Retailers must be rubbing their hands together in glee, as the numbers from Black Friday and the post-Thanksgiving weekend come rolling in. Records have been broken, many a TV has been purchased and shoppers really went at it. [More]
Retail Services
Sam's Club Pulls Lego Bible Due To Complaints
By 11.25.11
The author of The Brick Bible, which uses Lego blocks to tell biblical stories, says Sam’s Club has yanked his product from shelves because customers complained it is too vulgar and violent. He says he feels as though he’s being singled out because his book simply contains literal depictions of Bible stories. [More]
3 Ways To Keep From Overspending While Holiday Shopping
By 11.24.11
The holidays tend to whip up an over-spending frenzy in shoppers, getting them to abandon common sense in favor of spending their way into misery. To avoid making a string of bad decisions you’ll regret when the credit card bills come in, you’ll need careful planning and self-discipline. [More]
Walmart Continues To Short-Change Customers On Gift Receipts
By 11.23.11
It’s been six months since reporters in California first caught several Walmart stores offering insufficient refunds on items returned with gift receipts. And then they confirmed two months ago that it was still going at Walmart’s across the country. In spite of all this evidence that the nation’s largest retailer needs to fix its gift receipt system, customers are still being screwed over when they try to return a gift. [More]
Prices For LCD TVs Fall To Lowest Levels Ever This Black Friday
By 11.23.11
Though you might not see super-deep discounts on the best-reviewed TVs this Black Friday, some experts are predicting that the average price of LCD TV sets will sink to an all-time low during the annual post-Thanksgiving buying bonanza. [More]
GameStop Employee Sues For Time Spent Being Checked For Stolen Games
By 11.23.11
Considering that so much of the retail theft that occurs each year is a result of sticky-fingered employees, some stores like GameStop have apparently instituted policies that require staffers to be checked for pilfered product when they go to take a break during the workday. But one employee at the video game chain says these breaks cut into the amount of time allotted for mandatory lunch and rest breaks — and he’s suing to get paid for that time. [More]
Here Are Some Cheap Coffee Machines You Can't Buy
By 11.23.11
Here’s a strange phenomenon that reader Jay came across at his local Walmart: Black Friday creep. No, not the race among retailers to see who can open the earliest. Yesterday (Tuesday) Jay picked up a $4 cofeemaker from a shelf full of them, but wasn’t allowed to purchase it. He was told that the item wasn’t for sale. Not that he couldn’t get it at the posted price: he couldn’t buy it at all. [More]
Amazon Puts Your $1000 Kindle Library 'On Hold,' Apologizes, Shrugs
By 11.23.11
One day in October, Kindle owner Ryan couldn’t log in to his Amazon account. He reset his password: no luck. According to Amazon representatives, the account is now “on hold,” but no one can tell him what that means. He was told that someone at Amazon would call him back within 24 hours. That was almost a month ago. [More]
Rebecca Black Friday Kohl's Ad Annoys Pretty Much Everyone
By 11.23.11
Congratulations to Kohl’s on their early entry in the 2012 Worst Ad in America contest. Their parody version of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” is just as grating as the original song, only with worse lyrics. Yes, it turns out that was possible. [More]
Malls To Track Shoppers' Movements Via Cellphone Signals This Holiday Season
By 11.22.11
Because you as a shopper are nothing but a lab rat to be tracked, measured, quantified and dissected so that retailers can market to you in a more efficient manner, at least two malls will be using shoppers’ cellphone signals to map out their routes from Sbarro to the Spencer Gifts to Chess King (okay okay… so I haven’t been to the mall in a while). [More]
Does Anyone Need Perfectly Shaped Mini Baked Goods Of Uniform Size?
By 11.22.11
Are you hankering after six perfectly formed donut holes right now? How about some circus waffles? If you had any of the plethora of niche baking machine options one of our Consumerist commenters espied, you’d be set for baked goods for life (and maybe short on storage space). [More]
Amazon Unloading All Non iPhone Smartphones For $.01 (With Some Catches)
By 11.21.11
If you’re willing to sign a new two-year contract, from now until Cyber Monday, Amazon is selling all non-iPhone smartphones (read: Androids) for the low low price of $0.01. Yes, one penny. That’s also 99 cents less than $1. Though in most cases, you need to be a new customer for whatever carrier you choose. [More]
Chase Admits To Accidentally Deducting Payments Multiple Times
By 11.18.11
In the last few days, we’ve received a couple of e-mails from readers who were getting strange explanations from Chase about why automated payments had been deducted twice from their accounts. But before we could figure out what was going on, the bank has issued a “my bad” to affected customers, and thrown in $25 in “we’re sorry” cash. [More]
5 Things You Should Know About Black Friday
By 11.18.11
As we mentioned earlier this week, some people have already begun camping out to get in line for this year’s Black Friday sales. But are these people going to actually see any big savings or have they just given in to the annual hype machine surrounding the super shopping day? [More]
Study: Amazon Losing $3 On Each Kindle Fire It Sells
By 11.18.11
Speculation that Amazon is losing money on its $199 Kindle Fire has been rampant since pricing for the ebook reader was announced. Now, research firm iSuppli has broken the Fire down to its core components, and has determined that the Fire is costing the company at least $201.70 to manufacture, meaning Amazon is losing roughly $2.70 on each one it sells. [More]
Name Change On A Car Loan Completely Confuses Chase
By 11.18.11
Every day, people in America get married. Some of them change their last names. Evidently, though, no one in the history of Chase Bank has ever done this while they were in the middle of paying off their car loan. See, until the loan is paid, the bank has a lien on your car’s title. If you want to change the name on your car title and the loan hasn’t been paid off yet, Chase won’t let that happen. This isn’t a problem unless you have to move and register your car in a different state after your name change but before the car is paid off. That’s what happened to Michael’s wife, and how she ended up in a loop of bureaucracy sending them back and forth from Chase to the Maryland Vehicle Administration. [More]
Sears Lost $421 Million Last Quarter, Didn't Spend It Fixing Up Stores
By 11.18.11
Last year, I formulated a theory that the continued existence of Sears is a massive anti-capitalist prank. The stories that readers send us indicate that the chain isn’t very good at key parts of retailing: attracting customers, selling merchandise to them, and not actively driving the customers you already have away. It’s not just Consumerist readers avoiding Sears these days: the power couple of Sears and Kmart lost $421 million in the quarter that ended on October 29. [More]
