting somebody wait outside of the stock room and before employees can get the stack out to the floor, letting them buy the lot of them to sell for a profit on Ebay. This is exactly what happens at most stores, like Walmart. This is clearly bad for the consumer.

In this case, the consumer gets the very real impression that they will not be able to get that product at that store. This is very bad for the retailer.

They may also get the impression that the product is so hard to find that they might just stop looking or consider a rival product. This is very bad for the manufacturer.

Technically speaking, this practice is clearly deceptive, but it is NOT lying. If I have a product in my stockroom, it is not in my store. These places are, in a legal sense, separate. When they say "...in the store." it means the same as "...we are making publicly available.".

This way, everyone has an equal chance of getting one at any time. Doesn't sound quite so evil now does it?

I'm so glad I don't want one of these things - tried one out at a friend's house and left thinking, "that's it?". It wasn't bad, but in my opinion this sort of shortage hype has been a big factor in the platform's success.

If she was holding it over her head, her armpits probably smelled like Newark.

@RvLeshrac: I am not an expert in the area of advertising but I would ask of you what is 'illegal' in this? Usually (from my limited understanding of consumer protection law) the concept of deceptive advertising is to get you in the store with a false claim. Here, you are already in the store. I can see it may make you rush and grab it but (1) no one says you have to pay for it right away and (2) a Wii does not seem like a spur of the moment item. You are either going to get one or not. As for price, generally, BB has them at the lowest so it is not really as if you are getting cheated plus I think they have a price match but that may be years old. I think in Massachusetts where there is a very broad consumer protection law generally referred to as 93(b) there may be an issue but in the end, the purchaser has 3 weeks (?) to return the item. I do not like this practice as it seems silly and as another poster noted that if they simply set out all the machines at once they would be gone in a stampede...heck, maybe this is safer than a stampede to a stack of boxes?

The only other issue I have here is we are listening to hearsay. The overly technical definition is "Hearsay is an out of court statement, made in court, to prove the truth of the matter asserted." I know this person may have little reason to lie but it seems that within these articles, everyone assumes the truth. Where is the camera phone pic or video? If I saw something as crazy as this I would have snapped something. Again, I am not doubting the verocity of this individual but too many times everyone just assumes that the person is truthful and that the 'evil corporation' is lying.

Short term gains for long term loss of integrity.

it amazes me that nintendo has kept the hype going for over a year now just by limiting production. it's like a long slow sexual marathon..when it's over all you want to do is go to sleep.

Perhaps they wanted to only bring them out when their #1 salesdick was available to put the squeeze on for warranties and accessories. Or perhaps, possibly in addition to the previous statement, they want to make sure that every Wii they get lands in the hand of a "Barry" with the cash to afford to accessorize or a "Maria" who will be so concerned about wasting the money that she's a shoo-in for the extended warranty, to use their terms.

@BIGNUTTY, manipulation is not the proper conduct for a retailer. They are making a false statement to incite buyers to make a snap buying decision.

@TWINSTRONGLORD, how about the retailer just treating me like a f'ing adult with a little dignity and respect?