Amazon’s Black Friday Wii Early Surprise
As I woke up this morning to the check out NowInStock.net’s status, I noticed at 2:58 A.M. this morning Wii alerts were shot off to everyone that Amazon had the Wii in stock. A little surprised and thinking that this might have been an error, I verified my cached snapshot (I store a snapshot every time I see stock available), and sure enough they had stock available!
The really odd thing about this was the fact it was 3:00 AM when stock was available. Amazon never releases Wii’s at this time of day. Their typical release time is around 12:00 PM or 1:00 PM. I assume this is to give the west coast equal opportunity at acquiring one. But 3:00 AM!
So I beg to question, why this was done? Was this left over stock from the day before?
Yesterday, on Thanksgiving, they began their 6 Days – Amazon Customer Vote deals. Were these the leftovers? It happened at 3:00 AM EST, which is 12:00 AM PST and when the Customer Vote deals would have expired. So all the unclaimed $79 Wii’s from Thanksgiving, might have been thrown back into the pot and released at standard cost.
The other option is that Amazon wanted to beat the majority of other stores that opened up early for Black Friday. JCPenny opened up at 4:00 AM! As a result, those early risers getting ready to crash the doors on Black Friday got a really early Black Friday surprise of Wii’s In Stock! (Thank you Amazon, now I can go back to bed.)
I like to think of it as a little of both. Some may think it was coincidence that Amazon ran their $79 Wii, $319 PS3, or $219 Xbox 360 Customer Vote deal on Thanksgiving, but I feel it was strategic and a good strategy at that. You knew the Wii would win, which it did. You also know that not all of those randomly selected to receive a Wii would claim it. It was Thanksgiving! All unclaimed Wii’s get released as soon as the deal expires which happens to be 3:00 AM EST or 12:00 AM PST on Black Friday.
I maybe stepping out on the limb on this one, as it does sound to be a little too good to be true, but it happened just like that. I guess the real question is how many Wii’s were available this morning and how many went unclaimed yesterday? Something we will never know.