An Encounter at WAL-MART

[Namir]

Hi All,

I was shopping at my local WAL-MART this morning. As I passed one of the the main isles, my eyes (OK, I had some serious problems with them recently ... as in being half blind for two months) caught the display of a sizable lot of TI Graphing calculators--their location seemed out of place. I walked towards these "machines" and realized they were TI-84 Plus machines ... when I looked at the price ... it was FIVE DOLLARS!!! My gut reaction (for one who watches TAS calculators on a hourly basis) was to grab as many of these machines as I can ... somehow WAL-MART is GIVING AWAY these little darlings away for JUST FIVE DOLLARS. That's when the other part of my brain, which takes time to evaluate and study the situation, kicked in. I realized that the FIVE dollars were buying my plastic calculator covers .. and not the machines itself!!! Bummer!@&^#%@# When I turned to share with my wife (who used to sell calculators at a local university store until 3 years ago) what I found, there was another woman standing next to her who had the same experience I had!!! We laughed about our hasty conclusions and wished the illusion to be true ... oh how much we would have made on TAS.

Sigh!!!!!!!!!!

Namir

[Mike Morrow]

Sometimes great sales can be found at a local Wal-Mart, where there appears to be great discretion allowed to local management in setting prices for items to be cleared from inventory.

Last year my local Wal-Mart cleared most of their high-end calculators. I got a TI-89 Titanium with Version 4 hardware for $42.50, and a Casio fx-9750GII for $23.50. Both brand new in unopened bubble pack.

The excellent Casio fx-115ES was being sold for months last year at $13.00, before disappearance. But these have just been re-stocked again at my local store, but for the old normal price of $17.48.

(No connection here to Wal-Mart except as a customer.)

[Martin Pinckney]

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Sometimes great sales can be found at a local Wal-Mart, where there appears to be great discretion allowed to local management in setting prices for items to be cleared from inventory.

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Some of you may remember a couple years ago I bought 39 10bii's (discontinued bronze version) for $2 each. I gave some to my wife for prizes for her HS students. Sold the rest on eB** for $16 each, I think. This enabled me to pick up a few Pioneers and maybe a Leatherman or two that I wanted.

[Mike Morrow]

At my local W-M last year, I picked up two of those HP 10bii units for $5.50 each. I've no complaints even though that's much higher than your $2 price. :-)

If I have time and I'm in an unfamiliar W-M, I usually try to find the clearance aisle to see if there's anything dirt cheap upon which I normally would not waste money. I think that the TI-89 HW4 unit I got was worth $42.50. But given the availability (but NOT at W-M) of the far superior HP 50G at very reasonable price, I'm not sure that the TI-89 was worth any *more* than what I paid.

Edited: 28 Mar 2011, 3:01 p.m.

[Namir]

Several years ago I found in the same WAL-MART an HP-17BII, which they only sell/sold online. When I asked for its price, they huffed and puffed and ended up giving me the same price of an HP-10B. So I bought the machine!

:-)

Namir

[Paul Gaster]

The calculator section at my local Walmart is always a mess. Calculators are always in the wrong spot so finding the real price takes some work. It's not customers moving things around either. Sometimes you can tell somebody unloaded a case of calculators, had no room, and just stuck them in any open slots based on how many extra of one type of calculator is there.
Actually, many items throughout the store are like this as well. You have to be very careful. It seems like the best value items in each section/isle are constantly out of stock and often workers fill in those areas with other more expensive items. If you don't pay close attention you will end up spending a lot more than you think.
I have been meaning to complain, but to be honest I don't think they care, or this is deliberately done to make more money. I really should just start shopping elsewhere.

[Martin Pinckney]

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... to be honest I don't think they care, or this is deliberately done to make more money.

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Or just general incompetence. They buy stuff made in China at virtual slave-labor wages, ship it in huge containers, sell it in mega-stores designed to minimize costs, staffed by the cheapest labor money can buy.

Is it any wonder we long for the days of the $300 HP calculators?

Wait - as a matter of fact, those days are still here, thanks to eB**!

[Jim Yohe]

ROFL