Silliness at Lidl last week

[Pallet Fancier]

They were doing cordless SDS drills, cordless circular saws (not very good) and cordless hammer drills on Thursday. So I wandered along in the afternoon because I fancied a hammer drill (got batteries). And I was greeted with a scene of devastation! Well, empty shelves, to be specific. Empty shelves and Lidl staff trying to spread out the gardening stuff to fill the space formerly occupied by the tools. This surprised me. It doesn't usually sell out that fast. So I asked, just out of curiosity, and the fella I asked looked at me over his mask with eyes that said he had SEEN THINGS.

"We had a run on the store," he said. "Everything was gone in, like, minutes!"

Okay... so in the end I left with a pair of extendible loppers (really good, by the way. Good design) and a magnetic bowl, which I've already found useful. And bananas.

On my way home I detoured to check another Lidl store (they breed like rabbits around here) and, you know what? Same story, and the same staring eyeballs look in the face of the staff, who were engaged in the same effort to drag stuff out of the back to fill the empty shelves. I'm not kidding, the staff looked knackered and dazed. I had to ask the question twice and then define the meaning of "power drill" before one guy's brain seemed to warm up. Maybe they're working overtime?

Is this a new thing? Why is Parkside suddenly the hot new game in town? I thought loads of people enjoyed talking about how rubbish it is! Are there a load of wannabe ebay millionaires buying it all and flogging it on? I found a few of the drills on ebay, afterwards, usually for between £15 and £30 more than the store price. One guy was selling over ten of the hammer drills!

I'm hoping this was just Bank Holiday madness. I suppose there are ebay seller guide websites somewhere that say more DIY stuff is bought at Bank Holidays than any other time, so stock up! Except... um, lockdown? Everyone's had months of the past year at home, like one big Bank Holiday. Surely the same consumer patterns don't apply?

Either way, I'm hoping I don't now have to camp outside the shop in the early hours of the morning if I ever fancy a cheap drill, again!

 

[Rorschach]

People buy them to sell on eBay, it's become a nice little side business for some folks.

Clearly no-one around here does it though, we always have plenty of stock and it hangs around for weeks, often going to 30% of to shift the last bits.

 

[Spectric]

That could be very good news for the trade, more jobs coming up. All those people rushed out and brought tools for some DIY Job that will more than likely have gone wrong and the missus will get it sorted once he has gone back to work by getting a real trademan in, well hopefully and not some cowboy.

 

[Amateur]

They were doing cordless SDS drills, cordless circular saws (not very good) and cordless hammer drills on Thursday. So I wandered along in the afternoon because I fancied a hammer drill (got batteries). And I was greeted with a scene of devastation! Well, empty shelves, to be specific. Empty shelves and Lidl staff trying to spread out the gardening stuff to fill the space formerly occupied by the tools. This surprised me. It doesn't usually sell out that fast. So I asked, just out of curiosity, and the fella I asked looked at me over his mask with eyes that said he had SEEN THINGS.

"We had a run on the store," he said. "Everything was gone in, like, minutes!"

Okay... so in the end I left with a pair of extendible loppers (really good, by the way. Good design) and a magnetic bowl, which I've already found useful. And bananas.

On my way home I detoured to check another Lidl store (they breed like rabbits around here) and, you know what? Same story, and the same staring eyeballs look in the face of the staff, who were engaged in the same effort to drag stuff out of the back to fill the empty shelves. I'm not kidding, the staff looked knackered and dazed. I had to ask the question twice and then define the meaning of "power drill" before one guy's brain seemed to warm up. Maybe they're working overtime?

Is this a new thing? Why is Parkside suddenly the hot new game in town? I thought loads of people enjoyed talking about how rubbish it is! Are there a load of wannabe ebay millionaires buying it all and flogging it on? I found a few of the drills on ebay, afterwards, usually for between £15 and £30 more than the store price. One guy was selling over ten of the hammer drills!

I'm hoping this was just Bank Holiday madness. I suppose there are ebay seller guide websites somewhere that say more DIY stuff is bought at Bank Holidays than any other time, so stock up! Except... um, lockdown? Everyone's had months of the past year at home, like one big Bank Holiday. Surely the same consumer patterns don't apply?

Either way, I'm hoping I don't now have to camp outside the shop in the early hours of the morning if I ever fancy a cheap drill, again!

I think you went on the wrong week.
Too excited, you misread the date on the free magazine.

Good quality food has gone down the drain at Lidl and I expect tool quality will follow......Although it's cheap rubbish they sell now.

 

[Pallet Fancier]

I think you went on the wrong week.
Too excited, you misread the date on the free magazine.

Good quality food has gone down the drain at Lidl and I expect tool quality will follow......Although it's cheap rubbish they sell now.

Oh my god! You're right! Oh, jeez, I just laughed so hard I think a bit of pee came out.

Yes, I misread the dates. I just saw the part that read Thursday. Oh, b***** me. That's embarrassing.

Still begs the question, though, about what the staff members said. What was the run on the two stores all about? What was in last week? Can't remember.

 

[Amateur]

Oh my god! You're right! Oh, jeez, I just laughed so hard I think a bit of pee came out.

Yes, I misread the dates. I just saw the part that read Thursday. Oh, b***** me. That's embarrassing.

Still begs the question, though, about what the staff members said. What was the run on the two stores all about? What was in last week? Can't remember.

Lol..funny....
But easily done...sometimes they put different forward dates on..not just the following week.

 

[clogs]

just seen this question
I've been waiting over 3 years to blag one of their Cut 40 plasma cutters....
Wife has been alerting her freinds to look out for me.....
One turned up with new'un.....
All their stuch sell well here.....cheap when u consider the warranty as well....
there are no diy stores like B+Q etc.....
even the cheapest nastiest c@rp costs more than Parkside...
I wanted a new impact driver....
In the UK on offer it's just hundred pounds, in Germany over 200 and here in Crete it's 400 for the same thing....

 

[Droogs]

Should have said earlier @clogs they just returned half a doz from my local to the depot. Been sat there since they came out along side the inverter welder about 2 months ago. I got one then, would have got 2 and posted it to you if I'd known. Will keep an eye out for next time as they never sell out here. Everyone probably already has one

 

[D_W]

The flipping is a problem here with certain things, too. I haven't figured out if it's just a case of people being satisfied to make a tiny amount of money or if there's some bigger goal (running stock store out and having people find the same item for double on amazon?).

For some things, it's gainful - like when the junk is gotten from china or japan directly and sold for half or less of what it was previously - the seller in that case was just quadrupling or quintupling the price in the first place and offering no real value (e.g., atoma diamond plates were available last year for $55, probably still are, and chinese two sided good quallity diamond hones that are a match for other rebadges are $20. The former were often $110 or more, and the latter often sold for $60 or "on sale" for $50 from certain vendors (the actual per unit fob cost on alibaba is $6).

I guess what I'm getting at is ultimately I don't think most of these items are going to people who are keeping them - I think they're buying stuff that is intermittent and then sending it to amazon to fulfill orders so that one person can literally do the same thing with hundreds of different items. And once the goods get to amazon, their effort level is pretty low. the listings are (with some kind of automated tool?) then bounced to big generic selling accounts on ebay.

One of the more humorous listings that I saw was "buck brothers" plane irons, which feel like a relatively low carbon chrome vanadium (they don't get much harder when rehardened). They're punched out and for a #4 size iron were at one point $1.99 at home depot and then later marked $2.99 until home depot realized nobody in the general public is using #4s. Once they were no longer at home depot, someone had bought a glom of them and listed them for $15 on ebay and amazon. Which may snag someone looking at more expensive irons. The key in that case is that if someone searches quickly, there is no longer an active listing at home depot to say..."wait, $15 when they're 2.99 at home depot?"