KC-Traderbear

I've wondered if Target would ever go away from clearance by department and opt for more clearance by individual item... kind of like Costco does. (Although I am NO expert on shopping at Costco by any means. I'm never really sure how they handle markdown stuff and would love to have tips on their methods...) It seems, though, that they base markdowns on how much stock they have of any one item (and whether it is "seasonal" or not, which from a "making money" standpoint, makes sense, I guess. It makes it lots harder to guess at when the heck the price of something may go lower though! ... I guess the fun could only last so long at Target, eh? The only thing I've noticed for sure is that there is just not much at all on clearance these days. I only go to Target now about once a week as opposed to my normal 3-4 times a week.

Your Welcome!

They are no longer at any of our stores here (at least not that I've seen); some people are reporting them around at other Targets though. I think most of the time they are found in electronics, but if they are on clearance, they could be on any random endcap I guess. I should have added too that the pages in the album are like heavy slick magazine pages, so it's like a very nice coffee table book quality page.

The albums come in lots of different styles/colors. You can customize each page if you want. I made a really cute red album for my husband for Valentines Day with all the girls' pictures in it from different ages; many of the pictures I selected for the album were the ones of just he and the kids. I selected special Valentines Day backgrounds for each page. He keeps it at his office. They have baby backgrounds, wedding backgrounds, just generic stuff... pretty much anything you can think of. Anyway, you can select how many pictures you want on each page; what type of background you want on each page; how you want the pictures laid out, etc. It's just like an online scrapbook. You click on the picture you want to use and then click on where it goes in the book. You can add captions, etc. I even added a page that was just text and then put a poem in it for my in laws' 50th wedding anniversary. I have always gotten lots of "oohs and ahhs" when I give an album. Everyone always assumes that I put a ton of time and effort in, when really, the time consuming part is just finding the pictures you want to use. The album doesn't take much time at all to create. All you get in the box is a code to use when you log in to Shutterly.com. You need to have an account with them (or be willing to set one up, of course); then you just download your pictures and create the album. I'm partial to Shutterfly for my digital prints, but there are lots of other online photo finishing websites. I've personally had very good luck with Shutterfly. Their customer service has always done right by me, whatever the problem... and I haven't had that many. HTH!

If you do a lot of Shutterfly, 50% off really is a great price considering that you also get free shipping. I've never seen Shutterfly offer their albums for any less than 30% off (not saying that they HAVEN'T-- I just haven't seen it). But, if you don't do a lot of stuff on Shutterfly, I s'pose it might not seem great. I really stocked up on the albums when they went to 50% off here in January and actually many of the albums were already sold out at a lot of the stores-- even at 30% off. However, I do a lot of albums as gifts, and I also do a book for each kiddo when they start kindergarten.... kind of a recap of all my favorite pictures of their first 5 years up til they start school. I literally have thousands of snapshots out in my Shutterfly account though, so I am someone who would consider 1/2 price a great deal... just my 2 cents if someone out there is debating about the albums. The ones Shutterfly has done for me always come out looking beautiful.

Isn't that funny how that always seems to be the case? I wonder why that is? I only have girls (3 of them), so I sort of get how popular that HK and Disney stuff is and love to buy it when it goes on sale, but is it NOT that important to little boys or are there just more girls in the world or what? There were a lot of the little boy towel sets left around the stores I've been to, but only one girly set (HK) left. Seems like it's that way with other types of boy/girl themed things too that I've watched in the past... ie, lots more Nemo or Cars Color Wonders awhile back when they were on sale, but the princess/Tinkerbell stuff seemed to sell out faster.. same with sheets, etc... Just curious as to why that might be... girls are just higher maintenance I guess.

I've found this to be a really nice generator... http://www.organicgrocerydeals.com/forums/view.php?pg=coupon_generator HTH

...I think that's what I said.

These were out at most stores several months ago... Now, for some reason, there appear to be Targets around that have either gotten more in or found some in the backroom that were missed during the initial clearance. I'm not sure. I have not seen any around here. They were all out in January on clearance and are long gone. They are sold in boxes. All that is in the box is a piece of paper with a code for you to use to get Shutterfly gifts... photo albums, mugs, calendars, etc. The cashier must activate them during checkout in order for them to work properly. (Sort of like a gift card.) Most stores never took these past 50%, so if you really, really want some and you see them for 50% off, that is a nice deal! More than likely, you won't see them go any lower. Many Targets salvaged them after the 50% markdowns. Some on this forum have reported seeing them at Goodwill after their store salvaged them, but there are people who apparently had trouble using them since Goodwill has no way to activate them correctly. I'm not sure if Shutterfly has been cooperative about helping people get them to work properly or not... but buyer beware if you buy them at the Goodwill store. :) HTH

That seems very weird that you had a problem even WITH a store receipt. I do know for sure that if you do the "buy/rebuy at a lower price switch-a-roo", you must have your receipt to get the higher price refunded to you. If you charge both items on the same card, and then do a receipt look up, the cheaper one is the one that the system will "find" and give you credit for cause it finds the most recent one you bought. So many changes at Target it seems. I think my area has enjoyed some pretty liberal policies for so long, and it appears that systems are being updated and many things that used to just be very easy are much more of a hassle (ie, coupons, credits, etc.). My Target shopping has dropped WAY down.... way, way down. I do Costco a lot more now. I love it when I can use coupons at Target and get food and household stuff cheap. Most of the time they got me to buy lots of "other" things too. However, I absolutely won't go and use coupons if the cashier in any way is going to look at me like I'm a felon when I bring out my coupons for groceries. Sorry, but without coupons, Target * much of the time* just isn't the lowest price place for that kind of stuff. So, I guess they probably don't care so much about whether I shop there or not. C'est la vie.

Ordered a popcorn combo today and the gal told me that today is the last day for it. They are taking it away (here anyway). I asked if it was all the Targets and she said, "yes." But, of course I dunno if she really knows what she's talking about. I think I have read here that some places have already seen it go. She told me that management told her to take all the signs down and that it was supposed to be taken out of the system this weekend. However, she said it is still ringing up today. She was very friendly about it and seemed sad herself that it would be gone soon. Saw lots of those music/video player thingys that so many are waiting to get cheap. The music ones were $9.98 and the video ones were $19.98. They had tons of them at both stores I went to. The Disney players still remained at 50% off though. Does anyone happen to know if you can use your Target 10% reward day online?

I can't stand juice... I'm not much of a sweet juice drinker at all. I buy the vitamin water or flavored water and I STILL have to water it down. Even that is too sweet for me. I'd probably be a poor judge of whether it was good. My kiddos don't drink a lot of juice either, but the boxes are handy for school lunches/picnics. That's the only reason I buy them. :)

Thanks!

Does anyone know how quickly the beloved MM Juice boxes go bad? I usually keep up on the expiration dates pretty well and give my excess to the Hope Chest at church if I don't think I'll use them by the expiration date. I must have missed one though. Today I found it in the back of the fridge with an expiration date of March 10. I don't want to give expired juice to the church. How long do you think they stay good after the expiration date? Has anyone used expired ones without a problem? Should I just experiment on my kiddos???

I think it is so frustrating that companies can't seem to get a handle on how (or if) they want to handle internet coupons. I mean lots of retailers offer coupons online and then when ya try to take 'em to the store, the cashiers sometimes look at you like you are running some sort of printing press in your basement! I've been told I could only use ONE even though I buy several items and have a legitimate coupon for each item. They tell me that "it says right on here - VOID if copied" I try to explain that I didn't copy it, they are available on the internet and guess what?-- PEOPLE can hit the print button as many times as they want!!! For heavens sake. GET with the program!!! I'm ranting I know. But, it's not rocket science. If you're putting a coupon on the internet and expecting people to only use it ONCE, forget it. It ain't gonna happen. As for selling it on ebay-- I can't imagine someone who buys coupons (obviously they must be very into using them) wouldn't know that you could find Target coupons online. But, ya know, the Target higher ups should KNOW that there will be SOMEONE out there who will do that. It amazes me that some of the suits (especially the IT people) at Target aren't a little bit smarter than that!! Same with the expired coupon situation. Set up your coupons to send up a flag at the register (like they do now) when a coupon is expired. I am in no way an IT genius, but it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to set up a coupon that way. Okay, I'm off my soapbox now! :) (I sound mad and I'm totally not mad, but just sort of frustrated and confused). I don't claim to have the answer, but if a corporation wants to use internet coupons, then they either need to give the cashiers a complete rundown on what the rules are or just stop issuing them. I love to use Target coupons, but I HATE stopping up a register and someone giving me a bad time.

Thanks! Now I won't wonder anymore :)

I've always wondered what exactly IS the chain of command at each Target store? Is there ONE manager over the store or is it the LOD who is the manager on duty... or is the LOD something different from the store manager?? Who then does the manager report to? Is there a district/regional person that oversees many Target stores in a certain area and then reports on in to corporate???? I've always wondered, but never enough to ask I guess! anyone know?

I found a lot of crayola marked to 75% off today. I didn't make it out until about 1 and they appeared to be finishing up the markdowns in the aisle. I got a few of those color wonder paintbrush sets for $2.xx ; some of the soft marker color wonder sets for the same price. I also got some cute crayola painting kits as well for $1.24. The second store didn't have any of them stickered. I almost wasn't going to bother scanning, but I'm glad I did. I didn't make it to the second store until after 4, so maybe it was more of an afternoon markdown?? I didn't see the stationary marked down much below 30-50%. Although one of the stores had a ton of scrapbooks in the disney characters... Mickey Mouse, Tinkerbell, and Cinderella (I think that was all). They were $3.xx I think. They were cute.. kind of a smaller size. I passed on those.

OH NO, not my apple juice!! Now, the apple juice coup I have is 7/22/06. Is that what you were trying to use? If it is, than that sort of eliminates that idea that 06 coupons are working.

Ya, I've always argued that if Target REALLY wanted to program its register system to decline expired coupons, they would certainly have the know how to do that. So I never worried about using expired coups. I mean there are waaayyyy more people shopping Target who DON'T use coupons than DO (in my opinion). But, Target's profits haven't been great lately (as most retailers!) and maybe there are some people who have really abused the coupon use. There is another forum that I only read occasionally (have never posted) and those people are REALLY into it. They make my now and then coupon use look amateurish. So it is completely within Target's right as a corporation trying to make a profit to make that change whenever they want. It makes me sad though, but I can't blame them. (Oh, and yes, I am referring to the kraft coupon (75 cents). I heard someone else also say that 07 coupons seemed to be the buggers, but that 06 coupons were okay. That would explain why some of my expireds came up okay.)

Ya, our stores around here never flinched with coupons, ever. A few months ago, one of the Super Targets started asking before they even started ringing stuff if I had any coupons. Then, some cashiers would scan each coupon as they ring that item. It was very weird (time consuming for the cashier I mean). Now, just the other day, that same store beeped a couple of my expireds and it came up "Coupon is expired". Weird thing is though that they took many other of my expireds without that message flashing on the register. It just happened on a couple of them. I don't know what is up. I've always heard others on here talk about some stores really being stinkers about coupons, and have always felt very lucky that the stores around here have never denied my coupons even if they are expired. I am never one of those shoppers that comes to the register with 40 coupons. I have always just had a modest amount as to not upset the cashier. I haven't tried using the kraft cheese coupon (the one that beeped) at any other store, so I might-- just to make sure it's not just one store cracking down. It may be a turn in their policy perhaps??!

Has anyone purchased the Memorex iTrek portable speakers for iPod? I found a few of them marked down from $99 to $25, so I picked one up. I can't seem to find out whether or not it works with the iPod Touch. It looks like it has lots of adaptors, but I thought I might ask if anyone here knows for sure whether it would work with Apple's newest iPod Touch. TIA!

Apple made a blanket drop in the price of their shuffles. I thought they were $79.99 regular price. Now, according to the article I just read in the paper, they are supposed to be $49.99 brand new. I read it in the paper just a few weeks ago.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JQ2RAD00L._SS260_.jpg The DPCI is 097 04 0814. They went from 30% straight to 75% off, so you might watch carefully if your store only has them marked to 30%.

Found these today. http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JQ2RAD00L._SS260_.jpg THey had a ton of them marked to $14.98 from $59.99. I got the last two "girlish ones" (pinks/greens), but they had lots of the more "boy colored" ones. (Oak Park store) Also found 3 puppies in my pockets valentines set (in the toy aisle)-- looked like someone tried to sort of hide them, but not very well. Anyway, $1.29 was a much better price to me than when I saw them the other day!!