Toys R Us Advertises Zhu Zhu Pet Sale, Forgets To Stock Zhu Zhu Pets

Arnold was excited to receive an e-mail from Toys R Us advertising a special early-bird sale of Zhu Zhu Pets. The inexpensive little robot hamsters are in short supply, and the chain promised critters to the first fifty households who showed up at their local store on Sunday morning. Only Arnold reports that not only did his local store never have any of the battery-operated rodents in stock, it wasn’t open at the advertised hour at all.

I know this isn’t an earth-shattering issue, but it annoys me. Stupid Toys R Us sent me this email about a special sale on Zhu Zhu pets.



*In-store Sun., 11/8/09 only. Limit one Zhu Zhu Pet per household. Quantities limited; no rain checks. Selection may vary by store.

Seeing how my daughter is all about the Zhu Zhu pets this year, I thought this was a great thing.

So, I get up early (which was a chore, my wife has been in the hospital and just came home yesterday, so we are all exhausted from running back and forth.) I drove 20 miles to get there extra early so I can be one of the 1st 50 people there only to discover not only was my Toys R Us not opening early, they didn’t even have them in stock. Talk about a waste of time. Why bother sending something out if it isn’t true?

On the drive home I thought to myself, “maybe it was only at certain stores.” So I came home and read the email again to make sure. On the bottom it said what stores wouldn’t have them. I don’t live in NJ, and this was a full size Toys R Us, not an Express or Babies R Us. In fact, I even clicked on the store locator on the email, and my store in Riverhead, NY popped up. Talk about a waste of time.

Was there some kind of miscommunication, or was this an e-mail blast gone horribly wrong? Did Arnold misunderstand? The entire message and relevant part of the disclaimer are reproduced above. It seems pretty straightforward.

Forget about disappointed little children—we hope that no more frazzled parents get their hopes up only to discover that the toys they seek aren’t available as promised.

Did you try to obtain Zhu Zhu Pets on Sunday morning like Arnold? How did you fare?

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Experts Predict Widespread Robotic Hamster Shortages

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