How to buy an Xbox 360 for Christmas

Herewith a few tips for scoring Xbox 360 units this holiday season. There are some out there, but it’s a merry chase indeed. (Major Nelson has already posted some stuff along these lines, but Scoble hasn’t so this may still be useful to the Xbox seekers out there..)

First, shipments. I’m not on the Xbox team, so I don’t have any inside information. It’s pretty obvious that they’re running the factories at full throttle, but that still doesn’t translate into enough units to flood every retail shelf in North America with as many units as people want to buy. If you trust the public numbers (~3 million units worldwide within 90 days of launch), it should be clear that even large numbers of units don’t translate to total market penetration. WalMart alone has over 3,700 stores in the US; if they got 10 units/store/week, that would be 37,000 units/week just for them— and they’re only one of a dozen or so tier-1 retailers whose doors people are banging on.

There’s a lot of bad information out there being spread by the retailers, which is a shame. Granted, most people know that you can’t always trust the floor staff at most stores for accurate information on anything, but the number of times I’ve been told “we won’t have any 360s until March” when calling or visiting local retailers is astonishing. I’m sure the Xbox retail interface team is doing everything they can to get the word out, but they’re fighting an uphill battle.

First, brick and mortar. I got one from our local Sams’ Club at launch. I didn’t preorder, but I did stand out in the 20° weather for two hours before they opened the doors. There are lots of anecdotal reports of small shipments to mass market retailers, but given the eBay frenzy, IMHO the odds of you getting a unit from a B&M are small; it’s too tempting for the employees to buy them and then flip them.

• The Canadian chain of BestBuy stores will be selling units (min 10/store) on 12/9. This may help if, like me, you’re near Canada. (See the banner ad they’ve been running.)
• The US chain of BestBuy stores supposedly will have a relaunch on 12/18. Anecdotal reports indicate that stores already have them in stock but aren’t allowed to sell them until then— they’re supposedly building inventory. (BestBuy got spanked for requiring some customers to buy their 360s in bundles, but they’ve apologized, sort of.)
• On FatWallet, I saw a claim that WalMart would be getting between 3 and 9 units per store each week from now until Christmas. I’m sure they’re not distributed evenly between stores, as WalMart has excellent data showing where various SKUs are selling well, but this may help if you’re in a rural area or have friends who work there.

Tactics vary. Some people recommend going to the store first thing in the morning; this may work if you happen to arrive the morning after a shipment, and if the employees haven’t skua’d all the units themselves. Some retailers only get shipments overnight, while others get them at unpredictable times during the day.

(nb. I keep seeing reports that Target stores are a good place to get units. The local Target stores in NW Ohio don’t have any, and haven’t; I suspect the employees are buying them up as soon as they get off the truck. Most other retailers (e.g. GameStop, EBGames) haven’t gotten enough units to clear their pre-order list yet, although some of them are selling systems online even when their B&M stores can’t get any. )

Second, online stores often have small quantities of Xbox 360s in stock at unpredictable times. By using a tool like Webmon, you can fairly easily monitor Amazon, eToys, and other major online retailers to get immediate notification when systems are available. Amazon, for instance, has been selling a few dozen units per day, but unless you’re using a site monitoring tool (or hanging out all day at FatWallet or your preferred equivalent) you have no hope of finding one via this method.

Suggestion: make sure you’ve already got registered accounts at whatever sites you monitor so that, should you find one, you can buy it quickly. I’ve successfully ordered systems from Amazon and eToys; Barnes and Noble, Dell, JC Penney, and Kmart were all accepting orders within the past week for immediate shipment, though I don’t know if all the orders they accepted will actually be fulfilled. Of course, not all vendors who take orders will actually be able to ship them; I ordered a system from CompUSA, then got a notice today that my order was now on backorder until January. Oops.

Finally, there’s eBay. Yes, there are lots of consoles and bundles for sale there. Caveat emptor, but if you want one badly enough, this may be your best route. It appears that prices for a Premium system are still $700-900, with Core systems going from $450-600. There’s a good deal of price variability. Your best bet: find auctions that end in the middle of the night, then keep a very close eye on them to keep from getting sniped in the end.

Happy hunting!

Update: fixed a few errors in the original post and to note that some retailers that take orders can’t or won’t fill them before Christmas.