MSRP? Yeah right! At Circuit City they were claiming a mouse with an MSRP of $99 regularly sells for $225! They marked it down 70% from $225, which resulted in a price within $5 of what you'd pay for the same mouse at Amazon.com

Wait, so if the liquidator resets the prices to MSRP then they'd actually be LOWERING prices at Ritz, right? That place was STUPID overpriced!

Bah. None close enough to me to justify the trip to compare their liquidation price to what I can find online. Of course, since I'm not going they'll probably have the HD camcorder I want for $200 or something.

@Yossarian: Yeah, but it will turn out to just be a non-working display model.

I bought a Nikon DSLR and could use a few lenses, but there is no way I am going to go to a liquidation sale. Can you imagine trying to get a manufacturer warranty? With digital cameras, the warranty papers can be worth more than half the sale (look at Asian Nikon's on eBay, no U.S. warranty)..
If you are tempted into this liquidation sale, make sure the item not only works, but that the paperwork is complete as well!
Can you imagine everyone taking out a camera on the sale's floor? Like they are going to allow you to do that! I can see the problems starting now.....

Yeah, remember, these guys aren't focused on repeat business, customer satisfaction, etc. Their sole goal is to maximize value for the entity's creditors.

Every liquidation sale I have seen locally has been the exact same scam and the exact same signs even. They equate with big rip-off. I think quite a few people learned their lesson when Linens & Things did theirs. The Sportsmans Warehouse liquidation is not getting much traffic.

At this point, it's been well documented for the last few years that so-called "liquidation sales" are huge traps.

People who go to them and buy stuff deserve to be hoodwinked. The companies aren't doing anything illegal, and the general public knows to stay well away.

If you're too dumb to do a google search before going out to buy something, you won't get any sympathy from me.

@We needa more Lemon Pledge.: God you got that right! The prices are outrageous. I never understood how it stayed in business in the first place.

@We needa more Lemon Pledge.: Manufacturer's Suggested Ripoff Price, apparently.

These liquidation sales are just scams. It is amazing how these things have been allowed to continue. Although looking through the campaign contributions of these goniffs would probably make for some interesting reading.

These liquidation sales are still good for products that have little or no margin to begin with. For example, in the much-maligned Circuit City liquidation, I went in early enough to find some decent video games still on the shelves (getting around that pesky $10 mark-up Square-Enix likes putting on their games).

Of course, the margins on cameras and boating stuff are anything but small.

MSRP - Make the Suckers Really Pay!

I love liquidation sales.

Smart shoppers always can spot the best value and SOMETIMES the best value is at a liquidation sale.

Manufacturer warranties will apply to sealed box goods and some products (such as a lens filter) have little merit to a warranty.

So buy smart. Determine your normal/acceptable price range for a product. And then wait till the liquidator drops their selling price to a point below your normal/acceptable price range and snag yourself a good deal.

Wait even longer (and the price drops even further) and you can buy something at a great price.

The Good Guys, CompUSA and Circuit City liquidation "sales" were all fun to visit on occasion, much cheaper to do than a night out at the local comedy club.

Beat-up old demo laptops with zero return privileges missing keys and other parts selling for a whole "5% off" the MSRP. And somehow the liquidators found suckers to buy most or all of those. If anything makes me fear the intelligence of my fellow citizens and future of my country, it's a visit to the local liquidation sale.

Ah Great American, I love you guys.....(not). Thanks for the wonderful job you did in closing my employer Tower Records in fall 2006. I run away when I hear your name. I did get a great deal on the Sony 42" plasma from the store. Thanks Liquidator Christine.

It was my pleasure to screw around with you guys as much as possible and reduce your bonus levels.

@NeverLetMeDown: precisely.

@Frank Murphy:

They aren't doing anything illegal, and they aren't promising "cheaper than anywhere else," they're just promising discounts off list price.

That being said, the people who run them are specialists, and their goal is to make sure you DON'T get that "great find." If you get some sort of awesome deal, that means they didn't do their job.

yar, who made that PDF?
i see no order to that list...

the "good" news is that the wolf camera closest to my house is going to remain open for the time being (the circuit city near my house was also slated to stay open. that is, until it closed.)

We have one in down closing and one not, I'd love to compare prices in them.

@PGibbons: i usually will visit liquidation sales in the last few days a store is open - you can usually find odd stuff, and often get free stuff. i got a few glasses and a few towels (from a set, part of set missing) for free. at circuit city, i got a bunch of construction paper (seems like it was something they used for promos) for free, and a huge box of SERVICE DEFECTIVE tape for about $5 (not sure what i'm going to use 48 rolls of tape for, but it'll get used eventually. or, hey consumerist readers - you want a piece of Circuit City history?)

I can't believe there are still consumers who think these "going out of business sales" are full of bargains. Run my liquidation companies who's job it is to get he MOST for the merchandise, usually mark things up higher than the store charged before marking them own 10%. These are not bargains. Amazing stories like this still have to be written.

I went to a Ritz today to spend a gift card while it still works and didn't see anything bad. It looked like the employees are running things for now, so prices were unchanged and most things were 20% off.

I work (or rather did work) for Ritz's marine division. Boaters World no longer exists. It is dead. David Ritz sacrificed our division to save a few of his camera stores. Regarding the liquidators: pretty much everything you read about them is true. They are complete bottom feeders. They have destroyed in 2 weeks customer relationships that we built over many years. Those of us who are still there (we stay because we can't get unemployment for 8 weeks if we quit) are embarrassed by the way we are forced to treat our customers. Shop the Ritz liquidation if you wish but BEWARE and please don't blame the store staff. They are only trying to keep their jobs for a little longer.

The liquidation sale is one of the only cases where I can say the blame the victim if they get scammed mentality applies. This information has been well documented for a very long time, and there have been countless newspaper articles and news stories on it if you don't have the internet. You would pretty much have to be living under a rock if you don't know that a liquidation sale is a bad deal for the consumer overall.

Besides even if you didn't read the information the million NO RETURNS signs should be a huge tipoff not to buy expensive, sensitive electronics that might break in a day or that could possibly be broken right out of the box.

Besides the recent sales over here never even went to 90% off EVERYTHING like they should of. I have gone into 2 liquidation sales on the last day and they had a few paltry items for 90% off and the rest was 70% off and they WERE NOT BUDGING on the price even though it was the last day. So from what I see your not going to get more than 70% off the majority of items. The stuff obviously was not worth even 70% off of its originally marked up price. It must be a certain group of liquidators in my area doing this, because it was the same situation at both the KB Toys liquidation and the CC liquidation.

Did anyone else go to the liquidation sales on the last day and find everything that was left at 90% off? I am curious.

Now a few years ago at the Media Play liquidation I did get some truly good deals, like video game strategy guides 5 for a dollar (got many good ones too) and at the Toys R Us liquidation a couple years ago they had everything that was left at 90% off on the last day. Neither of these sales marked anything up at the beginning, they left prices right where they were when the store was not under liquidation and took an additional discount from those prices. In some cases you were getting a heavy discount off an already clearanced price at both Toys R Us and Media Play. So I think the liquidators have been getting more greedy over time with the discounts.

@sicknick: Not only that but its been documented in print media and on TV many times by very well known sources, so even if you don't have access to the internet, you still have access to the information. The news stations here seemed to be extremely aggressive over promoting the marked up over original prices that were found at the Linens and Things liquidation. You pretty much couldn't even flip channels at 5-6pm without seeing a story about it.

@bohemian: Yup, this is how it was in my area. I definitely associate those signs with oh its a sign telling me that item is a big ripoff! There really wasn't anything worth buying for me at these sales. There seems to still be a lot of suckers in my area so I don't think people here are learning yet, even though the media was really aggressive here about promoting these sales as a scam. You do see a lot of foot traffic at these sales, but very few people actually walk out of the store buying things. Its good to hear that some people in your area are starting to catch onto this though so maybe there is hope.

I do wonder whats going to happen in 5-10 years when everyone catches on to these liquidation sales, what are the liquidators going to do if no one buys anything?

All the stores in our town are closing...I'm real glad they came in and bought up all but one of the local camera stores and those 2 will be closing plus the other two in the malls. Real bang-up job there guys, as if people don't want to buy cameras.

We have lost our last camera store in Bend, Oregon. Although always undersupplied, it was not Best Buy. 150,000 people or so within an hours drive and in one of the most scenic parts of the state, and zero camera stores. W-T-F?

Go the the Ritz/Wolf store that's being closed. Find the camera you like and text it out. If you like it, go buy it at Onecall or Amazon or anywhere else.

tes@jp7570: sorry "text it out" should have been "test it out"

@metaled: Yeah, just go to Adorama or B&H Photo Video or other such place.

I'm sad to see Ritz die but I am tempted to say "and nothing of value was lost."

Ritz was always trying to claim to be a pro-shop or something when most of their employees knew nothing about photography (They knew plenty about trying to upsell gear.)

The biggest blow to Ritz was the shifting of film from being the main photography medium to being the professional and artist medium only. Not many consumers use film anymore and us that make art with photography who rely on film have been getting it online for years and from mail order catalogs before that.

I used to go to Ritz occasionally for when I needed something 'now' but it was never more than a roll of film or two. They never even did a very good job at film processing.

Wasn't there a wrestler called "Notorious Cabal"?

@battra92: Ritz isn't dead, just dying. About 400 of their stores will remain open.

You know? I'm tired of clearance sales not being clearanc-y enough. If you say you're going to liquidate something then, for economic love, make it a bag sale!

Liquidation is a process, and the step you see is not the end of it.

First is to return for manufacturer credit anything you can.

Second is to get as much as you can from stock that could not be returned. This includes any broken, defective and otherwise piece of junk you have around the warehouse. FIBNAL SALE - and the company no longer cares about reputation, doesn't it?

The last stage is where the real deals can be had. Sadly this is only available to those ready to buy in bulk and sight unseen: Remnants of inventory are gathered in a few, or a single warehouse, and insiders come in to bid on pallets of stock.

So, yes, you may find some deals on stock that could not be returned to manufacturer, if it will not have wholesale potential later.

But, for the most, the REAL reason for closing sales are to get rid of whatever cannot be sold or returned otherwise, or to get as much money for an item as can be had. It is NOT to offer you, the consumer, any kind of good deal, not to get rid of all the stock: They have remnant on leases, and salarial obligations, so they might as well use them.

The story about the shattered TV mentioned that state laws that might have protected the buyers did not apply because of Circuit City's bankruptcy. Since only some of Ritz' stores are closing, would a buyer in a similar situation be better off?

@Dancin' Hooooomeeeeeer!: Ditto! I am a fairly serious amateur photographer. I spent about $2500 last year on photo equipment, none of it at Ritz. It wasn't for lack of trying.

For some reason I always included Ritz in the list of stores I would check when researching the purchase of a new piece of equipment. Their prices were so high that I finally determined that they were there just to serve the completely clueless.

@bohemian: The only people being ripped off are the completely clueless. In this day and age when it's so easy to check prices on an item across multiple retailers, I find it difficult to feel bad for someone who pays a 20% premium at a liquidation sale.

I visited 4 or 5 Circuit City stores during their liquidation and bought absolutely nothing. I got thrown out of one in San Franciso for trying to take a photo of a 128MB Sony Memory Stick priced at $68.00!

Yea, funny, those folks in the CC stores buying that crap they thought was a deal just because they either got caught up in the moment, or thought lots of hand written starburst signs indicated a deal.
Up til the day my CC closed, you could find everything cheaper online.

I work for a Ritz that is closing and can tell you the liquidation start at the Ritz price and goes down from there. We are not letting them do that price jacking and they are not even working in our stores. Oh buy the way Ritz only sells US warrantied cameras. I you don't want the deals I will take them for myself. WE ARE NOT CIRCUIT CITY that was chpt.7

An old friend used to work as a VP for Great American. He told me to never buy anything from one of their sales- that most anything worth buying is marked up as high as possible before the selloff begins. The first weekend or two, buyers would pay more than MSRP to get a few percent off. And this was in the late 90's. Why haven't people learned yet?