Sam's Club Won't Let You Buy A Wii Because They're Saving It For Later
Shawn is a Sam's Club member and on a recent shopping trip to buy a Wii he thought he'd snagged the very last one, but when the cashier tried to ring the item up something went wrong. Turns out that Sam's Club was "saving" that Wii for a "Grand Re-Opening" party and refused to sell it to Shawn and his girlfriend.
My girlfriend and I decided that since we have extra pay cheques this month, we were going to purchase a Nintendo Wii for ourselves. Like everyone else who seems to be searching for a Nintendo Wii, we became giddy when we think we’ve finally found one.
Last Saturday I found myself picking up a few items at Sam’s Club (335 Fanshawe Park Road W. London, ON Canada) with my girlfriend. I wandered over to the cage where they keep the electronics and asked the woman working if they have any in stock. Surprise! They have one last one left. Speaking to the girl in the cage, she tells me she can hold it for 30mins at most while we finish shopping. I skipped like a little girl to find my girlfriend and explained we have 30mins to purchase said Wii. Within 10mins we’re at the cage to make our purchase…..only not.
At first, the item won’t scan. The woman, who was friendly and very helpful throughout what will become an ordeal, tried to scan it several times. No dice. The woman attempted customer service but made no head way and continued to scan it. Something must have sparked in her head because she checks to make sure she can even sell it, which according to the book she can. Next she calls her manager, she explains the situation up until that moment, and apparently they have 100 in stock, but can’t sell them until Thursday for their grand re-opening! The woman helping even asked her manager why they would have one in the cage and 99 hidden in the back. Not being happy with the answers, no fault of the woman helping me, I asked her to have her manager come over so I talk to her personally. Guess what? She’s too busy to talk to me about something so trivial on a Saturday morning. I was told if I wanted my Wii so bad, I could come to the store the following Thursday morning at 7am and wait in line to perhaps get one. It’s not like I have to work full time in order to pay for items or anything.
Not losing my cool, I thanked the woman attempting to help us, as she spent a fair amount of time trying to help us as much as possible, which was greatly appreciated (I wish I had her name to thank her, but alas, I was pretty angry at this point) and walked over to customer service to get a district managers phone number. Of course, they “don’t have a district manger”, but was offered head office’s phone number.
I’ve now made three phone calls to head office, once after hours (left a voice mail), twice during business hours (again, voice mail….does anyone actually work there?). I’ve yet to have any of the phone calls returned some two weeks later.
I’ve often sang the praise of Sam’s Club, even purchasing memberships for 3 other members within my family (my parents, my brother/sister in law, her parents), but this just isn’t right. I just want to know why they have items for sale but refuse to sell them, why a manager won’t speak to me regarding an issue within the store and why head office refuses to return phone calls. Considering we have to purchase a membership for the privilege to shop, I would think I at least deserve an explanation.
So Ben and gang, aside from cancelling the membership (which we use often having two kitties and our tummies to fill), what can be done to get their attention? Please help!
Aside from posting your complaint on the internet, which you have now done, you could give Walmart's upper management a shout. Here's some Walmart contact information. We understand that they're holding some Wiis for their little party, but if it was out on the floor that was their mistake and they should have tried to compensate you for the inconvenience. Maybe you should switch to another warehouse store?
(Photo: Jason_Percival )
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam malesuada commodo erat et molestie. Duis pellentesque aliquam bibendum. Suspendisse venenatis lobortis eleifend. Mauris id est sed lectus convallis aliquam.
Post a comment
Comments:
Threaten to cancel your membership. Maybe that would have put the fear of god in them...
I'd look at it this way. You and Wii, were not meant to be together. Go buy a PS3...
Are they still hard to find?
buy a ps3? that's just crazy talk. Cancel your sam's membership and join costco, much better place :)
I say join Costco.
@Jaysyn: They can be found, but you still have to put in search time. Gamestop (the god-forsaken video game store) has them at least once a week.
ack, just when i was thinking it's already safe to buy a wii :P i refuse to buy one until they're regularly stocked and i can walk in my target and buy one off the shelf. good luck with your hunt though.
I can understand if they've already released ads for it (saying something to the effect of minimum 100 in stock - where there being 99 would cause an issue)
That being said, it's still poor service.
@charliux: Good luck with that.
@wgrune: Good luck with that one too.
They are probably required to have a minimum number on hand for this event. That's why when you see ads (particularly on Black Friday) that say "Minumum X in stock" or something to that effect, they have to have that many. Usually, they'll have a lot more than that (at least with the shitty loss leaders).
You can usually guarantee that if you walk into a Best Buy (for example) on a Friday, and you ask for a Wii, they won't have one. But they probably have 20 of them in the back, but they're unable to sell them, because their Sunday ad will advertise a minimum of 20 in stock.
Sam's Club doesn't really have a "back," probably just an upstock. It probably got moved down by mistake.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
I had a similar experience at Bestbuy. I looked online and it said they had some in stock. I drove over to be told by the sales associate that they sold out. When I spoke to a manager about it, low and behold they had several in the back. Looks like the employees are holding them for themselves. All the associates had a look of surprise as I walked out with the Wii. I would be surprised if this was the first one this store had actually sold in weeks.
Dang, they could have done *SOMETHING* - set it aside for you to pick up at your convenience after the reopening, perhaps?
I would agree with the recommendations to switch to a different wholesale club. That will fix their wagon!
@donnie5:
The Super Wal-Mart in my small town *always* has them, you just have to ask. They don't display them, which is pretty dumb if you ask me.
By the way, I greater than three ( <3 ) Costco. There is no other warehouse club.
Back in my retail days, we often had to remove items from the floor to ensure we had them on hand for the next ad that came out.
My guess is that they were holding them for an ad/promotion.
I didn't get the impression that the Wii was out in the open for everyone to see - my guess is the salesperson jumped the gun before realizing it could not be sold.
looks like he threw a different kind of Wii "fit"
Wahhhh...come on, just come back Thursday like they said and buy it. Believe it or not, it really could have been the case that the manager might have been doing something more important than dealing with a customer who was trying to buy something that wasn't for sale yet.
Only buy a PS3 if you want to watch Blu Ray. Go somewhere else and buy your Wii.
I understand that they probably already put out ad copy that says minimum 100 Wiis in stock, and like many retailers, will probably have 100 tickets/vouchers to hand out to people in line on the day of the launch, which might cause a problem if the 100th person in line doesn't get one because they've been sold early.
Having said that, they could have easily told the OP that they'd special order or otherwise get a Wii for him. It wouldn't be the same as going home with it that day, obviously, but having a guarantee that you'll get one at the store you want to buy from can make a good deal of difference, customer service wise.
Also, perhaps they could have called around to see if another Sam's or Wal-Mart had more than 100 and could let the OP get one?
Target holds Wii constantly for weeks at a time. They will get a set in and wont be allowed to sell them because 8 weeks in the future they are in the ad and they think people who come in for a Wii will shop the rest of the store after they are pissed off because Wii's are sold out.
Best thing is Target.com will often shows stores having them instock and when you go to the store they wont let you have one.
I couldn't buy a Wii!!! Waaaah!
Dumb? Yes. They are greedy bastards who are monopolizing the Wii's popularity to increase their own (Grand reopening? Obviously nobody cares!)
End of the world? Hardly.
With the price of gas skyrocketing, mortgages going down like a hooker on the Titanic, an implosion of the DNC, war, famine, depression, recession, and rogue Ford dealerships plotting genocide, this is what you are worried about?
At my store, I have been accused at least once a week of ruining some kid's birthday/christmas/arbor day because I don't have a Wii to sell them. Get over it.
I had the exact same thing happen at Costco! Exactly. From picking up a few items with my girlfriend; to skipping like a little girl; to not losing my cool but being angry (just generally); to making three separate phone calls (to friends over the course of the next few days). Only it was about fudge. They had it, I wanted it. The only real difference was they did sell it to me with no convoluted story and no questions asked. Uncanny.
I'll try buying a Wii next.
To those saying to go to Costco, it is not always an option. There isn't one too close to where I live. I'm not driving 45 minutes to avoid Sam's Club.
But if that is an option, certainly try them out or use that as leverage at Sam's. (Sam's does give full refunds on memberships, if you cancel.)
As far as I'm concerned, if it's on the floor, it's fair game. I wouldn't have walked out without the box under my arm, or a rain check for when they could sell them.
In any case you aren't missing much anyway.
@skrame ☆: Yeah, there's one in my area but not close enough for me to actually patronize -- or I would go there; I believe in supporting businesses that treat customers/employees right.
Cancel your membership. Policy says that if you are not satisfied with the service you can cancel at anytime for a full refund. That's what I did with my Sam's membership and I went straight to Costco. Didn't cost me anything but some time.
When I cancelled, they didn't even bother to ask why, they just processed the information. You're one person, WalMart/Sam's club doesn't care.
uughhhhhh more reasons to hate any sam walton establishment
When I hear stories like this my first thought is always that some employee wants to buy it and said issues are made up.
Wii sellout stories are getting old.
Don't shop at Walmart.
Trouble is, they've deterred a customer, but they won't lose anything over it, because they will sell out of them, thanks to the tightly controlled supply.
Otherwise you could tell them to just hold their Wii....
Sorry, couldn't resist.
I would have just opened up the packaging right there and then. Then they'd probably insist I pay for it. ...and then it would be mine.
Costco > Sams
why was it displayed when they wern't gonna sell it??????/
Next time open the box, and let's see if they still refuse to sell it to you.
Or lick it.
Or pantsu it.
Don't blend it though. THat won't work for you.
I would have sold him mine.
Offer to take it back to the shelf and then hide it somewhere in the store. Come back the next day when the sale is going on.
Oh, then install a modchip in your Wii..
Just say to yourself: "It wouldn't scan because it was probably filled with bathroom tiles."
@jimv2000: You're serious? He should take a day off work to come and, if he's lucky, buy the item which he already had in his hand? The item was on the sales floor. It was FOR SALE. Maybe it shouldn't have been put out. That's not the customer's problem. It's Sam's Club's problem. Tough t*tties for them. Maybe moving forward, they should put a little more efort into their stocking procedures.
Sam's did the same thing to us, except that they had 22 in stock when we called. When we got there less than an hour later the cashier pointed to a guy pushing a flatbed cart loaded with them and told us that he "had just bought the last 15" !!! WTF happened to the 'one per customer' policy? I emailed Nintendo America, and Sam's customer service. They actually had one shipped in from another store and hid it in the managers office until we were able to come and get it. 'Still switched to Costco though, Sam's sucks.
Is this under the right to refuse sale a retailer/club may have? What are consumer protections for this? Is it a form a bait and switch? Just asking...
We refuse to sell to you because you actually noticed one was for sale on the floor instead of hidden in the back where you wouldn't know it was for sale then we wouldn't have to refuse it to you.
Using Wiialerts.com, I scored a Wii on Amazon in under a week. I then scored another one (also on Amazon) a week later. If I was able to do it twice in two weeks, trust me, it's not that hard to do...
Fine. Go somewhere else and buy it there.