So, I bought some Skylanders today...
My Skylanders Giants adventure actually started awhile ago when Toys R Us put the new Battle Pack (Chop Chop, Shroomboom and the Cannon battle piece) up for order on their website... then shipped the order! I've had it for awhile now, but nothing to do with it.
As for today... It was a fun day. I got up super early so I could get showed and dressed and make the hour drive to get to Toys R Us before they opened. And my awesome wife went with me - I had a special mission for her.
In spite of previous dealings with Toys R Us, I chose them because A) My local-ish TRU actually rocks and B) They had Buy One, Get One 40% off *and* they tempted me by mailing me a coupon for an additional 25% off my entire purchase. Oh, and I had a $5 rewards coupon.
We pulled onto the lot at about 7 o'clock. Some employee cars were there along with one other vehicle with someone in it. My wife wanted something to snack on, so I drove over to the Panera Bread, then came back. The occupants of the other vehicle had now moved to the door - turns out it was a guy and his son who were also there for a previous Skylanders release (I believe it was the Zook assortment). At about 7:30, I was still in my car with my wife and we were the only ones there... I went ahead and sent my wife on to Target to complete her mission - Picking me up a Granite Crusher. I armed her with a copy of the Target flyer so she'd know what she was looking for.
I went up to the door and made some small talk with the other guy - by the time the store opened at 8, there was a crowd of about 15-20 people. We made our way to the huge Skylanders Giants display towards the front of the store. Although I was second in line, my politeness ended up with several people between me and the loot - I managed to grab a Legendary Bouncer and a Flashwing.... Grabbed that one because I didn't even know it was out yet. Weird.
I stepped away and realized... I bet they have some of these over by the video games too... and NO ONE was going that way. So, I made my way over there, where I was given free roam of the entire counter.
At this point, I noticed they had an additional Giant, an additional Light Core and several singles - all of which I didn't know was out yet. By the time I had mostly finished picking through the figures, the guy I was waiting with and a few others had made their way over into my space... and I had no cart! Curse me and my lack of foresight! Lucky for me, other guy had a cart and allowed me to use the top basket in his cart while I went and got my own. Then, the two of us started the process of comparing figures to make sure we both got everything.
Total, I had:
Giants
Swarm
Crusher
Hot Head
Bouncer
Legendary Bouncer
Light Cores
Prism Break
Drobot
Jet-Vac
Euptorr
3-PacksPop Fizz, Whirlwind, Trigger Happy
Ignitor, Chill, Zook
SinglesSonic Boom
Gill Grunt
Flameslinger
Flashwing
Hex
Sprocket
Bash
Drill Sergeant
Double Trouble
Stump Smash
Also, I grabbed two of the Legendary 3-Packs - but this is where the issue came up. A few weeks ago, TRU had a thing where you could put a deposit down and "Pre-order" items from their "Hot Toy List" - I put two of these on pre-order, one for me, one for a co-worker. When I got to the counter, I mentioned it and the lady said they hadn't put any aside (ick), but that I could just get those... however, she wouldn't be able to ring them up with everything else - so I wouldn't get the extra 25% off on them. Oh well, no biggie. But then, she couldn't get the system to give me my 40% off the second figure because it was a pre-order. After trying a few things, I suggested we just ring everything up together and I go up front to get a refund on the pre-order. That was fine. I checked out, saved something like $150, then went back to the service desk to get my $10... which, between me and the customer in front of me (who was having a similar problem with her pre-order on the games), was just a giant nightmare that took us up until 9:30 to resolve. Fun times.
By this time, my wife had returned, wondered what the hold up was and came in to make sure I didn't get trampled or something. She was successful in her mission with no issues. If only I could say the same... about Toys R Us or the rest of my day.
Speaking of the games, you'll notice I haven't yet purchased them. Knowing that Walmart had the superior version of the bundle (with cool glow-in-the-dark figures packed in), I went there. First, I looked at their figures... because I *knew* Toys R Us was missing some. Sure enough, I found the new Slam Bamn and Fright Rider. Grabbed those off the shelf, then got someone to open the cases and get me the Wii and 3DS versions out. As we got to the check out, I explained that Toys R Us had the two bundles in their ad for $74.99 *and* Buy One, Get One 40% off and that I wanted to price match. Cashier said "No, we don't price match percents off." "You do if the original price is shown in the ad." "No, we don't." "Manager Please".
Waited for a manager. She came. Told her I wanted to price match. "No, We don't price match percents off."
::face palm::
Let me assure you, as long as the original price is shown in the ad, Walmart policy is to price match percents off. This lady wouldn't budge. So, I thanked her and made a phone call. Mystery person on the other end of the phone suggested I pull up Walmart's price match policy directly from their website...
http://corporate.walmart.com/ad-match-guaranteeNow, here's the thing... the policy doesn't specify that we'd match something that's BOGO 40% off. But it does say:
We gladly match the price in the following types of ads:* Buy one, get one free ads with a specified price - Example: Buy one for $2.49, get one free (BOGO)
Which is what I was saying all along. So I asked them to call that manager back over... She came over, looked at my phone, then said that I was reading the ad wrong and that the games weren't BOGO 40% off. I explained that they were and showed her the part of the ad that said *all* video games. She still insisted that they weren't. I suggested she call them.
She snatched the ad off the counter and walked away.... only to come back shortly later and instruct the employee to do the price match.
Man, it's awesome to know how things are supposed to work. Had I not been worried about my own store selling out before I got back into town, I would have just gave up and bought it at home... but we didn't get a lot of copies in, so I didn't want to risk it.
Anyway, as I was *finally* checking out, the cashier started to ring up my figures with the second one being 40% off. Being the good guy I am, I mentioned that I wasn't allowed to price match that because the figures did not have specific prices in the ad (although they're all virtually the same price everywhere anyway). If I was trying to be a jerk, I wouldn't have clarified that, but I'm a nice guy.
Then, it was on to eat some real breakfast. It was tasty, but they messed up my order and sent me out biscuits instead of sourdough toast. Easy fix though.
Next, to Best Buy. There was a CD my wife wanted and I figured I'd look to see if they had anything different. They did have the new Terrafin, so I grabbed him and the strategy guide. We went to check out... and the figure wouldn't ring up. The register was refusing to sell it! Serious!
Cashier rang up the guide and the CD and sent us back to the game center where they were going to take care of it. Four associates later, they finally just scanned a different figure and called it a day. We where joking around the entire time and at the end, the manager who was there apologized. I said "That's fine, but can I have one of those pre-order kits for my trouble?" in a joking manner. He looked to one of the other associates who said they weren't in the inventory, so he grabbed one and tossed it to me. Yay!
Then, one final stop... GameStop. I had pre-ordered their exclusive version of the Battle Pack the week it opened for pre-orders. I paid the full price down. I just *knew* I wasn't going to have any issues here, right?
Well... Went in and started looking at the figures. Guy asked if I needed help. I mentioned that I had a pre-order to pick up. He looked up my account and saw it was the Battle Pack. "Why didn't you pre-order the game here?" "Eh, I wanted the exclusive Walmart version." "Oh, all because the figure is painted a little different." umm... Yeah?
He asked if there were any other figures I needed - I looked and said that I had already gotten them all this morning. "Really? Because I was told by several customers we had more than even Toys R Us had." "That's probably because Toys R Us was wiped out first thing this morning..." "Yeah, that's because they're keeping 80 boxes in the back that they're not putting out until tomorrow because they're a toy store, not a game store."
Yeah... just give me my stuff so I can go. It's funny, last year when Skylanders came out, I went into this same store to see if they had anything exclusive - they didn't, but I got grilled there about where I bought stuff. I mentioned I got most of it at Toys R Us because they were doing a Buy-Two, Get-One Free then. The guy (probably a different guy, I don't remember much) claimed they were doing that to clear out their stock because they weren't going to sell video games anymore.
Anyway, so what should have been a simple "Take my money" transaction turned into entire on-going morning of fun and excitement.
And I haven't even opened the games yet!
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