We shop at Target far too often. It’s a good store, with decent prices, and sells things that both I and KLS are interested in. We’ve become very aware of the end-cap sale items as well, after making off with a few steals over the years.
When Target marks things down, sometimes they really mark things down!
For instance, this Lego set came out just before Christmas:
Now, since I’m no fan of Batman I had little interest in the kit, aside from the fact it seemed quite interesting on a technical level (it’s a sortof half Technic, half standard hybrid). But at $70, I simply glanced at it on the shelf and walked right past.
Cut to just after Christmas, when both Target and Toys’R’Us marked it down to $50. I gave it two or three glances at this point (since I’d then rediscovered how much fun Lego was, and since this was a big kit with over 1000 pieces) but again, put it back and walked on by.
Yesterday I found the last one they had at our local Target. It was still marked at $50, but it was on a hidden endcap marked with a “50% or more off marked prices” tag. I eagerly scanned the kit and almost fell over with glee when $17.24 showed up.
So now I have a lego Batmobile, and I got it for over 75% off – a ppb (price-per-brick) of an amazing $0.016!
Grand as this find was, it can’t even compare to my best ever (and likely to never be repeated) Target sale find. Coincidentally it was a Lego item as well…
Rewind back to 2000, when Lego released this kit as part of the short-lived Star Wars Technic line:
I remember I liked it when I first saw it, but had zero interest in Lego (or Star Wars collecting at that point, since I’d not too long earlier abandoned figure collecting). However, at some point that year I found the kit on a Target endcap in a large pile of markdowned merchandise. It had no price tag, and scanning it at the local scanner revealed it was not in the inventory (no price showed).
So I picked it up and carried it around for a bit, perhaps because I hoped no price meant a low price. But even I was unprepared when I brought it to the electronics counter and asked the guy to price check it. He scanned it, typed a few things on his screen, um’d and aah’d a little bit and told me it was $4.84!
I can still remember – and KLS can back me up here – my urgent “I’ll take it!” and paying for it then and there just knowing he must have made some mistake (the kit retailed for $60).
I still have that droid made up downstairs. I recall it was a very challenging build since the mechanism is under a lot of tension. Amazingly, it can even transform into the wheel shape the droids use to move! For many years, it was my only Lego kit.