Were you watching the prices of toys and other retail products before the holidays?

Because I was, I’m here to tell you that half the stuff you purchased this season was not on sale but in fact marked up. We all know there is an economic depression going on, and it’s far worse than anyone else leads on. It is the main reason I have been eying top retail products, and waiting for them to go on sale. I had been watching several items for several months before the holidays; I was waiting to buy these items during the so called Holiday sales. But instead of the price going down they were marked up, some almost double. Other retailers used sale gimmicks, tricking consumers into thinking they got a good deal only the shipping cost almost more than the actual product you were purchasing, such a disappointment.                

The second thing I noticed most major retailers had absolutely nothing in stock online, This to me was insane, however sites like Amazon and overstock had no problem with stock, because those same items that were out of in Wal-Mart, and toys”r”us appeared on Amazon and overstock for triple the actual retail value. I don’t think it was a coincidence; this holiday season was filled with nasty tactics, smoke and mirrors and what I call retail extortion. The irony of it all disappointed me and literally had me pissed. If only I had purchased the items I wanted before hand when they were deceptively on sale.                

I am going to review the some of the items that I really wanted, and tell you why I didn’t purchase them, as a family we decided to postpone Christmas until we got the prices we wanted. I mean really Christmas can be celebrated on any day you see fit, it doesn’t have to be on the 25. After all nothing is as it should be anymore therefore drastic times call for drastic measures. And I’m sure the kids won’t mind waiting if they knew they’d be getting more of what they wanted. The truth is that all these holidays were created to boost retail sales. With that being said its time consumers got smart and started scheduling their holidays before or after to get the real deals and real sales that are out there.                

16" girls Sea Star bike

With that being said here is product one, which is a sea star 16” bike which was originally priced at $36.00 A few days before thanksgiving the price increased from $36.00 to $46.00 which Wal-Mart so graciously lied and stated it was $56.00 I swear to you that is a lie the bike was $36.00. You paid $10 more than what you would have paid before the holiday sale. Plus the shipping charges went up and they also used a cheaper carrier. I purchased several items before and after the holiday sale.                

Before the holiday sale my items arrived in 3 days with the 97 cent shipping. During the holiday sale it took 10 days and the shipping cost more and my items arrived separately instead of all together like the first shipment. Most of the items were damaged. I had to return the same product twice; both times the same items were defective. The shipping carrier they used was careless and just threw my items on the porch, this is probably why I had to exchange several times.             

If you want to buy a bike for your little girl I suggest amazon, this bike has no taxes and no shipping charges it’s a $69.25 flat fee and it’s a name brand bike a Mongoose. These bikes are the best, Mongoose bikes are used by the professionals, they are built to last forever.                

best deal- click here

The Second item which I wanted to purchase for my daughter was this adorable little cat that meowed a purred the products official name is FurReal Friends Lulu My Cuddlin’ Kitty. This is currently priced at $39.97 which is almost $40.00. Before the holiday sale this item was priced at $32.00, At the time I didn’t think the cat was worth $32.00. I was hoping Wal-mart would mark it down over the holidays to like $19.99 which I feel is a more reasonable price for a stuffed animal that just purrs and meows its not like it does anything extra special, but they marked it up instead.            

 If you purchased this item during the holidays you paid $7.96 more than what you would have if you had not waited for the so called holiday sale.  I couldn’t find this product anywhere for its true retail price in fact other retailers tripled its price Amazon has it listed for $74.00 and Toys rus has it listed  for $49.99 however toysrus charges outrageous shipping prices so when you check out you would have paid more than Amazon, who charges no shipping or taxes.            

These retailers think they are so clever, I have watched this price gouging go on online and in retail stores for third consecutive year in a row. I will tell you that this black Friday and all these holiday sales you think you’re getting is a big fat lie. Retailers have tricked us all into buying when they want us to buy and have cleverly tricked us into thinking if we wait for the sale were getting the best deal. Well I will tell you from one consumer to another who has been watching things very closely that this is just all a scam.            

You might want to rethink when you do your holiday spending next year because next year I am making my purchases before the so called black Friday sale. That way I know I’m getting the product for its real retail value and I won’t have to worry about the mark up cost or whether or not it was in stock.            

I also have left reviews of each indivual store            

Walmart AKA- wally world
Walmart no doubt has the best prices, however they did mark up almost everything during the holidays, if you are going to buy from this retail giant, buy before any major holiday or sale they tend to mark up prices during peak holiday seasons. Shipping was poor during the holidays damaged items arrived on multiple occasions; they use cheaper shipping carriers during the holidays and charge you more. During the holidays they had nothing in stock online or even in the stores which really pissed a lot of people off. If they lost money this season it’s their own fault, I looked on a daily basis and almost every toy or items was out of stock. Wal-Mart you were a huge disappointment this year.            

My personal message to Wal-Mart
 If you hadn’t of took layaway off the table, you probably would have put your competion out of business already. That was real stupid wal-mart, Most of your customers can’t get credit or wont because of the recession, so a lot of people depended on the lay away service you used to provide. Congratulations for giving 70% of your customer base to k-mart and toys”r”us. Do you even know who your customers are? Your customers are primarily minority, poor and middle class who don’t have credit, what were you thinking Wal-mart.            

Here is a list of the poor choices Wal-mart has made to date 
 (just to name a few)    

1.) Taking online customer service away.
2.) Taking away lay away.
3.) Trying to go name brand Like offering shoes and clothes that are really expensive.
4.) An example of expensive is pants that cost more than $20 bucks.
5.) Increasing prices during the holidays.
6.) getting rid of the seafood department.
7.) selling pre-packaged baked goods instead of making them yourself.
8.) IF you want baked goods that actually taste good go to Publix .
9.) your great value logo is more noticeable and more shitty, It was better before when you could barely tell it apart from the competitors, know it’s a sore spot, its absolutely hideous, I stare at them in my cabinet and wander if I should just start shopping at Publix.
10.) this is something I have been seriously considering, I can’t stand looking at the great value logo it’s the ugliest graphic design I have ever seen in my entire life. It screams cheap and makes you want to throw up when you look at it.            

Walmart related articles

Walmart’s Black Friday deception draws flood of complaints
Discounter sees little joy this x-mas
Wal-Mart had a very bad year
Wal-Mart December Sales Disappoint     

Toys “r’us
The one time I did buy from this company the toys I purchased fell apart, don’t buy anything exclusive to Toys “r”us it will fall apart on the 2cnd or third day. There sales are a joke, they never have good sales, the shipping charges are outrageous, so any deal or sale you get the shipping charges supersede it. Also I became furious when I noticed they increased the shipping on same weight items to balance out the overall cost. For instance You know and I know that any 16” bike will weigh approximately the same as they are the same size, I checked the weight they were the same. But toys”r”us charged more money for the same product dependent upon its cost.        

I put this item in my  shopping cart Huffy Disney Princess 16 inch Girl’s Bicycle it cost $79.99 the shipping cost $18.00 taxes and everything the total came out to $104.85            

Then I deleted that item and put a 16” girls bike generic that was only $54.99 and overall the price was $83.45 So no matter which bike you bought you would ultimately end up paying $25-30 more than what you thought you would. Not only that both of the bikes are generic and not worth buying at all.  This is why Toys”r”us will go out of business, I am predicting by next year. They are worthless to consumers they offer not one good deal, even their coupon codes are a scam.           

My personel message to Toys”r”us
You are a sad story because you actually have what it takes to be better than wal-mart but you lack the ambition and your greed will be the end of you.  The advantage they have is a wider toy selection than any other toy store, however they don’t use their good assets to retain business, they refuse to play ball. People want deals, and this is why they will pick Wal-mart over you, I suggest you start your own site to store and free shipping on items over a $100.00 also make sure your prices are lower than walmarts, than you will not go out of business I promise you. Oh and you need to re-think your toy making because you’re not good at it. I commend you on the lay away decision that was a real smart move.  Your shipping charges are inflated and your sales are pointless if they don’t persude people to buy, what I mean is bring your prices lower than walmart stop being greedy. Some profit is better than no profit. Offer site to store and I would get rid of charging for shipping altogether. If  you want to win you have to be the best, you aren’t even trying.            

Amazon
Amazon does not charge shipping or taxes on items Amazon exclusively sells from their warehouse. This is awesome, however their prices are so jacked up it pretty much kills the deal. Learn to price similar to those of your competitors and you will no doubt become the leader in online retail. Competitively priced products & also having the item in stock, will  crush your completion so hard they wont be able to think -before billions of consumers have already purchased with you with just a click of the mouse it could all be yours.            

My personnel message to amazon            

Your free super saving shipping is more like 10-20 days and this really sucks. You over price your items so much that it ends up being triple the amount of  other retailers which is not a good deal at all, at this point no one gives a crap about free taxes or shipping, you need to fix this pronto. This is why I didn’t buy anything from you this holiday season. I bought a game in October that took 15 days to reach me, that was just pitiful. Heres a hint, the longer it takes for a consumer to obtain an item the longer they have before buyer’s remorse sets in.            

Everyone gets the after sale jitters, especially in the checkout lines, I know I do, while your waiting, and waiting, you start throwing things out of your cart and back on the shelves. This is what happens when you make your customers wait, they might find a better deal or change their mind, or something more important might come up. This is a good time to point out that retailers should have more cashiers, they lose millions of dollars every year on itiems that were tossed back on the shelves.  It cost twice as much when someone throws an item back, not only is the item not sold it usually is spoiled or damaged this is a loss of assets and you have to pay labor costs to have it re-stocked or to dispose of said products. I  think its more cost effective to speedly check out consumers, give thus giving them no time to throw things back on the shelves. 

Kmart and Sears
There’s nothing alluring about either one of these retailers no deals here except layaway.
Neither offer competitive pricing, their website is horrible and they don’t have much of a selection. Put it this way, there are more interesting things to buy at Goodwill than you would ever find at Sears or Kmart. Shipping prices are outrageous. I hoped they would have gone out of business as they are just taking up good web and land real estate.            

Target
Target is like the snob of generic retailers, they think that they can Jack up the price on their generic crap higher than all the others because they think they’re target crap is better. They price theyre clothes as if they were selling Tommy Hilfiger and guess, when it’s just the same generic crap you could get anywhere else but for less. When Wal-mart doesn’t have something I am forced to buy from them but I will go to every store first before I walk into a target, I literally am pissed when I have to enter a target.            

They are snob,s all the way down to their employees and who they hire, You would think that they pay their employees more, since they charge about 20% more than their competitors. But they don’t they only pay a hint more than minimum wage and getting hired at target is a real chore don’t waste your time it’s not worth it. Wal-Mart pays anywhere from $7.75 to $10 an hour starting, I think that’s pretty sad. I wouldn’t work for either company but if I had to choose Id work for Wal-mart.  But if the choice were between all retailers id prefer to work at Toys”r”us or Sears. Toys”r”us because I love the store and its toys and the company is great. Sears because it’s classier bigger and probably would have better benefits or wages. I hate target and the people who shop there are just stupid, because they are literally giving their money away when they enter a target. Targets a good place to shop, if you want cheap generic crap and would enjoy paying  3x the retail value more than other leading retail competitors.            

My personnel message to target
I think you’re a snob and you suck as a retailer, I hate everything about you and your wannabe red marketing that’s just like Macys, you think your just like macys but your not, youre a shitty retailer who sales generic crap for 3 times what it’s worth. You’re a rip off and I hate you more than any store in the world. Hello you’re not the gap, your not Macys and your products sure as hell are not worth what they’re priced for. I’d say you’ve been in business for as long as you have because the people who buy from you don’t know how to shop or have a lot of money to waste.            

This year I did not buy as much as I would have because of the mistakes these retailers made. I will get what I want for the price I want eventually, Christmas is now over and soon “after Christmas sales” will end, and retail products will really be marked down to thier true value.  I wanted to believe that sales happened when they actually happened, but I know know that a sale is just a lie.        

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