If you’re like me you desperately want to buy a Nintendo Wii, yet you are unwilling to camp for three days with a bunch of oily, unwashed 35-year-old geeks who still live in their mom’s basement and spend their spare time debating whether Yoda could beat Gandolf in a fight.
So the best chance a person who actually has sex occasionally has of getting a Wii is pure luck — a random mid-week shipment that no one knew was coming. But how do you find out if your local Target has gotten any in? You could ask an employee, and they will tell you, “No.” But I don’t trust the red-shirts on this issue for a very important reason:
They don’t care. Your average Target redshirt will not even check the computer before telling you that they are out. The paranoid in me fervently believes that if they would just check, they would discover that the warehouse guys are complaining because they can’t navigate past the stacks and stacks of Wii’s littering the aisles in the back room.
So here is the quasi-secret way to find out if your Target has any Wii’s and where those Wii’s are without having to talk to a single pimple-faced, disaffected teen.
Step 1. Locate a price scanner with functioning number buttons on the right side. (This is tougher than it sounds.) Many people are not even aware that these buttons exist, and yet at my local Target more than half of the scanners had broken or even missing buttons.
Step 2. Type in the Target DPCI (Department Class Item) number for the Wii. 207-25-0001 and press “enter.”
Step 3. Read the display to check how many Wii’s are in the stockroom. The numbers after “Aisle” tell you the location of the Wii on the sales floor and the number of facings it should have — not the number that they have in stock, so don’t get too excited when something pops up there. And if they were on the floor, they are probably already gone anyway.
A friend of mine was able to get a Wii this way by figuring out that Target had gotten a shipment of Wii’s, but hadn’t moved them to the sales floor, yet. He hung around the electronics department for an hour, and grabbed one off the pallet truck before they even put them in the case. Score!
Badmouth reader and Target employee Sarah C added this important tip:
If you want to see if a store has counts, go up to a team member that has a handheld scanner. Ask them “can you check this dpci in ‘item search’ to see if you have any?” While the scanners will tell you if they are located in the back, item search shows team members how many of the item is on-hand. If you can try to stand next to them and look over their shoulder, once they see what the item is they might not tell you how many are OH (on-hand). Hope this helps with the holiday shopping coming up.
So remember to thank both Jesus and Sarah if you actually manage to score a Wii this Christmas.
Does anyone have any idea when Wii’s will start coming back in stock in Target? I would love to get one for my son’s birthday later this week? Any suggestions?
Anthony:
Let me know if you know of a date that all Target stores should get a shipment of Wii’s in. Thanks.
Anthony,
I’m still waiting to get the Wii from Target. I’m waiting for it to be in the Sunday ad the next time and get it from the closest Target to me. Is Target planning on advertising it sometime soon? I know it’s not in this weekend or next weekends ad, so the soonest it could be in the ad would be January 13th. Let me know if you’ve heard anything from Target about the Sunday ad. I thought that Target has to start holding Wii shipments for an upcoming ad at some point, so I’d think that would be soon. The last time it was in the ad was December 16th.
hey sorry no news to report shipments might no be out till like febuary i’ve been told…but we did get new lables for the wii and they now say “white” so maybe the rumors may be tru that wii’s will be coming out in colors no clue but as soon as i learn anything i will post
Hey target must have them this weekend because it has been three weeks now since i scored on one, by the way if you ask them for one at the checker they will say yes the wii consoles are behind the checker dude or chick. they will not display them because they dont want to make it easy for us wii masters… target ad jan-27-08 hopefuly. good luck dudes.
wii’s will be in targets on feb 24th release also
new blue colbolt ds lights will be in stores
this sunday
Scumbag Target People
So I go to my local Target in Franklin, TN, checking to see if they had any Wii. I get there, and they have 3! A lady who got there right in front of me gets one, and I tell the Redshirt (a 16 or 17 year old boy named Carter) that I’ll take the other two. He was even more surprised than I was that they had any. He starts to ring me up, and some other redshirt walks by, and says it’s only one per customer. I asked if they had this in writing somewhere. She asks somebody over the walkie-talkie, and he agrees – one per customer, and she leaves. I ask the kid,” if I go to my car and come back, I can buy the other one, right?” He says, “sure, I don’t see why not.”
So I sprint to my car, and sprint back. I get back out of breath, and ask the kid if can I have the other one. He says “Sorry, I just sold it.” I ask him if he bought it himself, and he says “No, I sold it to somebody else.” So, I go to another section of the store, and ask a different Assistant Manager type (named Deimer or something like that) if they have any Wii’s. He says they have one left. We go back, and the kid had stashed it for himself!!!! So when I get there with the Asst Manager, the kid tells him that I already bought one. They refuse to sell it to me, saying that it’s one per customer per day. They call the general manger over, some fat guy named Greg, and I ask him if they have this policy in writing. He said “I don’t have to have it in writing, I can make whatever policies I want, and it’s a hot item, one per customer.” I ask if they teach all of their sales associates to LIE to customers, and he says “I’ll deal with him later.” The assistant manager makes him put it back in the locked glass case.
I call my friend to have her come over and buy it, and I wait in the aisle watching it. The kid walks by several times eyeballing me, and I’m sure if I hadn’t been waiting there, he would have swiped it for himself again. My friend gets there just before some other lady realized what it was. We ended up getting it, but only by a nose. To his credit, the kid says “sorry for what happened earlier” as we were checking out.
Don’t trust the schmucks at Target!!! They clearly don’t care about customers, they’ll screw you any chance they get. The kid was a liar, and the manager was extremely arrogant. Keep this in mind when shopping for a Wii at Target!
Does anyone know what the price SHOULD be if one is scored at Target? On a website called realtime Wiis they are advertising the basic console for $435 with nothing extra. That seems like eBay prices.
Anthony,
Do you know how many Wii systems each Target store would
have at the very minimum for February 24th? Thanks.
Thanks for the Target tip. My husband got a wii this morning, after camping out from 5am on. He tried to talk the manager into giving him one yesterday b/c the inventory check showed they have them in stock. After being lied to by two employees, the manager finally told him that Nintendo did not want them releasing them until the ad came out. Thanks again for all the tips.
I must express my thanks as well! My boyfriend, myself and his mom all went to seperate Targets this morning, and his mom is the one who scored a Wii for us! The store had 26, and she was 10th in line
And this was after 6 weeks of us looking!!
Thank you all who gave tips! We are looking forward to many many years of fun with our new toy, especially after Wii Fit comes out
:D:D:D
THanks fo the WII tips. my Target got 59! yes 59! The guy told me that the number they get depends on store volume. Since there are several Targets in my town, I went to the one that is said to have the highest sales volume. Wii are addicted!
Thanks for all your help in getting my Wii. I had subscribed to several different online trackers, which I found not so helpful. Then I read online that Target would have Wiis on February 24 as advertised in their sales circular. I called two stores in my area on Saturday night. They both confirmed they had Wiis in stock but said they could not sell them until Sunday. They told me they would give out tickets and suggested I get there early. After waiting out in the freezing cold for about an hour and a half, I was first in line. The store got 30 Wiis and almost sold out as soon as they opened. I love it and am addicted!
Anthony,
Let me know when Target will have the Wii listed in their ad again whenever you hear of a date. I didn’t catch this past Sunday.
Any March updates? I was not in town this past weekend for the Sunday 24th shipments and still waiting for my chance to get my hands on one.
Got mine at Circuit City today. They had about 25 at my local store in San Diego, handed out numbers to people waiting at opening. About 5 minutes before opening 10am, they were all handed out.
If you hear of a March date for the Wii advertised in the Target ad let us know Anthony. Thank you.
I managed to score a wii by going to my local circuit city late saturday night and picking up a copy of the sunday ad and they had a limited quantity of them so I went home at got back at around 6:30am and I was the first and line I picked up a wii and was so happpy I would reccomend circuit city over taget because they get larger quantities
I am hearing that Walmart may have a batch today about 10am.
I also heard a rumor that Best Buy Sunday AM will have more come in. – But that is second hand from the kid who picked up the phone last night at BB.
Anyone have the store product codes for BB or Walmart to try the same scanner trick with them?