I sucessfully got it for Free at Big W this morning. $0.01 and pay in cash.
Going to give to charity ;)
You can instead grab 102 cars for $1.02.
Pay in cash and you'll be up for $1 - two cars free.
or 50 separate transactions, Free!
You have levelled up to Ozbargainer Level 99
Level cap reached.
Don't forget cashrewards via bigw ebay for extra 2%! Freebies + extra money to your account!
Buy 7 and only pay for 5.
Donate all to kiddies with families who aren't able to afford toys.
Would be better if BIG W just donates all these to the kids, they would even get a tax write-off.
Too much effort for them. Cheaper to just give them away for 1 cent (as they are now) and they will probably get more business even though it's a loss leader.
Imagine all the cheap ass OzBargainers that will flock to their nearest Big W store for a 'free' matchbox car and they'll probably buy other crap with a markup for 200% while they're there.
likely a mistake.
The idea of a loss leader in this day and age is a myth / rarely used tactic more found in restaurants than retail.
Having once worked for Big W can assure you most of the name brand goods do not carry a 200% markup, closer to 5-10%, its unnamed goods that often carry a markup.
But also Big W on store level has donated toys clearance toys, as the time to sell isn't worth the time taken to get off a pallet, mark down in the system, price and display and sell at checkout. But more big business could make a larger group effort.
Local Big W donated stuffed /broken bikes to charity. Tight asses, cheaper than dumping them.
I've had a few scotches today so TLDNR - Woolies are evil. if you want evidence read below, charity with them is never charity lol.
I've worked for both coles (first choice liquor, liquorland) in management and put in many years are woolies (everything up to division management and loss prevention) and I can wholeheartedly say woolworths are evil lol.
Things aren't marked up much and as i've mentioned a lot on ozbargain before, just about every area i've worked in for every company i've worked for, they love the idea of customers thinking loss leaders are used, but the only place i've ever seen them in retail were pretty much giveaways for publicity / making up for sales in other areas, and each time there was always a massive catch and a loss reduction strategy.
The old idea and this one persists with stores like target doing midnight launches for games, in peoples mind is always that, the video game at the back that they are doing for $69 when eb games is doing it for $88 means target have more buying power than eb games and are making atleast a $10-15 loss as you are gonna buy other things while in there….. it's just not true.
When eb games give you the excuse they can't match target or big w when they do the game much cheaper than them and they claim its either clearance or that it's below cost price, everyone up to the store manager never sees how much the games actually cost, most of the time even up to the store manager especially if they are a proxy store still see the "cost price" as GM+.
One of the best ways i've seen this explained was when working nightfill at woolies at a starting position after army, I remember asking my boss, as we had a program where we donated food to the local highschool for a cooking program, when the lists came in, we were stuck with them while handling nightfill.
All requested food was to be woolworths homebrand, anytime something could not be filled by it we were to check with a department head which item options we had to claim rebates and credits on.
I found it odd that we were donating items, yet cared about sending them the good stuff, under no circumstances were we to send out woolworths select, and when doing charity drives, we ONLY used woolworths select or specific brands.
Turned out that woolworths corporate didn't have a charitable bone in it's entire entity, all of the donations to the schools were just to get thank you plaques to put on the community wall at the cheapest price possible to "buy goodwill" as I found out when getting into management, all of the homebrand gear cost woolies next to nothing as they'd bully the crap out of suppliers, and a lot of the time it was even well known brands and good companies that have disappeared of the shelves over the years only to have to fight for the right to make homebrand products at less profit.
Each time they'd donate the stuff, woolies would write off the items from an account, and many companies had conditions written into their homebrand agreement for "samples" and "test stock" and many times instead of doing the right thing paying a company for this stock and donating it, stores were told, oh you've donated tins of tuna and vegies to the highschool for cooking class, oh you've donated some budget brand steak to the school, oh you've given them kilo's of steggles chicken breast, write it off as sample or ask for a rebate as it ended up being used as promo.
I never touched fresh produce section but from what i've learned from the others, woolies literally treat aussie farmers like punching bags and then ask them why they are hitting themselves.
With toys and I would imagine Big W would be similar, each store was given a grade for the toys it got, if you were a big store with big aisles in a nice area, you'd be given a good grade and you'd get reasonable toys, so you'd get a crate or two of star wars figures, barbie etc and you'd never be able to do store specials on them, I believe due to agreements within the company and bigw, the supplier would dictate when new seasons were and decided it was bad "brand" to have certain toys on clearance.
When those decisions were made at store level, if high end toys werent moving in the time frame it was up to management to slash the price and get rid of them, last time I spoke to friends there as I was tryna get some TFA figures cheap I was told just wait a few weeks, theres now a new agreement that if things don't move in a time frame they now have a radial percent to get moved down, and if there are any boxes of them left, they are either moved through dump stock (sent to group buyers like a lot of bigw stock, which ends up in discount stores) or if theres few of each or the store really can't be bothered just heavily marked down.
In the old days, that stuff would either be marked down or donated, one of the things I used to like about my store as its next to where I grew up, they and the bigw upstairs from it used to hang on to all of the dead stock toys, at Xmas they used to get a trolley, fill it with all the deadstock toys, throw a few new ones on top for good measure and have some sort of promotion to raffle it off.
One year I remember hearing over the PA that you could win your family everything in the trolley (I was 10 sounded like the coolest thing on earth) for purchasing a charity raffle ticket, the last few times I saw the promotion being done it was to be wheeled off to one of the corporate listings pre-arroved good image groups (charities we're allowed to palm off gear to).
That was my first year in woolworths and I still remember being told we werent allowed to do it anymore as a new agreement had been formed with a stock loss reduction company who were going to sell it and all long life "dying stock" to third parties. Most of our food drives for community support ended there and then as well and we started doing "pre-approved" charity mugging as well, you would have noticed this starting in 2007/8 where every checkout suddenly had charity tins and a promotion tied to it at every checkout that would alternate it.
I think what gave me the worst opinion of woolies was, I got my job there fresh out of the army, I got rejected for the job (my store was sexist as hell). I went in with all the qualifications in the world, a note from the army which said i'd been kicked while healing up from injury and a pathway plan they wanted me to follow for when I was healed up.
Pretty much saying, keep working, keep studying. I figured showing this would help with recruitment into work as it would show initiative and that a reputable organization was interested in my development. Upon applying for a checkout position, I found out that woolworths had no interest in the army, cfs or ses, as I went in with 3 other males and 6 females for checkout positions, the 3 guys in there who had affiliations with the 3 organizations were told they werent suitable for the position due to "external commitments". I remember telling them I don't have any commitments with the army until my shoulder is fixed up…… the excuse then turned to my shoulder injury will stop me working checkout.
I then had a friend who already worked there tell me, they already had the quota for "boys" on the checkout (1), Talked to a friend from army and it turned out a guy he served with was the nightfill boss there, and within 30 minutes I had a call from him telling me to "ignore the online crap, it's just designed to keep store management from making a judgement call". Had an interview the next day.
He had a chat with me about my time in the army, judged I was gonna mess him around, that I could read, write and add numbers, then got me to lift a few boxes to see my shoulder wouldnt be an issue and then I had a job, in 3 months he wouldnt have a job and I had his a month later.
As you can see from woolworths character and how they handle charity and people just from mentioning those few things there they have little care for people. My nightfil boss had ptsd from vietnam and the job held him together for many years, they knew about it and the store manager then who was the most sexist woman I had ever met tolerated it and kept his job there. The second she left she was replaced with an even more sexist woman who the first time she saw him having flashbacks fired him citing safety reasons, and I only got promoted to take his job as many others working nightfil were taught like other woolies workers how to be drones.
The woolworths mentality has always been "teach them only what they need to know or they get ambitious". I got to work at other stores and became friends with the guy who ran my section so got the opportunity to train and learn things, many others didnt get that.
I've worked for woolies a few times since we still handle corporate contracts for them running loss prevention, and as much as the company has changed, they still have little regard for people, to highlight a final thing (sorry this has gone on a lot, woolies are just plain evil). We got hired for some events for them over xmas, anyone who's worked for woolies knows, that a lot of basic things you'd expect some decency on… just don't happen or are extremely poor, or if they do happen theres an ulterior motive.
A couple of stores has their xmas parties merged, this has happened, they normally get an xmas party at a place nowhere near the store and staff are expected to pay to go. Our company ran the security for it, one of the store managers helped put it together and I went to this event with 3 of my staff, we always helpout, upon arrival we've helped set up things with this one manager, 2 from the other stores have arrived and already started drinking the most expensive gear avaliable there and charging it to the staff bartab, one of the things this nice manager had done was to collect donations as their store was not doing it for the local cfs, he'd bought a wheelbarrow himself and managed to fill it, and the idea tonight was to raffle off with tickets give a staff member a really happy xmas, give the cfs hopefully a few hundred bucks, this guy apparantly also worked on the xmas bike toy run too and had donated gear to that.
Found out from the two (profanity) managers that his days were numbered as too many people under him wanted his job, and if he concentrated more on playing coprorate games instead of "being a nice guy" he might have made regional and was considered by them to be a dinosaur.
By the time the party started these two had already drank about $200 out of the staff bartab, and had the audacity to tell the staff on arrival to go "easy on the bartab and not be greedy about it".
One of the guys from corporate (they rarely come to these) ended up coming and won the wheelbarrow. Expected him to either ask the store manager who storted it what charity he likes and donate it to them, or crack it open and spread the love, instead he loaded it into his car and took it home with him.
Visited that guys store (it's next to another venue we provide security for) a month later, found out that store manager got fired a couple of days after it, was told he'd be moved to a rural store (they do this to get rid of you), he refused so they told him his position had be reclassified and he was now an SSM (store services manager), a week later they tell him no positions for that in the area anymore unless he wants to move to mt gambier. (way far from where he was).
They can be pretty heartless.
@hardya: Why dump, parts salvaged to build/fix a complete bicycle, many charities take damaged bicycles for parts
@typhoonadventure: Great post, very informative. I think anyone with half a brain knew these corporates couldn't give a dam about charity, it's all about keeping up appearances. But isnt that just reflecting a great deal of society as a whole i cant help but wonder :D
@cryptos: Mentality of a lot of people and groups are
Rabble rabble rabble, people getting stuff for nothing.
Many people who i've met in these sectors, there are some great compassionate people, and there are many who still think wages are too high, why give to charity if you can't get some PR out of it, and many of them even think charities even make things worse as you are rewarding the poor for being lazy and the sick for not being healthy enough.
It's sad as anything, we did security for a famous food blogger here, can't mention names but lets say this person may have made claims about how people should be removed from medicare for getting cancer if they cause it.
Many charities and business just put a lot of that stuff into the too hard basket now, and unless you get hobby charities, many people and businesses have come up with ways to make money off things that before were charity focused ways to make money.
There are many initiatives that got started as he we can used wasted resources here to help a charity, and all it takes now is a hipster going to the company with a plan to somehow sell the gear and the company gets a cut, and that way erodes.
Woolies again for another example used to allow the scouts to leave collection bins at each of its hotels, tell the staff to put all deposit containers in there, boom scouts have just collected $200 in bottles a week with many charities all over the place offering the same as they have for over a decade.
I'm not gonna name the guy because I think he's a jerk and I don't want him getting free advertising, buys a ute, he's started up a business where he gets a contract with each hotel and other business, he sells them (not using his productname) a hipster version of a skip, for $100 a month (his company pays them) he 'lets" them fill it with bottles and cans and then "conveniently" and "environmentally consciously" removes it once a week.
By that it means he drives it to the bottle depot and makes $150-250. He claims its not a scam as he "incurs" a loss if the venue doesnt output enough bottles and cans…. but he's done his research.
There also used to be a charity as well in Adelaide where they would pickup your old "bomb" where for $50, they'd come out and remove your unwanted car, it was a win for everyone, you'd atleast cover their fuel for a volunteer to come out, if the car was any good they'd sell it and make the charity some money, sell it to a wrecker and make some money or a scrap dealer and make some money.
Now that every wrecking business, man and their dog on gumtree will remove a car for free, it's completely killed it.
Pretty much spot on, there always is the catch from up above of be sure to get a thank you from charities which feels cheap and nasty.
@typhoonadventure: I work for a company who supply woolworths and i can say they are picks to deal with. Its true about the rebates the supplies have to give woolworths. Woolworths are Evil! They deleted Starburst loollies out of their stores and i can't work out why.
@TheStapler: will likely be due to one of the numerous abusive relationships setup.
It's not uncommon for them to approach suppliers and demand special privelidges so i'd imagine something would happen there that made things go sour, all puns intended.
One product that might explain it I had involvement with, not directly via woolworths, but this company supplied a range of softdrinks that didnt light the world on fire, but they did ok especially for an australian owned product, quality was pretty reasonable.
Next thing I know the product was dropped from eye height which means they refused to pay the "ransoms". (ransom, price to pay for prime locations, no matter how well you sell, unless you have brand power and good pr people to negotiate with them, you are fighting constantly to even stay on the shelf).
Co-incidently, the day they disappeared off the eye height on the shelf, we suddenly started stocking woolworths select varients of their exact same falvors. Price was a ton lower.
I suspected woolworths had done their usual thing, kick them out and replace them, I still saw their drinks at foodland (IGA outside SA). So I was like, well they will be ok, woolies wont sell too well especially as their new drinks clearly state made from imported concentrate, people wont by them, the brand will be back soon.
Was in the last years of my woolies service then and working in engineering weekdays, get a call one day from the company that owned this soft drinks firm, really great guys they have a plant in nsw and in victoria, asking me to sort out some suspension for their transport trucks.
I bring up to them that I miss one of their drinks as I can't even find it at foodland anymore, they tell me, oh woolies absolutely f***d us, I ask what happened and mention working there and the bottles moving shelf then disappearing in SA.
He tells me that a year ago, their woolies rep came in and told them they were launching more woolies home brands, and they wanted them to make two products for them, homebrand softdrinks, and select softdrinks.
They laughed and said whats the difference, the label?
Woolies told them to deliberately make inferior versions of the drink to sell as homebrand to drive people to select.
They didn't like the deal one bit, woolworths were offering them peanuts for the drinks contract and the company just said to them, look we wanna stay in our lane, our drinks are doing ok, we've got some new flavours we are working on, we're happy to keep supplying you.
Woolies then tells them, reconsider the deal, we have other people that want your shelf space.
Not too long after that, their shelf space moved and started reducing. Next thing they know they get dropped due to "low sales".
Time passes, the company is getting hammered by the sales drop, but they figure hey the new product they have is crap and they are struggling to sell it, we'll reoffer them our new range with the 2 new flavours things will go back to normal and improve.
He then tells me woolies then come back to them with a big shit eating grin, they tell them, they know how much being dropped has hurt the sales, they're now offering them the contract again, without the ability to sell the drink as their own.
Much worse deal but they figure, money is money, they dont wanna lay people off, so they agree to make the two woolworths brands.
After the product gets sent to woolworths quality testing (BS focus groups) their rep comes back and tells them, ok we need you to alter the recipes, the homebrand drink needs to change.
They ask why, they get told, well people expect the cheap brands to be cheap and nasty, just add more sweetener and bright food coloring. They were dead against it. Then comes the kicker.
They tell them their select variant is "too good". They ask for clarification and get told reps from their major partner (code for Coca Cola) had been sent samples, and deemed their product a threat to their "brands" and demanded the quality be lowered so it was less of a threat to their sales.
So yeah woolies are dicks.
when i was nightfill at coles, they'd give a gift voucher out every 2 or 3 months to the "hardest" work, can't remember $50 or $100 value. There were 4 people "higher up" who voted for who was "worthy", 3 of these "higher ups" got the gift voucher and one of them got it twice, this was over 18 months.
One time (they said) the award was going to one of the hardest working & helpful members there, i nearly fell off my chair laughing, one of the laziest worker i have ever met. she would have relatives come in and they would go to the isle where the camera didn't work and would talk, some days 45 minutes or sometimes 2-3 hours, she was also on the panel voting for which team member was the hardest working.
This was my 2nd Job so it wasn't enough of an incentive to me but to the kids who were working there butts off, to see it just be given back and forth to team leaders and the like was pretty pathetic.
I also saw a 20yr old nightfill team leader call a 52yr old filler "a lazy bald old C@#$" after he walked in to a back room to see young team leader sitting on a pallet playing on the phone, Team leader tell older guy to do something(different team), old guy asks why he doesn't do it and that's the reply he got. Young guy goes on 3 days off from work with pay. Old guy quits on the spot. The next week management tells us old guy walked off the job because he just couldn't handle the work and wasn't very good at his job anyway and the young guy is back as though nothing happened. Don't miss that place
@typhoonadventure: Didn't quite make it to the end word for word (still skimmed the last 3rd, and noted that Woolies is evil), but +1 just for the effort put into the long post
@typhoonadventure: Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, sounds typical of large retail. Their number one responsibility is to their shareholders so the less they spend the better they 'perform'. The charity aspect is just a front.
It's a pity the governments of the world institute a mandatory rule for all large businesses to donate 5-10% of earnings or something like this.
@typhoonadventure:
Talking about drones… I see many more outside too. on another note even after all these years and being known they still throw away stuff that is perfectly fine for consumption. Coles is in there too.
How many families do you know who cannot afford a free toy? :)
I know millions cant afford but :( i cant help them.
and I bet you don't know them :(
they get the same tax write-off selling it for 1c.
Donate it and they can write off the cost. Sell it for 1c and they have a loss of cost of car less 1c. Basically the same deduction, only they have to do less work selling them (they're already on the shelf).
OzBargain deal of the year lol
I was told there are only 2 left in all of Australia. Did anyone else besides OP manage to get one?
There were alot ~ around 100 left at my local store.
Which store?
Where/how were they displayed?
Canberra Store. In a basket at toys basket. Also staff were giving them out at the front
Winston Hills Big W were handing out free cars in November and December. I remember a sales assist handing them out to a bunch of kids in front of me. When I walked past her she didn't give me one!
😋
@sillywalks: Yep this is true, my son got one, has since thrown it over our balcony into the garden, might grab another…
Love the edit, so much generosity
Gotta get that Popular Deal badge. ;)
Another Ford not made in Australia. I'm not giving a cent for that!
But you know it is quality if it comes from somewhere else!
We'd do well here too if head office wasn't so stingy with investment…
Q: Why is Pokemon Go a lifesaver?
A: Because it gives Ford owners something to do while they walk home.
That's a dumb joke… usually we get a ride with the tow truck driver.
Toyota tow truck?
@typhoonadventures: I always suspected woolies didnt't quite play by the rules. my experiences as a consumer and your post further confirms all that.
any store in WA having stock? checked local bigw - no luck :(
0.01 not a pricing error?
There is none in Big W Midland. Checked today [ 09/01/2017 ]
Price increased
Deal over
Saw lots of them today. But they were $2 :(
I'd buy 100 for a dollar!