Stocks of LIghts

A

aususer

New member
Hey everyone...

Just thought I woudl start a thread to see if anyone else had noticed the slim pickings of lights 2 weeks out from Christmas..
I've been keeping my eyes open for bargains so looking at what is around daily and found something interesting....

as of an hour ago:
K-Mart (fountain gate) has NO A/C(wallwart) lights left on the shelves (plenty of incand. and solar based). I noticed this Friday... but thought they were just cleaning the shelves... but today they had filled the empty shelves with junky-trinkets!!! The stock-fillers I spoke to said they were not aware of any extras in "out the back" :shock:

Big-W has plenty of incan. "formed" lights (stars, etc) - a LOT of blue extensions - and very little else in quantity...

Bunnings (Ferntree Gully) had NO lights as of Monday arvo..

I am wondering if anyone else is seeing this - or is there a DIYC'r running around buying all the lights at hugly expensive/inflated prices...?!?!?!

The "crazy-mums-with-prams-yelling-get-out-of-my-way" were going nuts buying everything that had "LED" written on it... so I am wondering if this is a clever marketing ploy (and a very effective one at that) or is there REALLY a shortage of lights in the stores I'm looking at...

What are you seeing?
Mike
melbourne.
 
Bunnings here had nothing but half opened boxes of lights last weekend. I noticed Kmart was starting to get bare shelves about a week ago too.

Strange how in recent years all the retailers have started to get "smart" and seem to be ordering just the right amount or under ordering so they don't have to sell the lights off at cheap prices after christmas. I haven't been able to get cheap after christmas lights for 2 years now because places are sold out before christmas.
 
All our local stores (the many Home Depots & Lowes) have been running out within the last couple weeks. They are nearly out of anything christmas.. fake trees, yard ornaments, lights, EVERYTHING! We never find ANYTHING after christmas around here.. This year, theyll be out long before christmas.. Good for them I guess..
 
Its the same in the West...

Big W....not much left

Bunnings....only a 1/4 of the display stock from begining of December

Not sure about Kmart....but it looks like the trend across Aust


Dave
 
I feel like the inventory starting levels some of the stores in my area crazy low. Last year I went and started to buy a certain design of pathway lights from Loews Hardware. I bought out every box of pathway lights that was remaining from both of the stores in my area before Thanksgiving.

This year both stores got the exact same number of lights as last year-5 boxes of three. I bought all of them (except the displays) the day they went on sale.

I asked the manager why they were not stocking more. If you can sell out your entire inventory in one day, just maybe you should stock and sell a few more boxes!
 
Thanks for confirming my suspicions..
My guess is that the only places that will have stock are those that charge those stoopid prices from the start... and there are a LOT of those I've seen..
Interesting to see that a lot of the lights in the "2 dollar shops" are starting to look quitre decent... I noted one in Knox that was really expensive - but you get the right person (ie. manager) you can get a really good deal for cash..
keep that in mind if you are desperate!
I'll check out the "rejectshop" (et.al) and post up my findings inb case anyone is looking ;)

I'm looking forward to seeing what is happing in the post-chrissy sales and see what happens.. I know this similar thing happened last year... yet there was quite a lot in the post-chrissy sales... so heres "fingers crossed"!

Lovely to hear from you all.
hope your lights are behaving and no channels have died! (my first year attempt has been excellent.. 1 ren16 channel dead (suspect triac) and now I need more lights to make it "better".. I'd say "the blinky-flashy bugs' well and truely hit" ;) Nice to see that the neighnbours are now "stepping up" too (might be the reason why no lights!)
 
I was noticing the same thing here in the states - it sure seems like the stores didn't order as much, and consequently, there isn't much left. I bought some multicolor led icicles from the local Lowes, ended up buying too many, and took 8 sets back for refund. Went back the next day and went through the Christmas section, and they were gone. Went back this weekend, and most of the led's are gone, as are most of the mini incandescants. I guess the Great Recession, along with computerized sales tracking from last year, had the stores ordering less this year.

edit: Oops! Just noticed I was in the "Down Under" forum. Sorry bout that!
 
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Walmart 0 green mini, 20 white incan
drugstore 1, 1 box of everything, but no quantities
dollar store 1, 130+ boxes of white incan (I need 64), 50+ boxes of multi, on sale 2 for 5. I bought 20 of these black friday for $1 each, regular $3 (same lights as walmart, higher price)..

So... stop by each day? They donot know when they will go lower (won't tell anyway
 
I don't know about the shops... I'm buying my lights off TradeMe (being in NZ... other countries I guess use eBay).

Prices are cheaper than the shops, even including shipping (so long as you don't bid crazily). Quality seems to be worse than the shops, (really bad Chinese power plug adapters, short distance from plug to controller to first LED). But I cut the plugs and controllers off and run the lights from my Renard board, so that's not a problem.

And prices have definitely FALLEN over the last couple of weeks!
 
I stopped by lowes a few days ago, saw generally the same thing, and have been to depressed to enter any other store.
 
Noticed the the same thing with bunnings, 0 stock of anything usefull by the 2nd weekend of December. BigW apparently has run out of all LED lights.

This time last year BigW still had quite a few bits and pieces, managed to get 8 blue and 1 red, white, green.

I reckon they deliberately under ordered stock. Or a combo of that and people jumping at "power saving LED Technology"
 
I've noticed that some of the suppliers still have stock of those 100-led Solar versions (which I have seen work pretty good - just much more expensive for some reason. I'm not quite desperate enough to just cut the solar/battery off)
(I'd been aiming that direction as my orginal lighting goal anyway!)

Maybe its a "green push" (less A/C - more solar) or maybe they get a better buy-break to stock the solar?! who knows..
nice to know that I stand not alone!

I forsee a new project coming up:
Solar-Powered/low-voltage-draw/dimmable/DC/Wireless/SSR ==== "wSSRoz" ? :D
Sounds right up wJohn's expertiese!

wjohn, wjohn - whereforartthou Wjohn!!
 
It's abit of a hit and miss with those solar lights. My mother buys alot of them to light her large garden and alot of them fail after a month or two. Maybe its because they sits outside in the weather (though designed to) all the time. The LED's rust or somehow water gets inside and corrodes the PCB. Or the batteries die. Or just crap build quality.

But it would defiantly make your display "low power and efficient"
 
aususer said:
Hey everyone...

Just thought I woudl start a thread to see if anyone else had noticed the slim pickings of lights 2 weeks out from Christmas.. .
Click to expand...

Yep, I noticed the same thing up in Brisbane, particually with the BigW stock; although kmart wasn't much better. Local bunnings did run out too, but they have appeared to have restocked a little.
 
So I went out to check all the displays entered into our local Christmas Lights comp (also wanted to see what competition I was up against). New Entry's are appalling, All 3 of the "big" displays weren't running by the time I got to them -> lighting and thunder put them off..

Sort of wondering where the hell all the lights went lol.
 
lol, same here as well
there are 2 "light shows" that everyone is talking about around here.

went to see them both last night.
OMG. can you believe that?

plug n play like from LOWES or something.
no dimming, no programming, just basically a color engine (it pulses through the channels to the beat of the music)
it was pitiful
they were both like that.

one had more lights than i did, but you could tell there was no "originality" to their show.
huge disappointments
 
good ole BIG W here in the highlands has heaps, now with 30% off they have Blue and Blue and Blue and blue and a multi coulered and Blue and Blue No greens or reds JUST LOTS OF BLUE, nuf said Merry christmas to you all mumble mumble #### blue :mad::mad:
 
polar bear said:
good ole BIG W here in the highlands has heaps, now with 30% off they have Blue and Blue and Blue and blue and a multi coulered and Blue and Blue No greens or reds JUST LOTS OF BLUE, nuf said Merry christmas to you all mumble mumble #### blue :mad::mad:
Click to expand...

Yep, lots of blue and multi here in Adelaide as well. And only the 200 packs with controller and transformer.
Did get 5 greens a couple cool whites and reds out of the 4 stores I went to.
 
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