I "accidentally" overheard the Walmart gougers .

[tRidiot]

Well, I just checked BB and found that Bartlesville has some for the first time in over a week. It's just a few blocks away so I hopped in the car and headed down. Stood in line around 10 minutes while the woman working the sporting goods desk complained about how it must be good fishing weather, while she made 2 fishing licenses (got the impression she was irritated at having a run on licenses?). Then when it got to be my turn I asked about .22 ammo and she gestured to the shelf and said, "We don't have any." I asked when they put out new stock coming off the truck and she seemed irritated and said, "I don't know, but you're welcome to wait in line, there's already one gentleman waiting. It could be anywhere from 6 till 10." Being as it was 10 minutes till 6, I didn't deem it worth the effort to wait.

The man she gestured to (the one "in line"?) was prolly.... early/mid-50s? Slight build, salt & pepper, maybe 5'3"-5'5"? He kinda had his head down, browsing the aisles.... maybe he didn't want to be noticed??? Dunno, I just glanced and left. Wasn't too worried.

I was planning on one of two scenarios - offering for sale to local members at essentially retail plus tax, or keep two, donate one. I hadn't decided yet, but it's moot, I won't be standing in line for hours.

 

[ronny]

It's been a year and a half since I found .22 at WalMart. One of these days, I'm gonna get lucky and stumble on some. I'm old. Am I gonna have to worry about you suckers calling me names and accusing me of beating you to it to sell for a profit?

Well, not to worry. It won't bother me one bit as I walk out with my 3 boxes. Of course, they stock at my WalMart at around 7:00 AM and there's no way I'm getting up and going down there that early, so I guess it's moot.

 

[HMCS(FMF)Ret.]

I rarely ever shoot 22, but now that ya'll gave me the BrassBadger link I kinda want to beat the professional ammo hunters at their own game. Last Sunday I woke up and got to Walmart at 6:45. There were six pro ammo hunters in front of me. First four douche bags snagged three 555 round boxes of 22 (and that was all the store had). All the ammo hunters had exact change ready (so i kinda figured they weren't ammo virgins, like me). I'm thinking seriously about getting up early to beat them to the punch. I'll grab a chair and some gun mags and just wait for my ammo. If I do get some, I'll sell it at cost (to those that promise to shoot it/not sell it).

 

[jakeman]

I wrote WM Corporate (listing my local stores) and asked them to stagger the times that ammo was put out. Explained to them the gouger problem and that these folks were NOT "SHOPPING" in their stores but just sitting there buying ammo then reselling it. By putting ammo out at different times, they would increase the chance that CUSTOMERS that were actually SHOPPING in their stores would have a chance to get ammo also, unlike these asshats that just camp out, run others off, beat up basketballs, buy up that days allotment and LEAVE.

I did get a call from one of the store managers and they said they completely understood and would have their sporting goods folks start staggering times. Don't know if they actually are or not, or if it'll help, but hey....we can only try.

WalMart in TriCity will have/has 60 bulk boxes that will hit the shelves at 7 am tomorrow.

I spoke with a manager, they are bound by corporate policy to put it out at 7 bells on the morning after it arrives. I ask him how many guys there were, and he said it's the same 8-10. I asked him if he realized what they were doing, and he had no clue. He did say he would ask if they could limit the bulk packs to 1 per day, or stagger the stock times, but he didn't have much hope they would. He said the stocking times being the same was an ethics issue. I ask him if he thought what these guys were doing was ethical, and he said, "it doesn't sound like it", and then I said, "well, you're helping them do it, so if ethics is an issue with WalMart, you might want to revisit your stocking policy".

He said he could see where what was going on would be a problem, and said he would visit with the corporate folks about a policy change. Said maybe they could start regulating the purchase like ephedrine until supply kept up, but he didn't know how they could implement that change.

It is what it is.

Again, if these guys wanna be bastards, it's a free country, they can be bastards.

 

[tRidiot]

WalMart in TriCity will have/has 60 bulk boxes that will hit the shelves at 7 am tomorrow.

I spoke with a manager, they are bound by corporate policy to put it out at 7 bell on the morning after it arrives. I ask him how many guys there were, and he said it's the same 8-10. I asked him if he realized what they were doing, and he had no clue. He did say he would ask if they could limit the bulk packs to 1 per day, or stagger the stock times, but he didn't have much hope they would.

He said he could see where what was going on would be a problem, and said he would visit with the corporate folks about a policy change. Said maybe they could start regulating the purchase like ephedrine until supply kept up, but he didn't know how they could implement that change.

It is what it is.

Again, if these guys wanna be bastards, it's a free country, they can be bastards.

Not sure I buy the "corporate policy" BS.

If that is the case, why are so many other stores doing it at a different time? I know personally of at least a half-dozen stores that do it differently.

Maybe their policy is "by 7AM on the following day"... so they could do it same day at any time? I dunno, it just sounds like BS to me.

 

[HMCS(FMF)Ret.]

WalMart in TriCity will have/has 60 bulk boxes that will hit the shelves at 7 am tomorrow.

I spoke with a manager, they are bound by corporate policy to put it out at 7 bells on the morning after it arrives. I ask him how many guys there were, and he said it's the same 8-10. I asked him if he realized what they were doing, and he had no clue. He did say he would ask if they could limit the bulk packs to 1 per day, or stagger the stock times, but he didn't have much hope they would. He said the stocking times being the same was an ethics issue. I ask him if he thought what these guys were doing was ethical, and he said, "it doesn't sound like it", and then I said, "well, you're helping them do it, so if ethics is an issue with WalMart, you might want to revisit your stocking policy".

He said he could see where what was going on would be a problem, and said he would visit with the corporate folks about a policy change. Said maybe they could start regulating the purchase like ephedrine until supply kept up, but he didn't know how they could implement that change.

It is what it is.

Again, if these guys wanna be bastards, it's a free country, they can be bastards.

If they could limit to 1 box that should help a lot. I doubt many of these guys would be as willing to sit around for just 1 box.

 

[jakeman]

If they could limit to 1 box that should help a lot. I doubt many of these guys would be as willing to sit around for just 1 box.

I specifically asked him about that. "So, it's 3 boxes of 50 or 3 boxes of 550? What do you think those guys are doing with 1500 rounds of .22 twice a week?". He kinda got a blank look on his face. He didn't know about brassbadger, armslist, gunbroker or anything else. I'm telling you, in the grand scheme of things, .22 is way the **** down on their list of **** they care about.

He did say, that if more people complained, it would get the attention of the policy makers in Bentonville. I don't know that I'd make a special trip, but the next time you were in the walmarts, you might take 5 minutes and speak to a manager.

 

[HMCS(FMF)Ret.]

I specifically asked him about that. "So, it's 3 boxes of 50 or 3 boxes of 550? What do you think those guys are doing with 1500 rounds of .22 twice a week?". He kinda got a blank look on his face. He didn't know about brassbadger, armslist, gunbroker or anything else. I'm telling you, in the grand scheme of things, .22 is way the **** down on their list of **** they care about.

He did say, that if more people complained, it would get the attention of the policy makers in Bentonville. I don't know that I'd make a special trip, but the next time you were in the walmarts, you might take 5 minutes and speak to a manager.

That's a great idea. I'll talk to the Manager for Moore Walmart.

 

[jmike314]

At least when it's getting put out at 7AM, I know exactly when to go look for some. And if I've got an app that tells me when it's in stock, I can just get up early and beat the resellers there. Worked for me last week.

If resellers are currently paying employees to get tipped off about stock, putting it out at random won't help much. I would assume that the same shameless employees will still tip off the resellers, make a quick buck, and the situation will be the same.

Regular stock times and brassbadger have somewhat leveled the playing field for me a bit. If I'm able to grab more, I'll release some of it into the OSA wild so that it may spread its message of love and good will.

 

[ronny]

I think you'll find that the trucks making the deliveries arrive at different stores at different times. The stuff gets offloaded in the back somewhere and the sporting goods folks go pick it up on their own schedule. Some stores only have one person working in that department so they have to wait for a time when there's someone around to man the register.

In Ardmore, that truck gets there early in the morning and is unloaded by 7:00, or so. They go back to pick up their order sometime around 7:30 - 8:00. They pick up more than just ammo. If they hold the ammo until a later time, they'd have to stash it somewhere or they'd be pestered all day long. There's a lot of logistic crap involved just to satisfy guys like us.