Good Bye Big Lots. All remaining stores are closing.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/b...201333453.html

Sigh........... no surprise.

What's left for inexpensive film? I've read here that Dollar Tree has stopped carrying media.

Yeah... can't say I'm surprised. I'll be sorry to see them go as we spend lots of $$ at Big Lots. Everything from food to entertainment to furniture to household items. I buy the totes I use to store my media from Big Lots (Target sells it too, but BL sales make it less expensive there). We know the long-term employees by first name (we've had one here for at least 15 years) and when one opened in a nearby town, many of them went to work at that store - one we visit every time we're in *that* town (which is semi-regularly) as the store there is larger/nicer. During their major media stocking years the employees would see me come in and let me know if there were new DVDs in stock. I was given "first access" to BF media items (I would be taken to the store room to look over everything and pull what I wanted. It would be set aside for me to come back any time BF to pick it up). Even now they'll alert us to upcoming % Off sales when were there shopping.

And customers like me may be part of the problem. We really utilize their "loyalty" program to earn and stack discounts. I've gotten as much as 60% off on several trips over the past few years by stacking coupons with sales. I know how they stack better than the checkers. Little things like "Oh! That last coupon didn't take/work right!" - Hmmm... what's the total before tax? OK... I need another $1 - here, add this candy bar and scan the coupon again. "Wow! That worked!" (adding a ~$1 candy bar allowed a $15 off coupon to work - otherwise it would have been only $5 off).

After that 2nd store opened in the next town their "warehouse issues" became quite apparent to us. I mentioned to the local manager that the other store had more variety and was better stocked. He indicated it was mainly because they were supplied from a different warehouse and partly because the other store was a "new" location. The warehouse supplying the local store just wasn't doing a very good job. Over a year later and it's still not stocked/supplied as well.

Hopefully that 2nd sales attempt will be worked out and they'll survive a while longer. I'm not holding my breath...

No sooner had I posted the above message I get an email from BL announcing "All Stores Closing - up to 25% Off!" - starts immediately... bummer...

The thing I'll miss is the seasonal Christmas items. Picked up a lot of Christmas stuff over the years from Big Lots which were more or less exclusive to the chain. The general Christmas decorations market takes another hit.

I kind of gave up buying media from them a couple years ago. I'll always have the late 2000s WB DVD sell-off memories, some of my favorite shopping highlights.

I used their totes for moving. Guess what I'm going to need in the nesar future after selling my last batch 2nd hand years ago.

I was down in Virginia today and saw that the Sterling Big Lots, where I bought a TON of DVDs in the early DVDTalk years, was completely closed. Not sure if it happened this week with the announcement, or was an older thing. After reading that BobO'Link ’s storage containers are sold there, figured I better hit my local BL. Those Sterilite 32 quart containers are just $5+ after discount, so I bought them all. Might check another location tomorrow after church.

Fwiw, the manager at the local store told me that they’ll be open at least into January, and that there is still hope that they don’t close down.

Stopped by my local store today and it was a zoo. I lean towards it because of the Saturday before Christmas, because there's not a lot of signage about the store closing. Though I guess everyone on their mailing list received notice. The large sign as I entered said the entire store was up to 25% off, but I saw no specific discount signs so I don't know how they're ringing things up.

Like Bob, I stacked coupons often. I also bought cheap clearance food items often to trigger more of the coupons coming -- had employees know me so well that one would send me text messages when they would increase the discounts on stuff.

So a related question -- I have 2 $5 coupons on my account. Are those still good? There were 15 people in the checkout line and no other employees around to ask today. I don't want them to go to waste, but thought I remember saying they weren't valid anymore with a store closing.

Sigh..... the BL's by me were often higher than regular grocery stores on food. Paper product were cheap.

I remember a time I used to literally spend $1500 a month on dvd's chainwide, as BL was cheaper than wholesalers.

The biggest draw that got me into Big Lots with alarming recurrent visits was the beginning of the studios’ DVD dumps starting in 2008. Rare classics at $3 a pop was making me giddy, still have many of them sealed.

Remember the Black Friday with TONS of box sets for $3?

That year, and a few before/after, there was a 2nd cousin's former wife working at BL. We got along with her and she'd keep me posted when new displays would arrive (any time - not just BF). For those BF sales she'd let me know when those arrived and take me to the storeroom to look over what was going to be available. I was allowed to take out what I wanted and it would be put back for me to come in *anytime* that weekend to pick them up. That was absolutely the best - first pick and didn't have to fight crowds to get what I wanted.

And I'm *still* slowly working my way through some of those BF sets and those from the WB dump (that one was incredible!).

I ended up seeing parts of the Eastern seaboard I would have never visited otherwise if not for the $3 DVD box set. Chased them over 30-40 different locations. Met a couple of people who claimed reading this site during the sale. Feeling generous one day, I let a man have the complete Wonder Woman DVD box set for $3 when he spotted it in my cart. I think that was somewhere near Richmond.

Beacuase I purchased so much from them for resale, several stores gave me the same priviledge. I went in a couple days early, & pulled everything I wanted. I wish I would have bought more than I did, as every set sold (I ended up eating a lot of single disc really good titles, but I didn't eat a single one of those boxes).

I got a couple copies of the WW set at that sale also. I don't think there was a single thing I personally wanted, but lots of stuff others did!

Thanks for buying so many sets for resale, and keeping them out of the hands of the collectors on this forum.

It's how I made a living. Beats living on the street. Besides, do you live in Seattle? And I'm sure they would have done the same for you, if you had spent$1500 a month for years.

There was a guy on here back then with “Simpsonsfan” in his username who said he was doing that and got tons of sarcastic thanks. It’s just scummy to buy cheap stuff from a store just so you can sell it to someone else at a higher price. All the stuff I bought from Big Lots has been to actually WATCH, and whatever I didn’t buy I hoped would get bought by someone who wanted the same from them.

Still cracks me up when I see EBay auctions with price tags left on in the picture and the asking price is several times that. At least try to hide how little you paid for it.

Read that 'Big Lot's" might indeed survive at some locations. I hope this includes my location. They are trying to revamp from what I read to survive the bankruptcy.

Some distressed retail investor plans to keep a few locations open. Big Lots as we knew it under the old management is done. Probably enough sales left in the old horse to keep some locations around for another year or two.

Big Lots had a idiot computer programmer(s). Unless you presented stacked coupons in the right order you would definitely not receive the proper discount. So you had to present a % discount coupon first, then the highest dollar off, such s $10 off $40, and so on. Such an easy fix I was always shaking my head at the retardedness. I did manage to have numerous purchases where I bought $50 worth of stuff for as little as $15 using several of the $5 off $15 coupons in addition to the aforementioned. I bought a ton of DVDs and Blurays over the years, many still unopened, but I would also stock up on nuts and coffee for dirt cheap. RIP Big Lots.

Their "Going Out of Business Sale" is somewhat a joke - at least here. The signs say "Up to 25% Off!" - which is accurate but not as good as it may sound. My wife and I went in today to pick up a few things (some of which are "regular purchase" items for us at BL) to find there's *zero* % off food products (not that unexpected), 5% off Small Appliances (not worth bothering with for that little) and 10% on just about everything else with the exceptions being 20% off toys, 25% off Grills & Patio furniture, and 50% off Christmas (which is normal for that product at this time of the year). We picked up a few non-food items we'd have purchased anyway due to the "need" or normal price so an extra 10% was OK but not exceptional. As expected, they're no longer scanning the "Loyalty Cards" or accepting any non-expired coupons (I didn't have any but asked anyway).

And the store was pretty well picked clean in many areas - more than I expected considering the rather low % off being offered on most items.

My wife's wanting to go to the one in the neighboring town so I expect we'll make the trip in the next few days. It'll be interesting to see the differences as they have always had more/better stock of things since opening a couple of years back.

They got that fixed over the past year or so. At one point you absolutely *did* have to hand them in the correct order but it was corrected to be the % off first, in descending order of amount, and then the $x off $y after. I still presented them in the "correct" order but it didn't matter at least this past year. And I *always* verified sub-totals before handing the next "correct" coupon and verified that it *was* applied properly before letting them scan the next. I know it got fixed as I knew one of the checkers well and we would experiment with the order if no one else was in line. Our last experiment resulted in identical results no matter which order they were scanned and the amount off was what I'd pre-calculated. That was around a year ago.

And the person I asked was incorrect. I got an email from BL today that said *all* existing rewards coupons *will* be honored but no more will be given out.