Circuit City employee reports PS3 hoarding |
Tsk tsk.Here at the QJ offices, we have just received a letter from one of our readers who reports that some Circuit City branches have been receiving stocks of PS3s, but have also been deliberately witholding these units from the public in favor of family and friends. Talk about nepotism.
With all these reports about various retailers hoarding their supplies of such in-demand items, could this be a sign for their head offices to start keeping a closer watch on their branches? After all, with similar reports piling up, it is becoming undeniable that there is SOMETHING going on in those stores which shouldn't.
In any case, we'll let you, our dear readers, be the judge, so we're also leaving you with the letter that we received which you can view in its entirety right here (we didn't include the guy's name since we didn't want to get him in any trouble).
"I am a former employee of Circuit City. As you may already know, there has been an enormous demand for the Playstation 3 this holiday season. One of my better friends still works at Circuit City in Santa Monica as a warehouse worker. On Tuesday, November 28th, he told me that their store would be receiving 2 60 GB and 6 20 GB Playstation 3s. I told him that I would contact him early Wednesday morning just to make sure they actually arrived since he is one of the main people who unload the merchandise shipments when they come.
On Wednesday morning, they came in just as he said. However, as he received the merchandise in the store inventory, the Operations Manager promptly placed the merchandise into variance. Variance means when a product should be there but is currently lost or stolen. She then began calling people on a list she gathered of employees, current and former, and also friends/family who were interested in obtaining a Playstation 3. Any knowledge of the Playstation 3s being available was hidden from the immediate public. Even my warehouse friend, who's been with the company for 5 years, was shunned away for those already on the list.
Also, another friend I have working at the La Cienega store had told me that they received 2 60 GB Playstation 3s. However, they were not available to be sold to the public as well.
Now during my times working at Circuit City, it was company policy that employees would not be allowed to purchase new release game systems especially if there's such high public demand for them for at least a month. Their current practices now obviously contradict any such policy. I just find it ethically wrong to hide a product with such demand from the public. These people who are receiving preferential treatment should be fighting in a first come first serve basis just like everyone else.
Thank you for your time.
(Name and email address omitted -- Ed.)"
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Comments [refresh]
I will say it really is a horrible thing that is being done here, but it's just something that's downright unstoppable. The people who run the stores either think this is wrong or don't care. With such high demand for something everyone is going to be calling in every favor they have to get one of these.
Certain stores will horde PS3s, certain consumers will bribe their way at stores into getting PS3s, it's sad but it's ture.
Here in Britain we tend not to have a first come first served basis. With PS2 and PSP the retail chain 'Game' took pre-orders if you were the twentieth person to put your pre-order you got the twentieth psp store reserved for you. I remember wandering in the afternoon after the midnight launch of PSP and my psp was still there. They hold it for 3 days before putting it back on sale if you dont turn up. This means no riots, shootings, stabbings and queing for hours stinking of Pi$$. Much more civilised. But then the U.S of A is still a young nation with a lot of growing up still to do! ;) flame on...........
There are plenty of stores that take pre-orders of most consoles and large titles. But sadly, a few stores (Like most stores) Love the PR of people waiting in line for a game console, it makes news and gets their name onto the news and guess what? Free Advertising. But last I checked, there was Rioting and shootings/stabbings for the PS3, the most I heard for Wii and 360 was maybe a robbery by gun point. (Single report) It really makes a difference by the type of people in line... And where you live.
See, it'd be a different story if Circuit City officially offered Pre-Orders but they don't. Unless you like to kiss ass to the manager who's there when shipments come in. In fact, as of Friday, December 1st at 8:30am, there should be 2 20 GB PS3s that came in on Wednesday and 2 60 GB PS3s that came in just today. Now if the public knew the 20 GB ones were in, they'd be gone the same day, but they've been sitting in the back for 2 days now. That just calls for a red flag in my opinion.
As your story goes it's special treatment. Here's how the company originally saw it.. The first batch which was the larger shipment was for customers, no doubts about this. The second batch what little there would be was promised to the employees to prevent them from causing issues with the launch.
Problem now for the people that work there is that, corporate direction changed as the units started to filter in...off course this is on a region to region basis, but until further notice employees aren't getting any units, same for the wii. No big announcements if it's in, you ask & you get it, unless instructed to hold them for a special ad.
Hell people have been fired for just special ordering the things.
but the ad never dropped. Circuit city lied to me on this one mate. I had the system in my hand Nov 28th and the ops manager yanked it. Told me the ad would drop and he couldn't sell it. Needless to say the ad never dropped.
I work at Circuit City and the days we get the systems, we really can't sell them even if we have them in the back, it next weeks ad has the advertised product for example, all of the Circuit Citys have recieved a shipment of about 9-10 Wiis but we can't sell, even if we wanted to, the first day we recieved the Wii's it was categorized as a Net Saleable item, yet when I tried to ring up the customer, it told me I couldn't finish the transaction, so I went to a page called ccity.com that you can only access from a Ciruit City store, we get updates on the shipements and when we get them in, well in there it said that "There was a restriction made for Mageallan and DPS to sell the PS3 and Nintendo Wii's since they are advertised on the December 17 Ad."
So it really doesn't matter if we have them in the back or not, we're not "trying" to hold them back and not sell them, it's that corporate was an ass and restricts us from selling.
I also work at circuit city and yes the systems do go into variance or display right as soon as they come off the truck in order to prevent service issues later on. A lot of times re-releases are advertised in the ad so they must be put in the back until the ad date. Then they come out of variance or display and can be purchased. At my store they were locked in the cash office so no employees except CSA's were allowed to even see them.