What you get when you cut deals with Wal-Mart

A friend of mine just told me about his experience buying the new Eagles album. I’ve omitted his name and the location of the store, but his story was too good not to share.

“On Tuesday, I went to the Sam’s across from our office. As much as I detest these exclusives with these big boxes, 27 years was as long as I could wait for a new Eagles album.

“The store opens at 8 in the morning. I went in there at 1 o’clock. I went to the music department, expecting to see an endcap full of it. There was nothing. I looked in the section – nothing. Okay, maybe they’ve got it in a big dump bin up front, like Garth Brooks had on the palettes. Nothing.

“I went and asked somebody. They said, ‘Eagles? I don’t know anything about it.’

“I said, ‘It’s your damn exclusive! What do you mean you don’t know anything about it?’

“‘Well, let me get the department manager.’

“So I wait, find out the department manager was off – she was sick that day. Ten minutes later, they finally find a piece in a case in the back that hadn’t even been opened. They didn’t even know the damn record was theirs.

“At this point, it was about 1:30 in the afternoon. I was the first person at that Sam’s Club to buy the new Eagles record, because they didn’t even know they had it in their back room.”

At this store at least, the Eagles’ exclusive deal with Wal-Mart has made the new album – of which Wal-Mart bought a fixed amount, with a guarantee of no returns – the retail equivalent of bananas. If the bananas don’t go out today, they can always go out tomorrow. Actually, the Eagles are a lower priority than bananas, because if you leave a new shipment of bananas in the back room all day, they might spoil.