This post has actually taken energy away from my anger at the liquidators and put it towards the people who will invariably all for this nonsense.

@unobservant: FALL!

I fail at fall.

Meh. It's financial survival of the fittest. They'll weed themselves out.

Liquidators operate on the P.T. Barnum principle. Hopefully, they will get burned by smarter consumers.

I can never understand why associates would outright lie to a customer. :(

People fall for this crap though. My girlfriends mom went and bought a bunch of junk and Linens and Things for 25% off. They used to send out coupons for 20% off purchases every 3 weeks since they opened.

I went to one liquidation sale back when I was like 14 and the CompUSA nearby was closing (this was back when CompUSA was acceptable). I was sooo excited I was practically jumping up and down thinking I'd get some heavy discounts on computer stuff.
Went into the store and everything was over the price it was when it was CompUSA, even at like 50% discounts! My friend and I ended up leaving with nothing except sadness and maybe a bag of potato chips.

@corinthos: Bed, Bath and Beyond does the same thing! I've gotten 20% off coupons mailed to be every couple weeks since September, or even earlier. Their stuff if so overpriced that even with the coupon, the same thing is cheaper at Target with no coupon.

I remember in my retail days I worked for a chain that went into bankruptcy, and shut down about 1/3 of their stores (mine being one of them) via liquidators.

People would come in and accuse us of raising the prices before discount, and would call me a liar when I told them we hadn't. this thing is that we really hadn't raised the prices, our merchandise really was that overpriced to begin with.

Aren't there laws against this? I know a store in Canada, got fined because one item was always listed as 15% off and never listed at the non-sale price.

I was in Jackson, MI yesterday and drove by the CC that was closing there. I for a moment considered stopping and seeing what deals they had. Then I remembered that I worked there last year for like 6 months and how much that place sucks.

Plus the liquidators are notorious for doing this, and figured any great deal I could get on amazon without walking inside that place.

This practice really ought to be illegal. Perhaps we should write our representatives in Congress and do something about it?

One thing I wonder is whether 2008 will be the death of gift cards. Why would anyone ever buy a gift card when it could become worthless if the store goes into bankruptcy?

Cash would seem to be preferred. I know people say that if you give cash, you didn't really think about the gift. However, I have never seen anyone get upset when I give cash as a gift. Go figure...

@humphrmi: P.T. Barnum never said that, you know. It was a competitor who attributed it to him in attempt to create a bit of bad publicity for Barnum. Obviously it didn't work.

@humphrmi: Might want to steer clear of the dehydrated water and solar-powered lightbulbs.

You'd think they'd just sell the stuff cheaper? I'm sure a few people fall for this, but having to keep the stores open and running, electricity and payroll would end up costing them more as the stuff just sits on the shelf unsold. Unless their army of accountants has concocted a master plan of writing off losses or some other creative financing. Bloodsuckers.

@puyro: In this situation, they have every incentive to lie and no incentive not to (except for personal ethics, in which case they'd have found another job long ago). The employees don't have to worry about losing their jobs; they know that's going to happen soon. In the short term they have left, they are paid by how much merchandise they move. The employees are not going to get fired for lying to customers, because the liquidators don't care about repeat business; but by lying they WILL earn one last blast of commissions until the doors close.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, one of the meanings of word "Liquidation" is to "to do away with". I think that's exactly what's going on here...

Just remember to take your T-Mobile G1 and scan the barcode at Circuit City. If you have one of those Apps, it'll give you local prices and online prices. Pretty handy.

Wish I had one, haha.

I remember when my previous employer (Sharper Image) closed, people were not happy with the discounts because the items first went back to their list price. Example: Air purifier: list price $299, normal sale price $199, price after liquidation discount $229. Also, all of our clearance stuff went back to the original msrp. Things always get fun though when the discounts start to accelerate. With a week or 2 to go, the liquidators start hitting 70-90% off, and that's when you strike for whatever's left.

@charmaniac: Some people give gift cards so you have some control over how the recipient spends their money. If I give you cash you could spend it all on hookers and blow. At least if I give you a Krogers or Kohl's gift card I know you'll get some food or clothes.

We usually give my grandmother-in-law Walmart gift cards so she won't gamble with the money.

@charmaniac: And I prefer gift cards myself because I despise having to carry cash. If I ever get mugged someone's going to be mad because all they'll get is a credit card, debit card and my license.

I just have to hope that people give me cards to places I normally go.

@MooseOfReason: You can do that via text message too:

[www.google.com]

If I recall correctly, liquidators are jackasses on both ends. My family's small hardware store went out of business and it wasn't pretty at all.

I stopped by an Arlington Heights, IL store since I was in the area anyway. I had priced out a specific Samsung 50" plasma TV beforehand and was curious to see how much the "discount" was at CC. I go to the TV displays, and the same exact model that was selling online and at Sears for $900 new, free shipping, and no tax, CC had it priced at $1,299. To make matters worse, the TV had a tag that said "Last One". Curiosity made me ask one of the floor sales guy to see if the Last One means 1 more new in box, or the floor model itself. He said it was for the floor model. Before I could start laughing, he went on to say something to the effect of "A lot of people think floor models are bad, but these TV's have only been on for about 4 months, about 4,000-5,000 hours, and their expected life is supposed to be 100,000+ hours"

So, in essence, they wanted $400 MORE for a used TV that had been sitting out there for 4-5 months with people messing with it all day. Great thinking

I have to admit - going to these liquidation sales has the same agony as watching two morons colliding in a car crash. I enjoy watching people picking up the boxes and think they just might be getting a bargain. Perhaps the buyers & the liquidation company deserve each other?

@Cletus Spuckler:

Solution, visa gift card.

1) Harder to use it on hookers and blow.

2) Can be used practically anywhere that takes visa.

@puyro: And as a customer I never know how to respond. Other than saying "that's not true/accurate," at which point they respond, "yes it is," at which point I really have no other response but to leave, I guess. It always just confuses me when they lie to me, I know they're lying, and they must know that I know, yet they persist in the lie.

@COELACANTH:

Save your paper and ink. Congress could give a crap less about this, especially in these economic times.

Perhaps they'll give the liquidators a bailout after no one buys there crap at over inflated prices...

@jurijuri:
There must have been a conglomerate corporation owned business like Lowe's or Home Depot moving in right across the street...

Gordon Brothers hard at work taking care of the public.

Sorry for the sarcasm.

@dwasifar:
I guess that would explain what happened at the Compusa. I was looking into buying HDTVs and was comparing store prices. I asked what kind of warranty the thing came with and how much (I know, I was being stupid). The guy responded by saying he'll be bringing the thing out for me to purchase and went to the back. I just walked out since I was just trying to ask him how much the thing cost.

I see this all the time with the word 'sale' anymore .Even alot of Black Friday prices aren't the greatest or cheapest ever run except for a few door busters where there's what like 6 at each store ?

A sale price , a good sale price or a cheap sale price are all different things but most sheeple only see the word sale .

I remember thinking the same thing must've been going on when Media Play went out of business a few years back. I went in there and was surprised by how *not* on sale everything seemed to be, especially since it was the last days of the store being open and half of the shelving was already removed from the store.

@VOIDMunashii: Monkey Wards? Yes my past involved them as well...

@trujunglist: I actually ended up getting some sweet deals on the compusa closing. Picked up a 500GB hd for $10. Had to wait until the last day of closing and they where desperate. I almost had and shiny new mac mini for $100... got beaten out by some chick with essentially no shirt on...

@Zwitterion: Better off writing to his state's attorney general.

@MooseOfReason: I think the iPhone has an Amazon based bar code scanner app too now. Of course, I'm a G1 user and this was the first thing I thought of. :)

@VOIDMunashii:

Be careful... since the advent of the Internet, consumers are a lot more aware of retail pricing, and the cost and value of the products they buy.

There are always suckers out there, but more and more people are starting to get wise.

I went to my local closing CC (City of Industry, CA) and bought a bunch of CDs. These I am SURE I got cheaper than I could elsewhere, as they were fairly new and online + shipping would've been more than the discounted CDs.

everything else: prices sucked. the only other thing I really need is an external hard drive, and I'd just gone to BB and Fry's the week before to price them. CC's prices & selection (to be expected, they WERE closing) sucked.

There were more people there than I've ever seen in that CC before though.

Why even bother when you can go to newegg and get everything cheaper (well most of the time).

@VOIDMunashii: That story actually amused me. I love the idea of you trying to convince a customer that the store really is that shit and they refuse to believe you and call you a liar. You just can't win sometimes, can you?

@lordargent: What if people want hookers and blow? Do hookers give gift cards? And where do they swipe it?

A liquidation sale in December is like a license to print money. Good for them.
I mean if people are willing to line up at 3am and then trample a man to death to save $5 on an off brand, Chinese DVD player, then just imagine how well these liquidators will do. If people can't be bothered to check prices online before leaving the house, then, as they say "a fool and his money is soon parted."

@trujunglist: That sadness was a valuable lesson learned, though. Be proud that even through the excitement, you kept your mind sharp and your wallet closed. Good for you!

@trujunglist: i hope the chips were 50% off

This is not new, nor is it unexpected, in Brooklyn where I grew up, there were stores that had going out of business sales every 3 or 4 months. They would claim, "we lost our lease, profit from our loss","Huge Savings", "Everything Must Go". Then like magic they would be able to sign a lease extension.

NYC and other places outlawed this practice, so it stopped.

BUT it is your responsibility to know the price/value of the things that you are buying, if you do, these practices will have no impact on you.

PS Wait until they get to the last 5 days of the sale, then you might get a deal if you can find something you need.

Wifey & I went to Linen & Things. I knew there were no bargains to be had, but I wanted to see for myself the scam taking place. The signs all said 40-60% off, but the prices were just OK. The quality of the junk on the floor was so bad, I wondered if the liquidators had moved dollar store merchandise in there. I prevented wifey from buying a trashy pot for $19 (50% off). It couldn't have been worth more than $5.00 at best. But shoppers were cleaning the store out!

Disgusting. I'm done with retail. I'm tired of shopping already; stories like this (and the Wal-Mart trampling) make me even less interested. I don't need anything except food and medicine, so I'm not buying any more.

Let's start wearing a button that says:
"RETAILERS: WE DON'T WANT TO PLAY ANYMORE."

@charmaniac: I'd guess most people who think cash is tacky also think that criticizing gifts is tacky, so you're not going to hear it about it from them.