I meant for this to be on Conversations. That's twice now I've done this without realizing my post has gone to the Decorating side. Something weird is happening because I know I was at Conversations when I posted this message but it's now over here.

I did read an article the other day saying not to buy electronics on Black Friday, but never knew they were inferior products. If true, that's terrible!

My experience with Black Friday deals (and other sales/deals, like with Tuesday Morning) is that only 5-10 of the items are given to each store, yet 500 people have lined up to get that item, not knowing there will not be any unless they were first in line.

"The store is playing a sneaky trick on customers "

Not really.
It is pretty much common knowledge that manufacturers make inferior products for certain times (like Black Friday) and certain stores (like Home Depot).
Sorry he got burned!

Here is a link that might be useful: Depending on merchandise, Black Friday deals not always best.

I'm not surprised , although it's not illegal, it's slightly misleading ,
buyer beware.

We have sidewalk sales a few times a year and I've always noticed
how the merchandise is different.

This wasn't any "common knowledge" I was aware of! Flying Flower, thank you for posting (regardless of where it ended up! those things happen..).

I do know that outlet stores frequently have stuff that you wouldn't have found in the regular stores, whether it's just different items or lower-grade stuff or both of those rolled into one. JCPenney's outlets started stocking low-grade stuff with regularity long before they started closing some of them.

"This wasn't any "common knowledge" "

Apologies then!

Our local papers print an article along the lines of this year's I linked above... and they have for many years.
I figured if it makes the news annually in my small town, it must have made the rounds elsewhere.

BF IS more in recent years... the Home Depot, etc 'special lines' has been around since the early '90s.

Thanks for telling us. I haven't heard about it either but now it all makes sense.

I'll pass this along to friends and family.

Sometimes the prices are not the best either. If you are thinking about an electronics purchase, try decide.com. That will tell you whether the price is expected to stay the same, come down or go up, and by what probability.

It is true that the lesser models of a product line will be the ones offered for sale on the big sale days because the price writes up a better ad and sounds so good. If you ask about another model, they may be on sale or not also. The leader product is meant to get the bodies in the door or the eyes on the website. For example, you will notice a lot of sale for x-boxes, but most of them are for the 4gb instead of the 250gb ones.

I noticed that the ads for the big TVs only mentioned the brand name and the size - no model numbers. Regardless, it is not how I would shop for a big ticket item.

I knew that certain items you buy at Wal Mart have special SKU numbers exclusive to WM; you can't price-match on them.
So when another store will "match any advertised price" it won't work if the model number is a WM exclusive.
Casey

I have never heard of special cheap models for BF. It seems implausible. Manufacturing lines are too expensive to change over for the relatively small number of items that would sell in one day. I do know the big box stores sell an inferior product line. They have those year round. We got our first big screen plasma TV at Wally World five years ago on BF and it has not been a disappointment.

We noticed this when shopping for a tv. BJ's had what seemed like a really good deal on a Samsung TV that DH wanted for our condo in NH. I went home and checked the model number and could find very few reviews on that particular model. The last four were 6050 instead of 6000. The reviews weren't great.. We ended up buying one we could Actually read the reviews on. Eventually I read that the 6050 model was made for Costco/BJs exclusively.

Hopefully the one we bought will be worth it!

beth p

Like arcy, it seems implausible that electronics would be made specifically for a given sale day. My guess is that it's a TV made to Walmart's specs, is carried only by Walmart and is less expensive compared to a similar model.
HD does this on many products, especially kitchen/bath faucets. Delta, for instance, makes faucets with slightly different internal components to HD's specs but the faucets will not be same model # as the 'original' Delta faucet. One has to compare apples to apples these days when purchasing anything.

If buying at Costco, they have a great return policy. I would not exclude anything because it was exclusively made for them. I have found Costco items to be of usually very decent quality, which is why sometimes they are not the absolute cheapest.
Walmart is a different story. I am not sure I'd buy something delicate or expensive there.

This was news to me, but DH said he knew it. He'd bought a drill driver at HD at a much lower than usual price and he said he figured it had to be junk, and it was.

I always thought I was so shop savvy, but learned lately that I'm really not! We do make a habit of buying big ticket items at Costco primarily because their return policy is amazing, and I've found that you often get little extras with their items that the 'regular' stores don't have.

I totally believe they do this. I heard that retailers expect 40% of their sales for the year to come from Black Friday. That would be more than enough incentive to manufacture inferior products for one day.

Walmart in particular is a store chain with enough buying power to have products made just for Walmart. I don't know if they spotlight them on Black Friday in particular, but you need to be careful when buying any expensive item from them, not just electronics. I know Brother sewing machines used to make a model just for Walmart, and there are other companies that do so as well. Something like a Wii or an iPod you are probably safe with, because there just aren't a lot of variations on those. But TVs, small kitchen appliances and the like--do your homework before buying.

I have a related issue pertaining to a recent online purchase my 16-year-old DD made for a pair of Ugg boots. It seems the transaction was for an online store in the UK and boots shipped directly from China. I only realized this after she placed the order and when the boots came in I wondered if they were counterfit; esp. as they came wrapped in plastic in a brown paper envelope (no Ugg shoe box). DD felt the quality was inferior to her friends who bought in stores. When I looked into the company in more detail they have a very restrictive return policy and seller pays the cost to return. DH is skeptical we'd even get our money back unless we dispute it with our credit card. I don't know if we could dispute it or not as we have no proof the boots are not what they say they are (they do look like Uggs and have the Ugg label), plus I assume we'd have to pay the cost to return to China. We paid $80 (or about 1/2 price what you pay in the store).

So are they just a version made by Ugg but inferior quality for an online store, counterfit or are they genuine? Right now we're about ready to chalk this up as a valuable lesson for DD in being a savvy shopper and checking return policies more carefully next time unless anyone else has other suggestions?

I'm a believer. Same with Nordstrom Rack~~most of the stuff is made specifically for the Rack, and not older mds. from stores. ;o)

valinsv, maybe this will help....

Here is a link that might be useful: UGGS Counterfeit Education

I also found this:

Where do you ship from?

All UGG� Australia items are shipped directly to the consumer from our warehouse in California. If you receive a product that has been shipped directly from another country � China, Vietnam etc. you have purchased from a counterfeit site. These sites work extremely hard to duplicate our site making it difficult for you to know you are purchasing from a counterfeiter. The order confirmation may be in very poor English. The quality of these products is significantly inferior to our authentic product and they are not held to the high manufacturing standards that we adhere to including use of approved chemicals etc.

LuAnn, thanks for printing the above. I still am not totally sure what we have here. The boots do have the reflective sticker, but did not come in a box and seems the box is also supposed to have the reflective sticker. DD did buy another pair at Nordstroms shortly after that as she thought we could return the ones she bought online. When I compare the two, the inside stickers are the same, but the Nordstrom ones have the reflective stickers on the box. The Ugg website also mentions list of authorized online sellers. Seems there is a bootbay listed there, but DD bought from bootsbay. I will send Uggs an email seeing if they can help me verify the authenticity. We have decided not to return ship and pay shipping. If they are indeed Uggs (even if inferior quality) we will keep, but if I find out they are counterfit then I will dispute it, but I need to find proof first.

Guess this is all an education for me, though may be common knowledge to others....

Sorry for anyone following this thread if it's not exactly decorating related but was addressing more of the inferior product quality at some online/outlet stores.

I've wondered about the cheaper items sold at outlet stores. Does it really help the brand? If I bought something at a outlet thinking it was last year's goods at a great price when in reality it was a cheaper version made to sell at outlets I would have a bad impression of the brand when it fell apart after a few washes. I'd probably never buy that brand again. Had it been last year's good quality stuff at a good price and I really liked it I'd likely seek out the brand in non-outlet stores and buy there too. Maybe I'm not the norm demographic-wise?

I had no idea, either. Thanks for the heads up!
Lynn

The Feds shut down many websites on Cyber Monday who were selling fraudalent items such as Uggs, Louis Vuitton handbags, and fake NBA jerseys. The website where my DD bought her Uggs was no longer active so we think it may have been involved in the shutdown and we decided to initiate a dispute with our credit card. I'm very curious to know which of the 150 websites were shutdown and it the website where my DD bought the Uggs is on that list. Does anyone know where the actual list may be found?

Here is a link that might be useful: Feds seize 150 websites in counterfeit crackdown

Rosestink: You make a very good point.

It does change a consumer's view of a manufacturer if the outlet item doesn't hold up. Two summers ago, I bought some T's at the JCPenney outlet in Northern Virginia (which recently closed). They shrunk horribly when washed -- in cold water! (And I always use a drying rack to dry knit tops, so heat wasn't an issue.)

After that, anytime I saw something in the regular store, I'd wonder how it'd hold up and more than half the time I didn't buy the item. I know for certain those T's weren't being sold in the regular store, or I would have gotten them there.

I think it's hit-or-miss on whether outlet stores are selling first-quality-but-last-season merchandise. Only store at the outlets near me that I trust so far is the Easy Spirit shoe store.

Makes you wonder where last season's merchandise has actually gone.