We love Walmart’s website. We really do. Here’s a nice lamp that you can’t buy. At all. Deal with it.
(Thanks, Evan!)
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Walmart: You Cannot Buy This Lamp Anywhere, So Just Give Up
By Meg Marco December 2, 2008
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Guess I’ll have to go to Target and buy it for $50.
@The Name’s Ash78, Housewares: The $20 premium is for aisles that you can walk in, a decibel level that you can hear your shopping partner, and a checkout process that takes less than 30 minutes. Also, for actually having the item you need in stock.
@punkrawka: Fair enough…Unless you need something in hardware, garden, auto, tools, or basically anything else besides clothes, toys, or beauty. I’m shocked TGT even bothers with those things anymore.
@The Name’s Ash78, Housewares: Don’t forget baby items. Plenty on display, none to buy!
@punkrawka: Also, Target throws a no-trampling to death fee in there. Commies.
@punkrawka: Forgot also, safe working conditions, health coverage for employees, non-sexist employment policies…the fact that they don’t work their employees in the store overnight without asking them…
I consider Walmart a genetic wasteland. Every Walmart you go to has the same calibur people wandering around. If downtown Manhattan had a Walmart, if you went in on a Sunday you’d see groups of people 4 generations deep complete with the granny in the scooter that is more annoying than her whiny grandson and more dangerous than her son in his 15 year old Ford F150.
@snowburnt: Caliber. Sorry, I’m a spelling nazi, but it’s not my fault.
@pigbearpug: And I agree with you!
@The Name’s Ash78, Housewares: Or just go to Amazon and order it for $1-2 less and yay free shipping!
@apronk: I like the cut of your jib. And don’t forget the old “deferred taxation.”
I work tirelessly to keep track of all of my tax-free online purchases in order to pay my state by April 15, as I’m sure all the rest of you do, as well!
Perhaps they have a mail-order catalog you can use.
@MeSoHornsby: Or just go to an employees house or yard sale. Maybe you can buy it there. It’s entirely possible said places will have much Target stock in them anyway.
If at anytime you put in your zip code and the item is not in your local store, it will say that :/
@silver-bolt: It says that regardless of zip code
@silver-bolt: See the picture. It doesn’t say “not available in store,” it says “Not sold in stores”, plural, as in any store.
A quick search on Walmart.com now won’t turn up the item- must have been a temporary mistake as it was being pulled off the online store.
@JazzmanSA80: It still there. Scroll down the page and click on the baby blue one.
It’s a clearance item…likely means the item is simply sold out and not removed from the site yet.
@morganlh85: Well the other sites like Best Buy, Target, etc on their website, if it is sold out then it is marked as sold out. These marking indicate that they still have them available but you can’t buy them in stores or online.
@midwestkel: Where does it say it’s available. It says it’s Not Sold in Stores and Not Sold Online. Sounds pretty unavailable to me.
I saw a lot of this over the weekend. It normally happens when an item is only going to be sold in-store or online after a specific date, but it is posted sooner. Seeing as the lamp is on clearance, it looks to be more of an inventory clusterf%*k.
available online for me and only $29.98. SWEET! but i’m still not buying it.
There were alot of these during black Friday. I think they sometimes list sale items online before they offer them like placeholders.
Looks like you can purchase the lamp now…
I took this screenshot just a minute ago:
[www.lintacious.com]
From this page:
[www.walmart.com]
((I didn’t put in a zipcode to find my local stores))
@lintacious: That’s blue, not baby blue.
Look at the item name in the picture at the top of the article.
I’ve noticed that this happens a lot for popular or big ticket items. I think they purposely leave items up for a few weeks to help with search engine optimization. Just a guess.
My favorite thing about wal-mart’s online store is the function to see if an item is in stock locally. I tried to buy GH world tour a couple of weeks ago and every walmart in the area had it “in-stock”. I called before wasting my time…and none could lay a hand on it.
Yay.
@skipjack: Yeah, as someone who works at a Walmart, I can tell you that find in store thing isn’t always (read: never) accurate.
@odhen: With as many items as wal-mart has, it’s amazing that they keep up with anything at all.
@skipjack: yeah, if it is anything like the retail chain I used to work at, the online thing only says if they had any (even if its only 1) in stock as of close the day before. So if anyone has come in since midnight and bought it, then the computers won’t show it until the following day. It REALLY sucks trying to explain that to an irate customer who just drove 30 mins…blah blah – you get the idea.
@StellaBella07: That’s why i have a phone. There’s no reason to get upset at a store clerk because somethings not in stock.
“I’m sorry sir, what you wanted was in stock 10 seconds before you asked, but i decided to sacrifice it to the heathen god oo ee oo ah ah. He was pleased, and now he has granted me my 15 minute break.”
I saw some curtains this weekend on their site that said the same thing. I took it to mean I wasn’t meant to buy it.
But I wanna buy it!!!
This should have that famous picture of the angry baby yelling, “FOOK YOU, ONLINE SHOPPAH!”
Well if you like this same lamp in pink you can’t get it either!!! [www.walmart.com]
This was funny the last time yall had one of these a few months ago, but I thought it was figured out then that WalMart lists items that are out of stock funny?
i love lamp
@busrid3r: I love desk.
Same thing as this:
[Walmart]
I Love Lamp…
What a coincidence. Last week my desk lamp quit working, so I went to WalMart’s website to see if they had anything similar (a goose-neck fluorescent) they did (it was listed as being available in stores) and so I printed out the page and went down to the local store. Couldn’t find one on display so asked an associate and he told me they have never carried that style before. Okay – found a different lamp and got it instead. I went back to the website today after reading this article and lo and behold you can’t even FIND the lamp I was looking at last week! I guess they pulled everything that they don’t *REALLY* offer?
“Save money. Feel better.”
Did you not just save $30 by not buying a garbage Wal-Mart lamp? lol
I think this was much ado about nothing, and you may have cruised by the site just as it was being updated. The item now shows as being available online and in stores (I didn’t check specific locations). Time is 11:30 PM.
Thirty bucks for THAT lamp? Wal-Mart is doing everyone a favor by not selling it.
PS: I think it’s ugly.
I also found this Men’s “Big & Tall” Barbie backpack:
[farm4.static.flickr.com]
It’s such a deal that they had to reduce the impact on margins somehow. Durrr!