The other day I got lucky and purchased a Wii from a retail store. If you are looking for a Wii of your own but do not want to pay the $150+ markup by buying one from eBay then these tips may be of help to you.
1) Make a list of stores
Start with the stores closest to you and likely to carry the Wii. For me, my list consisted of:
Wal-Mart
Target
Toys 'R Us
Best Buy
Circuit City
GameStop
EB Games
(Yes, I know EB Games and GameStop are essentially the same thing but there are two of them in the local mall and another one right down the street from the mall!)
2) Get contact information for the stores
This can be as simple as making a list of phone numbers though I also recomend you visit the store and meet the employees who work in the electronics department which leads to...
3) Visit the store
You need to go to the store and find where the Wiis will be when they have them. This also allows you to see how good their accessory selection is. In some places Wii remotes are harder to find than Wiis!
4) Talk to the employees
When you talk to the employees you want to find out a few things:
a) When are new Wii shipments likely to arrive?
b) How quickly do they sell out?
c) How many arrive in a shipment?
By knowing when the Wiis are likely to arrive you can avoid calling the store on a daily basis to see if they have any Wiis. For example, the guy who works at my local Circuit City store told me all Wiis come in Friday morning.
5) Call in the morning about an hour after the store opens
Give the employees a little bit of time to start their day, they do not want to be hounded by "Got any Wiis?" phone calls all day long. Once you get a "yes, we have them" answer head to the store and buy one. Don't ask them to hold one for you because they can not do that.
That is pretty much it. It took me only one week to get my Wii after using this method.
Wii’s are pretty rediculous. You hear about the DJ who was fired for holding a Wii giveaway contest killng one contestant from overhydration?
Yes, I heard about that. I wonder if they will be brought up some sort of negligent homicide charges.
With that aside…
I must tell you that the Wii is awesome! Even my non-gaming wife has tried it and liked it. I will be writing a series of articles on it but just to let you know. I bought the console, a second wii-mote and the Excite Truck game. On the first night we almost didn’t even play a game because there is so much you can do with just the console! We did manage to get in a quick game of bowling before I put my daughter to bed but that was it.
You are spot on! I got my Wii by making a list of stores and their phone numbers and calling them every morning. Wiis are not that hard to find if you know how to find them.
I have been trying for days and days to find a Wii, but no luck, I have used the method the person mentioned up top and no luck! they won’t even tell me when they are likely to be shipped. Any ideas on when?
In my part of the country, North-East, Circuit City gets theirs on Friday mornings, Target gets them “whenever” and Wal-mart gets theirs over night on Wednesdays.
Most clerks will tell you when to call if for no other reason than to get you to stop asking them!
hey ive been tryin to get a wii, but all the clerks are being jerks just because im a minor…so can anyone help me, i live out in the midwest near chicago…if u could just give me store information that would b great
thanks
You can find store information in your yellow pages.
If all else fails you can always go with eBay and pay a premium.
yeah i have the exact same problem and the only time people arent jerks to me is when they think i’m a grown women because of my high voice. That always ends with sorry mam we do not have any. Also i think the problem is that like he said they get so many calls asking if they have wiis that they are sick of them soo they dont tell you when they come in because they just want to get off the phone. I’ve also had the problem where like Nate said one store worker says they come monday and tuesdays and another says they come monday-friday. Now i have my mom on it and i have found if you are a minor bring a parent because the store managers tend to respect you alot more and one even checked when the ups guy was coming with them. By the way im pretty sure eb games can check when there shipmeents are coming in they just dont tell you.
Wiis are STILL sold out?
Last time I was in a store that sold them they had them…
Everywhere I go, I always see people saying “Circuit City stores in the Northeast always get their Wii shipments on Fridays.” “Best Buys in the Midwest always get their Wii shipments no Tuesdays.” “In Hawaii, EB and Gamestop always get their Wii shipments on Sundays.” “In Tallahasee FL we always get our Wii shipments on the fourth odd numbered day following a new moon.” etc. etc. etc. etc. But nobody ever seems to have the slightest bit of info on when shipments arrive in the Southwest, Southern California to be precise. It’s just a big mystery zone, I guess.
Calling local stores in my area has been no help whatsoever. Most of the clerks and managers I talk to all say the same thing: “We don’t know when Wiis are going to arrive. They just come when they come.” And they make no attempt to hide the fact that they’re sick to death of people asking them the same One clerk at EB was kind enough to tell me “We never know when they’re coming, they just come all the time. When we do get shipments, it’s usually at about 1 or 2 in the afternoon. So just call us everyday at about 2 or 3 until you get lucky.” Cool, thanks! The very next day I called the same EB, and a different guy told me “We aren’t getting more Wiis until the end of March.” Oh. I just called yesterday and an employee told me blah blah blah. “Well, I’m the manager, and I get the emails that tell us when they’re coming. The regular employees don’t see the emails.” I shit you not, he actually told me that.
Anyway, it’s frigging March and I’m amazed that demand is still so high (read: supply is still so low) that I can’t just casually walk into any electronics store and buy a Wii this long after launch, and I’m getting seriously annoyed and needed to vent. Thank you all =P
I used a site that tracks WII’s in stock at Target. One store had them, I called them and they said, nope we don’t have any. Too bad it’s an hour drive for me to get there or I’d be in the car already.
I never tried using websites to locate Wiis.
i tried that site and there are two targets close by that have limited supply, allegedly. when i call both tell me they don’t have any. i don’t want to make the 30 minute drive everyday. maybe the employees are keeping them to themeselves and ebaying them. lol.
[...] to Christmas my article on how to find a Wii saw a similar increase in traffic. The only thing I can make from this is that everyone was looking [...]
In search of wii
My search started in mid-october when my 10 year old son asked for a wii for Christmas. I knew from the start that I had to find him one because of the connection with my name. You see, my name is William Isaac Ishman with my initials being WII and my sons name being William Isaac Ishman the 2nd, WII 2. As a matter of fact my wife refers to us as wii 1 and wii 2. Every weekend in October and November my time was spent searching all stores in the city I live in, including walmart,toys r us, best buy,circuit city,comp USA and many others with no results. I spent hours standing in lines and even witnessed a fight in best buy, when two elderly men reached for the last wii. When December arrived I was about to tell my son that their would probably be no wii for Christmas this year, but first I wanted to give the online stores a try. I check all of the big box stores, always with the same results”out of stock”. I ended up checking a couple of the wii tracker sites, and their it was at amazon.com “in stock”. Amazon was selling the wii for $250.00 that morning. I immediately went to their site and purchased one.It was worth every penny just to see the look on my sons (wii 2) face Christmas morning. The wii trackers had really done the job for me.