This SUNDAY: Walmart and TRU

Good Morning, Zhu Zhu Chasers!

Wow, I am exhausted this morning. Yesterday was a busy (but fun) cyber-day! I attended the Time to Play webcast yesterday afternoon on MomTV.... then the #hottoys Twitter party hosted by Resourceful Mommy last night! I know at least 2 of my friends from Gottadeal.com won toys during those events. Hopefully we are all geared up for the HUGE #zhuzhupets Twitter party Monday night!!!

Many of us will be participating in a "mini-Black Friday" tonight/tomorrow morning. As announced on Cepia's Zhu Zhu Pets™ website, Walmart has been hoarding stock for the "official" release of the Toy Book on Sunday. It seems like distribution plans are varying quite a bit, store to store. I have heard some stores will be putting them out at 12:01 am... others at 8 am. Some stores it will be a "free for all", and others will have a limit of 1 or 2 at the Customer Service area. I even heard some stores may be passing out tickets.

Incidentally Walmart (and other retailers) are being swamped with telephone calls re: Zhu Zhu Pets™. Some customer service people are getting rude or just not giving out accurate &/or true information. At this point, I think your best bet is to go into Walmart and try to find someone who actually works in the toy dept. They will probably know more than anyone at customer service. Ask how much stock they have on hand, limits, and what time they will be putting them out.

I checked with my own Walmart toy person, and she says they have only received 20 hamsters in the last 4 weeks. Eight of them were accidentally put on the shelf, so as of 2 days ago, they were only going to have 12 hamsters to put out.

NOTE: There will be NO NEW RELEASE HAMSTERS sold. Several people have emailed Cepia about this, and their responses mesh with what Cepia has already told me in the past: new hamsters will not be shipping until closer to the beginning of December.

I don't know what kind of turnout my Walmart will have, considering we are a fairly small city. I haven't decided 100% yet if I am going to go document this event or sleep in! LOL If I thought there was a chance of new hamsters, I would be there in an instant.

In addition, Toys R Us is supposed to have a supply of hamsters first thing Sunday morning, supposedly to coincide with an ad or sale. Many people have said they are planning to camp at Walmart, then hit TRU when it opens!! I wish them all luck!!!


(If any of you are going to do the Walmart &/or TRU thing....and wouldn't mind snapping a few photos .... I would love to document this event here on the blog! Of course, I wouldn't expect it during a mad rush, but a few pics of the line, the display, customer service counter, parking lots, or whatever would be awesome! I think it would be neat to see how this plays out around the country☺ Email me: gumby8@hotmail.com )

*UPDATE* MomTV Zhu Zhu Giveaway: Tomorrow night!

***UPDATE: The Party starts at 1 pm EST!!***

Good Morning, Zhu Zhu-land!

Yesterday, if you noticed, I had a fantastic post from MomTV. Tomorrow night, they will be doing a Zhu Zhu Pets™ giveaway!!

"Just in: This Friday 11/6/2009 watch the live webcast with The Toy Guy and Time to Play's Jim Silver - toy industry experts chatting about the hot toys and doing a MomTV Giveaway http://www.blogger.com/www.momtv.com/TimeToPlay.html of a ZhuZhu Pet LIVE!"

Coincidentally, I just caught the tail-end of a MomTV webcast a few nights ago. You watch the webcast and chat amongst yourselves/ask questions in a connected chatroom. And of course, you can win prizes!

I would recommend everyone go and get signed up with a MomTV user name immediately. There is a verification email and a bit of setup to do to complete the process.

Hopefully many of you will be able to cut down your Christmas lists, with this and the upcoming Twitter giveaway, as well as the big Walmart blitz on Sunday!!

Official Zhu Zhu Pets™ Giveaway on Twitter

Good Morning-ish!

Yesterday was a VERY busy day in Zhu Zhu world, with the statement made by Cepia and the release of Walmart's Toy Book. Definitely a lot of buzz on the boards! People are frantically calling their Walmarts, trying to get the local scoop on this Sunday's event. I will post some of the responses as they come in ☺

Did anyone notice the new tracker on the Official Zhu Zhu Pets™ page? On this coming Monday, 11/9 at 7 pm EST, there will be a giveaway on renowned mom-blogger, Maria Bailey's, Twitter page! You can attend by following @momtalkradio on Twitter and joining in the convo! I have been told there will be (at least) 25 hamsters given away, as well as some funhouses! Sounds like a lot of fun☺

Update: Front Cover of Walmart Toy Guide 11/8

Thanks goes to Brad at GottaDeal.com for this image. I flipped through the pdf file several times, bummed that I couldn't find Zhu Zhu Pets™... but there they are (or at least, Mr Squiggles), right on the front cover! Don't miss the fine print ☺

Official Alert from Cepia! Walmart saving stock for 11/8 sale!!

Eeeek!

Check out this update from the Official Zhu Zhu Pets Website !!!!!

"We have received quite a few emails and phone calls regarding a situation occurring at many Wal Mart stores.
Many of you are letting us know that Wal Mart is refusing to sell Zhu Zhu Pets™ due to a "product recall". This is not true, the product has not been recalled.

Wal Mart has labeled their goods as "protected". This is so they can have an entire week to "build up stock" for an upcoming sale. We apologize for this inconvenience.

We understand your concern. There is no recall for Zhu Zhu Pets™. Product will again be for sale at Wal Mart on 11/8/2009. Zhu Zhu Pets™ meets and exceeds all ASTM safety standards. "

Where will you be Sunday morning???

(If anyone can take photos of any crowds, the displays, etc. I would love to post them right here!)

TRU Faux Pas...and In Stock at Amazon!

Good evening, Zhu Zhu fiends!

Did anyone notice anything odd on TRU.com over the weekend? On Saturday morning, a TRU search on "zhu zhu" yielded zero results! We were wondering if maybe they were doing some site revamping, in preparation for the "Big Book" sale prices that were slated to start on Sunday. Well, when Sunday rolled around, the Zhu Zhu Pets stuff was back. AND, to boot, it said underneath the price, in pink letters, "ONLY $4.99 with any $50 Toysrus purchase!". My friend Lori saved a couple of screen-shots for proof:

Though, it was a short-lived promotion. Probably an error, I am supposing, because the wording has been replaced with "Exclusive Animal Alley [plush toy] ONLY $4.99 with purchase!" None of the Zhu Zhu items were in stock at the time anyway, so it didn't end up mattering. LOL

☺☺☺

Today, Amazon had Zhu Zhu items in stock... at RETAIL... for the first time that I have ever seen! NO TAX, FREE SHIPPING!! According to a Zoolert administrator, this is what/when items were listed on Amazon today, and how long they lasted:

Amazon Zhu Zhu Pets - Three Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters -- $31.99 11-02-09 16:01 instock and last for 1 minute
Amazon Zhu Zhu Pets - Three Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters -- $31.99 11-02-09 15:39 instock and last for 19 minutes
Amazon Zhu Zhu Pets - Three Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters -- $31.99 11-02-09 15:34 instock and last for 1 minute

Amazon Zhu Zhu Pets - Funhouse Set with [Patches] Hamster -- $34.99 11-02-09 15:43 instock and last for 1 hour 29 minutes

Someone on the Zoolert forum confirmed that when they first noticed the funhouse/Patches set in stock, it said there were 900 available!! With a strict limit of 2, hopefully the wealth was spread out a little.

Please note: This was the more recently released Funhouse set with Patches, as opposed to the Patches starter set.

Who's got Nugget?

Hello, Zhu Zhu Friends!

There is definitely some weird stuff going on out there in cyber-Zhu Zhu-land! Individuals are posting false reports of finding the 4 new hamsters....some going so far as to front as Cepia employees. So bizarre. I don't understand the satisfaction someone would get by doing this. Just don't believe everything you read!

I have been keeping tabs on the online auctions, just in case any newbie would happen slip into the system soon. There was a 1-day listing for Nugget on eBay, in hand. The photo looks like Pip Squeak, don't you think?

I sent the seller a question, asking what the back "tattoo" was. She assured me that it was not the shooting star of Pip Squeak, and though she did not have immediate access to the hamster (?), she thought it was a half-moon shaped "tattoo". (Which, by the way, is NOT Nugget's tattoo shape). It sold for $15.50, and I will be curious to see if the buyer leaves favorable feedback.

This photo of Nugget that was posted on TRU.com a while back makes him look more of an orangeish-yellow color. The bad thing is, of the 4 new hamsters that will be released soon, Nugget will be the hardest to verify. Different camera, lighting, etc. will affect the way the color shows up, obviously. Credible evidence, in my opinion, will be a back shot of the "tattoo"...and it better be something other than a shooting-star!

Here is some interesting info from a poster on the Gottadeal.com forum. I hope she is able to find one of these again, but it is fun to speculate in the meantime!

"I was at TRUS yesterday in Newington CT...They had several hamsters there...they DID have a yellow one...it definitely wasn't the butter yellow one (that's what I'd call Pipsqueak) I had bought several weeks ago...this one was definitely more yellow...brighter. I did look for the name on the box and it didn't have one, as I thought it was a strange color. I didn't think to check on its back, however to see what the tattoo was...maybe it WAS Nugget...I chose not to buy it...thought DH would call me crazy as I already have the 4 original colors... "

And her response to my photo of the alleged Nugget eBay auction:

"LuvMaerz...that picture that you just put in your previous post doesn't look like the one I saw...that looks more like Pipsqueak...But like you said, it could be the angle of the photo. I could just kick myself for not getting it yesterday...the yellow of the one I saw was definitely a BRIGHT yellow, with an orangish undertone..not a flourescent yellow, like a highlighter, but YELLOW. I told my husband about it tonight and he said to go tomorrow to get it...what he fails to understand is that it WON'T be there tomorrow!!! Anyway, sorry I couldn't be of more help but maybe I will shoot up there in the HOPES they will have it. The kicker was that it was about 11:30 am and the shelves were full of about 8 whites and 15 of these yellow ones...and about 5 funhouses...now if I could only find the SLIDE I'd be all set... "

I hope she is able to get back and find one, just to satisfy the curiosity of many of us on that board, if nothing else! The thrill of the chase is most of the fun, isn't it? ☺