Part Six
This is the last part of my Lululemon Warehouse Party Sale Vancouver 2013 review, final day discounts.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to go. I hadn’t found that many real bargains on the first day of the sale, Friday, January 18, 2013. I kept checking the facebook and twitter pages to see if there was any news of whether or not they would be open on Sunday. They kept saying the decision would be inventory dependent.
I knew for sure that I wouldn’t be going there for the 8AM open. The twitter page did say that they would be open today, Sunday, one last day. I decided that I couldn’t resist the possibility of further discounts. However, I didn’t expect there to be any new stock that I hadn’t seen on Friday.
When I got to BC Place around 9:30 AM, I saw people leaving already and they had bags with them. That was a good sign. On Friday, there were lots of people who left without any bag or carrying only a single bag. There were few with more than one bags.
There was no line up when I got inside. Even the bag check was empty. I had been reading on a past review of a US warehouse sale (Chicago maybe?) and was shocked to hear that they had security guards count the Lululemon pieces you arrived with so that they could compare how many pieces you left with. I’m so glad that security was not that extreme at this event!
Here was a sign from last night’s Goal Setting Seminar.
When I approached the sales floor, I saw several people getting free massages. I wish I would have had time for a massage on the way out, there wasn’t even a wait! This was put on by the West Coast College of Massage Therapy. I’ll definitely check them out!
This time, there was also a band playing as opposed to the DJ. That was nice.
I was surprised to see that there was still quite a bit of inventory considering that today was the last day. I guess they didn’t sell as much as they had expected to yesterday, Saturday.
Here is the color coded prices and the discounts sign. Again, I have to point out the totally confusing color coding pricing. I overheard customer asking a Lululemon staffer whether a price tag color was the $22 yellow or the $32 yellow and of course, he wasn’t sure. Same with the orange prices as well. Like seriously, didn’t anybody question this decision?!
There wasn’t as many discounts on the Ivivva prices which I thought was odd.
I have to admit that I was a little disappointed. Everything that I was interested in seemed to be the colors that were not discounted.
Those ugly ponchos or capes that they were trying to flog on Friday for $29 were only cut to $22. Needless to say, there were lots of them. There was one woman trying one on and quite frankly, it made her look like she was wearing a tent.
There was a whole box of black hair ties that were still $9. Seriously?! The caps and mitts were also at the same price as Friday, and had few takers. The swimming suits at $9 were still not really selling.
There were more men there today, I even ran into an old acquaintance. There was a special for men, any 4 pieces for $100. He bought 3 pairs of pants and a hoodie. That was a deal!
I bought a pair of running tights that had a pair of shorts over them, for $22. There were lots of those, all sizes. The Lululemon staffer was making a hard sell–telling people that if they didn’t like the tights attached, they could cut them off!
The special that they had for women was 4 pairs of shorts or skirts for $50. I asked if you had to buy 4 pairs or if you could just buy less than that and they said, you did have to buy 4 pairs.
At $12.50 each, I decided to buy 4, 2 skirts and 2 pairs of shorts. Here are two of them.
Here is a view of the women’s pants. I was surprised to see how many there were still hanging there. And yes, there seemed to be all sizes.
Here are some Ivivva jackets on the table. There still seemed to be at least half of what I saw on Friday afternoon.
Here are some more of those striped pants, $29 on Friday, $22 today. Not exactly flying off the racks today.
Here is a sign that says that there is a limit on the number of pieces one can buy. Hmmm. I did not see anybody with anywhere near this number. I would think that they’d be happy to have somebody wanting to buy this much. There is also a box of fake fur pieces that were supposed to be attached to the special edition scubas, I think.
Here is the check out. I waited maybe ten minutes.
There were fewer cashiers. I think these ones were more experienced than the ones there on Friday. I didn’t overhear of anybody experiencing errors while I was checking out. And my cashier did not make any price mistakes (unlike Friday’s cashier who took three tries before getting it right) so I was glad. I did take photos of all the price tags before they were cut off though, just to make sure. Why did they cut these tags off? Did they think people would try and return them? The labels had big black marks slashed through them, too.
Bag check out was speedy. Here are a few people leaving.
I was tempted to return before the closing at 2 PM to see if there was much stuff left and if they cut the prices more.
I found out later that they decided to open until 5 PM! So if you got there by 4 PM, you could shop until 5 PM! I wonder if there were any more cuts by then? Does anybody know?
I also saw that they were offering a Canucks Game Changer product for anybody who bought anything after 2 PM, if they were wearing some Vancouver Canucks Hockey clothing. (there was a game across the street tonight) Did anybody get that? I don’t know why but Lululemon decided that it was a big secret and wouldn’t say what the prize was after the fact.
Honestly speaking, I didn’t think much of Lululemon’s social media coverage. They were purposely vague to anybody who asked anything about discounts and other questions. There is a point where you can be a tease and get people in the door, but if you go too far, people just won’t bother. I really think that there were fewer people than they expected over the whole weekend.
Also, there was conflicting information. Although it was supposed to be a final sale, circumstances like mislabeled items or damaged items should be returnable. There was one case where someone was told, no, it was not returnable but to others, it was. They should be consistent in what they tell everybody!
For me, I don’t live too far from BC Place, so it wasn’t a big deal for me to come more than once. Hell, I probably would have come again before closing, if the tweets hadn’t been so vague. If I lived farther away, I wouldn’t have bothered.
The reason why I have written a review as I have is because I think that the more information people have about a sale, the better. I don’t believe in over hyping a sale and then not delivering. Did I get some good deals? Yes. Would I wait in line? No, nothing warranted that.
I’ll be looking out for the US warehouse party sale. I wonder if they are packing up all the leftovers from this sale over to them to sell?
Anybody have any comments? I know that my experience was different compared to some and would love to hear your comments.
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