Oh the Merchandise We Carried!

Editor’s Note:  I know it has been about a month and a half since we continued this story, but I felt other topics were as important to discuss and will continue to discuss other topics between set topics that are pre-planned.  Hopefully, I won’t have such a long stretch like this again, but if I do I will do another note like this.

Instead of being an exhaustive list of everything that all the places carried, this is basically a short list of items along with a short bit on some of the more interesting items.

Woolworth:

Besides candy, jewelry, cosmetics, cigarettes, toys, housewares, curtains, sewing supplies, video/audio items and clothes, the store also had its share of odd items.

ODDEST ITEM::

Nintendo Virtual Boy – for those who remember this joke item will recall that it had a bright red screen that you looked into like binoculars and tried to play the games on it.  Sadly, it added more to headaches and really didn’t work very well.  At about $100, it was Nintendo’s worst seller and was only in our stores for a couple of months.

ITEM I REALLY SHOULD HAVE PURCHASED:

The Sega Genesis or the Nintendo Super Nintendo were both great bargains when they Woolworth went out of the video game business. 

While other stores were still selling these systems for over $100, Woolworth worth selling each of these units for well under $50. This was a stupid move on my part.

Home Quarters (HQ):

Everything for the home could be found here, just like as Home Depot and Lowes still does today.  The only difference is they are still around and HQ is long gone.  HQ’s biggest problem was that much of its merchandise was loose and never tagged such as screws.

Screws were matched up to a drawing in a flip book to determine which one it was and what to charge for it.  Usually it took more than one person to figure it out and sometimes even the front-end supervisor took a guess on some of the items.  The difference of prices in some of the screws were priced from about 10 cents up to almost $2 a each.  Certainly a big difference in price that could cost the company a lot of money and I believe it cost them quite a bit.

Staples:

It would easier to list the items that they didn't carry during my time with the company.  However, one product stood out far and above as the worst product I have ever seen.

Worst Product:

Flexplay DVD discs were simply the worst product ever carried by Staples.  The lifespan after opening the package was just 48 hours which meant that after that time the disc was no longer usable.  The item started out around $5 per disc, but eventually dropped to under $1 each. Unfortunately, these discs didn’t conform to the DVD specification so they were not as high quality as real DVDs, nor were the movies in widescreen format or have any extras on the discs either.  Sounds like 3 strikes and you are out, Staples.  If only that really was the case as this joke item was ignored by virtually everyone.  Sort of makes that Virtual Boy a great item now.

Up Next:  Pricing the Merchandise