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Subject: 
TRU testing Lego price increases at some stores.
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.market.shopping
Date: 
Mon, 10 Sep 2001 17:19:53 GMT
Viewed: 
233 times
  
In my quest for Star Wars value packs, I recently visited several local TRU
stores int he Cleveland, OH area.

At one store (Parmatown Mall) I noticed that almost all of the Lego sets
seemed to have been marked up by about 10%.  $20 sets were $22, $35 sets
were $38.50, Etc.

This seemed to cover all of the sets except some of the older stock.  It was
complete with shelve stickers and everything, so you'd never think that
these were not the normal prices.

While cruising around the electronics section to check on the Mindstorms
sets (which were marked up as well) on of the employees made the mistake of
asking if he could help me with anything.

Of course, I asked for an explaination of all of the lego sets int he store
seemed to be marked up 10% from MSRP.  This apparently caught him by
surprise.  I guess they were hoping that people wouldn't know what MSRP was
for the sets.

His answer was along the lines of "Yes, I know.  But no, I can't tell you."
When pressed, however, he spilled.  It seems that TRU is test marketing a
bunch of things, including raising prices, to see if they can get away with
it.

According to the emplyee, this is spread accross all the stores with each
store testing just one or a couple things.  So this store gets to test the
Lego prices, but the next store may get to test the Barbie prices or the
Matchbox prices.

He also aluded to other things be tested, such as different display sets and
such, but I didn't get any details on that.

I kindly told him that I would not ever buy anything at their inflated
prices.  (I didn't bother to mention that I never buy anything at retail
either!)  He basically agreed with me when I paraphrased what they were
doing as "So, they are trying to see if we are dumb enough to not notice and
buy them anyways?"

Didn't Amazon get into trouble for doing this some time ago?  Maybe that
association with Amazon for online sales wasn't such a good idea after
all....

Troy



Message has 3 Replies:
  Re: TRU testing Lego price increases at some stores.
 
"Troy's Surplus Lego" <legosales@tcphoto.net> wrote in message news:GJGItH.KAw@lugnet.com... (...) TRU (...) [ ... snipped ... ] I noticed this at the Durham, NC TRU the other day. I needed a large (48x48) baseplate on short notice and picked one (...) (23 years ago, 10-Sep-01, to lugnet.market.shopping)
  Re: TRU testing Lego price increases at some stores.
 
(...) *snip* (...) The TRU in Redwood City, CA (halfway between San Francisco and San Jose) has raised prices 10% across the store (OK, I didn't actually price the Barbies, board games, and diapers, but I looked at a number of lines, not just Lego). (...) (23 years ago, 10-Sep-01, to lugnet.market.shopping)
  Re: TRU testing Lego price increases at some stores.
 
(...) The TRU in Newark, CA (perhaps all of them) just jacked up the price of Bionicle mask sets (2 masks per box) by 50% to see if us fools will still pay at .42 cents per piece (price increased from $1.99 to $2.99). Fortunately, there is a Target (...) (23 years ago, 11-Sep-01, to lugnet.market.shopping)

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