Good Morning. Black Friday is finally upon us!

Leading off is the mother-of-all retailers – Wal-Mart. Below you will find a link to their Black Friday sales page which will list all discounted items for today. Here are some sales we wanted to highlight:

Viore 42″ Plasma HDTV with Built-in Digital ATSC/NTSC Tuner $988.00	i-Dog Interactive Music Companion, White $10.00
1 Carat Diamond 14kt White Gold Basket Stud Earrings $573.00	“Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back” and Bonus Graphic Novel $9.72
RCA 5 GB LYRA Micro Jukebox Grey $88.72	Farberware 20 Piece Cookware Set $59.92
Kodak 6.1 MP Easyshare C633 Digital Camera and Printer Dock Bundle With Travel Bag $189.74	Venturer 6.2″ Portable DVD Player $49.87
Fisher-Price Power Wheels Dora Volkswagon Beetle Ride On $75.00	Superman Returns Superman Figure $15.00

Wal-Mart Black Friday Sales:  

• All Sales
• Toys
• Electronics
• Home
• Clothing
• Jewelry
• Music
• Movies

With Nintendo Wii mania in full force, we’ve looked around and we think that your best bet for finding one right now is at WalMart.com. While we’re not suggesting that you shouldn’t check other sources such as Amazon or Toys R’ Us, we’ve noticed that it’s reappeared at WalMart.com several times today.

Now, of course, there’s a catch. The product that’s available is a bundle of the Wii plus 8 games of your choice (includes Zelda, Cars, Madden, Need for Speed, Splinter Cell, and others) for $648.38. If you are interested, we recommend that you bookmark the link below.

Link:  Nintendo Wii Customer’s Choice Game Bundle on WalMart.com

Pundits may over-analyze this election week, but here is what we know:

• Elections are very serious, unless you’re enjoying election movies
• Politicians may talk about 1,000 points of light, but you can’t see them without a telescope (for 10% off)
• Voting may be free, but it can’t beat 97 cent shipping on top holiday toys
• We can make government a bit lighter if we bought each Member of Congress a limited edition aluminum chair
• It’s not a coincidence that we get a new iPod shuffle and a political shuffle in the same week.

Wal-Mart is very serious about selling toys this holiday season and to prove it they are offering 97 cent shipping on their top toys. With most of their products already discounted, this low-cost shipping helps ensure that they match or beat the price of their online competitors.

Link:  97 cent shipping on top toys at Walmart.com

You may have learned something (or nothing) from all those campaign ads on TV, but we learned quite a bit, like:

• Nintendo Wii fever is here so pre-order now.
• If iTunes offered free music and you didn’t know about it then is it really free?
• I have number one movie in all of US of A, now I put CD in cassette tape.
• You don’t have to scoop a robotic dog‘s poop.
• Holiday shopping season 2006 is on!

Interesting story in the Washington Post about a strategy shift at Wal-Mart. After slow October sales (0.5% increase) and expectation of flat November sales, the company is likely to return to basics by focusing on low prices rather than variety and what could be considered innovation.

At the root of this problem is a cultural issue. The company’s core customers remain middle to lower income households, many in rural parts of the country where the super-sized Wal-Mart has always been the low-cost catchall store. With high gas prices and flat wages, lower-income households have less to spend. The company didn’t help its cause by introducing trendier items, such as its Metro7 clothing line, which failed to catch on in 900 rural “heartland” stores. Wal-Mart‘s CFO said it best: “We’re continuing to work longer-term to improve the balance between fashion and core essentials in our stores.”

So what does that mean for shoppers? Expect major discounts on brand name products in the upcoming weeks leading up to “Black Friday”. The article sites examples of price slashes such as “Dora the Explorer Talking Kitchen” being reduced from $89.94 to $65 and a “Fisher-Price Power Wheels Cadillac Escalade Ride-On Truck” dropping from $279.37 to $249. Finally, Wal-Mart is back to emphasizing its Rollback which have long been a symbol of discounted merchandise.

Links:  

• Walmart.com
• Rollback Specials at Walmart.com
• “Goodbye, Skinny Jeans; Hello, Holiday Discounts” (Washington Post)

Here we go!

As the calendar moves from October to November, Walmart is expected to begin accepting pre-orders of Nintendo Wii (according to information provided to us by Walmart). Once released (scheduled for 11/19/06), the Wii will be one of the most desirable holiday gifts and will serve as a great alternative to the more expensive PS3 and XBox game consoles.

Update: Nothing up as of Midnight (EST); We’ll keep monitoring

Update 2: It’s there. $533 for console, controllers, and 4 games for delivery on or after 11/20.

Update 3: Sold out

Update 4: Keep checking because they reopened pre-orders several times during the day

Well, enough of the talk, here are the links:

Links:  

• Preorder Nintendo Wii at Walmart.com
• Nintendo Wii Games at Walmart.com

Another busy week at Shopperism is in the books and once again we’ve learned much. Our conclusions so far:

• The only think better than reading a book is buying that book with a coupon
• We can always rely on Dell to send us great coupons.
• Printing photos is fun. Printing Photos with a coupon is funner.
• Everyone is still loco for Elmo.
• A violent movie also makes for a violent video game.
• You can never have enough shoes… or coupons for shoes.

WalMart has TMX Elmo Hispanic Version in stock right now. It’s been in stock for several hours and we’re not sure when they’ll run out so you may want to jump at this opportunity.

Links:  

• TMX Elmo Hispanic Version at WalMart
• TMX Elmo at WalMart
• TMX Elmo and Barbie at WalMart

Links:  TMX Elmo on WalMart.com In Stock (2:50 PM Eastern)

They may have more soon, here is the link (you should bookmark it): https://shopperism.com/walmart/tmxelmo

Update: Sold out in 6 minutes.