Archived How was your stores Fallout 4 launch?

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It wasn't a disaster but definitely could have gone better. Apparently we only got a case of the soda (of which most went to online orders, a thing guests who came into the store did not know they could do) and the hats? Came in yesterday, receiver acknowledged them and everything, somebody in electronics took it from there. Today nobody had any idea where they had disappeared to.

Also the store didn't really do much of a job communicating that a big vidya event was happening. We didn't have much of a crowd but the first guest who asked me about Fallout 4 merch got a blank, blank stare from me. Didn't help that he was wearing a security uniform like the guys in the armored truck so I thought he was speaking in some bizarre code at first.
We cancelled online orders for them. One guest tried to order 10 of 12 bottles we got.
 
Our store is lower volume but we had at least 20 people lined up at the door before we opened..most of them didnt evenbuy the game...moved the game and other merchandise to guest service and split everyone into 2 lines

Had one FA order..another on hold from a guest that called me the day before, and 10 after that..my STL led one person buy 4 for some reason...not sure what happened outside that but people were pissed haha

I like fallout as much as the next person but seriously..who cares...should of been a tie in with buying the game and not sold seperatly if they were only going to send us 12
 
I am *TICKED* about how poorly this was handled company-wide. This is an epic PR nightmare that was not at all handled in an intelligent way, mostly with how dreadful the communication is. There may have been individual stores that knew what they had and handled it smartly, but I've read several articles today about stores who didn't even know what they had, and just let people walk out the store with both full cases in hand, as if it was just some other soda.

Whoever did the market research for this item needs to be drug out into the street and flogged with dirty dust mops until they repent. This product needed a pallet of cases to sell, not a single case or no cases at some stores. They should have observed how well Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas sold, and then asked fans how *important* Nuka Cola Quantums were -- the game itself has you looking for them, and just for 20 of them all over this vast post-nuke landscape, so you can darn well bet a real world version would be pretty valuable to fans, and there is a *HUGE* number of fans.

When I heard that we had actually had them, only just today for the first time, I got in line for one after those waiting at the door had filed in and got behind them, to be fair. I got one, but the greatness of it is now tainted with how p.i.t.i.f.u.l.l.y. the whole situation was managed as a company. This is the kind of item I would personally drive hours out of my city if I knew a place stocked them and could sell me one. Before I even know what price they were, I decided I would pay up to $60 for a single bottle, just to get one, but it turned out they were just $3, and I knew immediately someone upstairs had no idea what the ever-loving farkle they were doing. They could have sold all of them for $30 or more each and would still have sold out, but this was a colossal failure.

The fact that some stores let guests buy more than 1 per, has me S-T-E-A-M-I-N-G..

So it was handled like every other release then? Which is sad. And Spot wonders why people hate us. If employees bought it and are turning it on EBay then fire their asses. But Spot needs to get their act together and give clear instructions and have some teeth when stores fail to follow them. But this FB "We take your complaint seriously" Canned answer doesn't get it done.
 
I found the one case on Sunday. I made sure I knew where it was (I am pfresh) and I delivered all 12 to electronics. With no set instructions, they let one guest buy 8 of the 12.

Target is at fault for not limiting them to one per guest, no flexible fulfillment orders, no holding & only selling to people who waited in line.

You'd hope target, bethesda & jones soda fix this.

I had a chance to buy one on break today. I let someone else buy.
 
Honestly Target needs to get its act together with exclusive product launches. The entire situation with this, Amiibo, and Lily Pulitzer is ridiculous. I get that they don't care and just want the sale, but the amount of bad PR that gets around because of this kind of thing is damaging.
 
Did anybody check if there were any more on the way? We had 12 more on the way to my store
 
We had one TM buy one, got home and posted a picture on FB debating whether he should drink it or sell it on eBay.
 
Not gonna lie...had I not been tipped off yesterday by a guest on the phone asking about the Colas, today might have been a catastophe. I didn't even realize this stuff was gonna be a big deal until then, so I scrambled to prepare for this lol.
Thank you, random concerned gamer on the phone. You saved many Target Fallout fans a terribly upsetting morning lol. Our release went pretty great :D
 
I clocked in early since I was opening electronics and already knew how to handle it. We had 11(someone broke one) and a guest tried to do a flex order for 8 so we canceled it as soon as we opened. We sold out within 3-5mins of opening. I got one only because my friend stood outside for me to get me one since I love Fallout and never plan on selling it. We limited it 1 per guest.
 
People that have family playing the Fallout games, would be looking for the Nuka Cola because that would be the greatest stocking stuffer!
 
We received 12 more today. Sold out in 10 minutes, each one to a different person. One lady is super pissed, because she doesn't believe they sold that quick. She swears the team members are hoarding them for themselves. I think she's still on the phone with our STL lol.
 
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We got 2 cases. 2 went to a flexible fulfillment. Lol. And the others were given out 2 to each guest. We were still sold out before 9am. Now they're on eBay 100 dollars a bottle.
 
Around 530am, I jokingly said to the TM who was setting the Plano to make sure Fallout 4 is set and ready before the store opens because I wanted one (and Black Ops 3 and Need for Speed). Currently overnight so we get off at 8am. I then remember seeing the soda on the ad so I asked him about the DPCI to check the inventory. 12 bottles on hand. Yea, I told him we need to let LOD know to limit it to one per guest to avoid problems. An hour later, I saw our Plano TL pulling it for the batch. Told her about the situation and she went to LOD, who agreed. Minutes later, there's a SPU for 6 bottles. We have to cancel that order.

8am came, grabbed my preorder card in my car and went back in to get my games and a bottle to add it to my collection. Yup, only 5 bottles left and that's only within 10 minutes from opening. I didn't realized there was a line of 7 people outside. Well got my games and a bottle.

Everything's ready by the time the store opened except for the beanies, which we can't find. When I came last night, I was surprised the beanies (which they found when I left) and hats are still on the endcap. Bought one of each after work and when the store opened this morning.
 
Oh, the one I bought from my store was fucked up so I tried going to another Target store (which was along the way when getting home). Well they put the bottles in the location and didnt set a limit to the guests so they were gone quick. Tried a store pick up for two bottles at another store. Surprisingly It went through, even though I put the order in around 840am

Drank the messed up one, of course keeping the empty bottle because it got that post apocalyptic look . Keeping the other two unopened bottles for my collection
 
Guy came in today asking for the soda. I'm pretty sure he thought the launch was today.
 
We received one case of the Nuka Cola and a ton of games. Someone let a flexible go through for all but one Cola before the store even opened.... There was a line of at least 20 people outside when we opened, needless to say it went horrible and led to cursing at the ETL and being called trash. I really hoped they would have said something to the TM who let the flexible go through but I doubt it. It was funny, our LOD said there was a line outside probably for a cartwheel deal or something and I just laughed to myself knowing it was Fallout. No one seemed to know how popular of a game it was going to be.
 
We received one case of the Nuka Cola and a ton of games. Someone let a flexible go through for all but one Cola before the store even opened.... There was a line of at least 20 people outside when we opened, needless to say it went horrible and led to cursing at the ETL and being called trash. I really hoped they would have said something to the TM who let the flexible go through but I doubt it. It was funny, our LOD said there was a line outside probably for a cartwheel deal or something and I just laughed to myself knowing it was Fallout. No one seemed to know how popular of a game it was going to be.
Did you say anything? Could have avoided most of the damage if you told it was for Fallout and not cartwheel. Could have canceled the FF
 
I guess the pop (none of that soda nonsense in my neck of the woods) was a much bigger deal at my store than the game itself. I backstocked a shit ton of copies of the game.

But I was off yesterday, so what do I know?
 
Our soda came in and half the bottles were destroyed. The other half were covered in broken glass fragments. I think the entire thing was defected.
 
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