15 December 2012

Furby purchase

| Chad
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Decided to have lunch with my wife yesterday to finalise some Xmas shopping for our kids. So off to Big W we go looking for a Furby for our daughter. We head to the toy department expecting a huge display of these ‘Furbies’ but to no avail. For those of you that don’t know, the Furby looks like the soft, fluffy creature from ‘Gremlins’.

Anyway, after ten minutes looking, we ask a customer service consultant and he says that they are available and he’ll need to get one from the back. He asks what colour and we tell him pink and he heads off to collect this toy. On his return with the pink Furby, he asks whether we’ve finished shopping for today to which we say no. He politely explains that he’ll need to escort the Furby to the registers at the front of the shop once we’ve completed our shopping and to come back to the toy department once we’re ready to leave. I’ve looked at my wife who was dressed in a business suit and thought ‘What is going on ?’. We didn’t pry any further and went and got our other bits and pieces.

We head back to the toy department to try and find our friendly customer service consultant and come across another consultant who was able to explain the bizarre circumstances. Several Furbies had been stolen that morning and this was the measure put in place to minimise the risk of further losses. The customer service consultant went out the back, retrieved our Furby and escorted us to the front registers for payment.

Has anybody else had a similar experience ???

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Gungahlin Al9:27 am 17 Dec 12

Don’t bother with them. They hold the attention all of a half hour. $80 of the child’s own pocket money down the gurgler and a lesson hard-learned.

eyeLikeCarrots8:49 am 17 Dec 12

rosscoact said :

the new ones are interactive and have an app – woot

Do they have wireless or bluetooth…..

I’m giddy with the hacking possibilities…..

the new ones are interactive and have an app – woot

Roundhead89 said :

You can’t buy a Furby? Why not buy a Cabbage Patch Doll, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or a Tamagotchi instead.

Cuz eveyone knows they’re not kool.

Buy a stuffed cat and call it Furball.

muscledude_oz5:34 am 16 Dec 12

It is common practice for supermarkets to keep items which are highly shoplifted under the counter and available only on request. That’s why Woolies and Coles usually don’t display razor blade refills and SD cards. In addition some record shops used to keep KISS, Iron Maiden and Metallica CDs under the counter for the same reason.

You can’t buy a Furby? Why not buy a Cabbage Patch Doll, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or a Tamagotchi instead.

neanderthalsis4:19 pm 15 Dec 12

Many years ago as a poor student, I had a part-time job at KMart. When the frist Furbies hit the market, there was a mad rush for them. IIRC all 500 went in the first few hours in our store. They too were locked up in the AV department due to them being a highly coveted item that the local peasantry would sell their first born to get their hands on.

I escort customers with bottles of spirits from the locked cabinet to the service desk, with good reason. But furbies!?

Corporates and the bottom feeders .. they just want furbies damn it!

Can’t believe they’re back in vogue though; is/was there another Gremlins movie?

$100 for a “must have”, hard to get stuffed toy. It’s not suprising that they’re a highly targeted item for shoplifters. That’s probably the easiest $80 made by the thieves and who would be suspicious about buying a new unopened stuffed toy?

Try scouring the op shops for a ‘vintage model’.

Beware the furglars.

Looks like big dub is the go for the fluffy critters

What ! My mother has been trying to buy a furby for weeks and was advised by pretty much everywhere they were sold out until after Christmas. They couldn’t get more stock in.

Hmmmm

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