Zhu Zhu Pets Update - Over Christmas

Well it's been a while since I've been able to update the site. I was following everything that was going on in the Zhu Zhu Pets world up to Black Friday  (26 November to be precise). However, about then, my day job got really busy and I ran out of time for this site, which is really only a hobby. I now have a little more time, so I'll start following the Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster market again.
A lot has happened since that last post:

Availability Of Zhu Zhu Pets For Black Friday Sales

First, the promised influx of Zhu Zhu Pets in time for the Black Friday sales didn't happen (or was patchy at best). It seems some stores did have some stock, but that sold out quickly, while others had almost none. On the whole you'd have say that there was an increase in stock, but nowhere near enough to satisfy demand.

Cost Of Zhu Zhu Pets Soars

While demand was so high, the price soared. The only place you could buy Zhu Zhu Pets was online at Amazon or eBay. The price was hugely inflated. It was common for one Zhu Zhu Pet Hamster to cost $40 or even up to $70 - compare that with $8 or $9, which is what people expected them to go for. Crazy! A lot of people were grumbling about the price, but some people were still buying them.
The high price of the Zhu Zhu Pets range wasn't doing this site any favours. We do point people to Amazon as a place to buy Zhu Zhu Pets, and we do make a small commission off any sales that are made, but we don't actually sell Zhu Zhu Pets ourselves. We got more money from each sale, but there were less sales going through. I'd rather make commission on 1000 sales at $10 than 100 sales at $50 (you do the math). Not that I was sending that many people to Amazon, but you get the picture.
Then sometime before Christmas, the price of Zhu Zhu Pets began to come down - not quite to the $8 or $9 mark, but to anywhere from $15 to $25. The price has continued to come down and they are now selling at around $8. They're a good deal - go and take a look!

New Zhu Zhu Pets Toys

The other significant thing that happened was that just before Christmas, Cepia released the long awaited new Zhu Zhu Pets hamsters. You can now buy Jilly, Nugget, Scoodles and Winkie. Here are the links to buy them now at Amazon. At the time of writing, the cost varied from $9 to $14 for the new hamsters.

This was obviously very exciting news and I'm sorry that I missed breaking it here, especially as I was one of the first to pick up on the promise of these new Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters back in October.

The Future

As a result of the falling price, Zhu Zhu Pets dominated the Christmas toy market and are still selling well. Obviously sales will be a lot lower now that the Christmas rush is over, but expect the Zhu Zhu Pets range to be one of the most popular toys for the foreseeable future.

Zhu Zhu Pets In Stock On Black Friday?

As I write this, the Black Friday sales have just started, with shoppers flocking to the stores to pick up a quick bargain when the stores open at midnight. But will they have Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters in stock?

I'm very curious to find out whether stores such as Toys R Us and Walmart will have Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters in stock for the Black Friday sales. There have been lots of rumours that they’ve been holding back stock for the Good Friday sales and now we'll finally find out if they have any!

To be honest, I expect that they will have some stock, but that they won't have nearly enough to satisfy demand.

There have been stories saying that people will be limited to a total of 4 Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters each, so that there's more to go around - and presumably to stop people who try to buy up large numbers so they can turn around and sell them at a huge profit. However, I can't find any authoritative articles to back this up.

So lets turn to the place to get the latest information: Twitter. Apparently Toys R Us do have some in stock, but they are giving out red tickets to the first 100 people, allowing them to buy Zhu Zhu pets. People have been lining up for several hours to get these tickets: Birchall_Jon says:

First 100 have red tickets to buy Zhu Zhu pets - they've been in line for 2hrs.

However, shortly after midnight, carlie_kollath stated that the 100 red tickets went really fast:

All shoppers inside toys r us - no line now. Id bet the zhu zhu pets are long gone. Store mgr Todd Brown said the 100 tickets went FAST!

Shortly afterwards, she mentions that the Zhu Zhu Pets have sold out:

First sale has started at Walmart on N Gloster. Main sale starts at 5. A few people shopping but relatively quiet. Sold out of zhu zhu pets.

This is only a small sample - who knows what's happening at other stores and at Walmart etc. But it's not looking good. Hopefully in the morning, so more details will emerge and I'll update things here.

For now, I'm going to get some sleep. I'd rather buy them on Amazon that be out at the shops at this time!

Where To Buy Zhu Zhu Pets In Canada

In my Where To Buy Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters post, I mentioned that there were people coming to this site to try to find out where they could buy Zhu Zhu Pets in Canada. Since then, I've had a lot more people looking for information about buying them in Canada, so I thought I should look at this more closely.

The Official Word - Zhu Zhu Pets Are Available In Canada

Firstly, according to the official Zhu Zhu Pets website, Zhu Zhu Pets are available for purchase in Canada:

We are the manufacturer/ distributor of these frantically funny furry pet pals, and are most pleased to distribute the Zhu Zhu Pets™ Hamsters and Playsets throughout the US, Europe and Canada.

So we know that they are available in Canada. But where? The obvious places to start are the big stores such as Toys R Us and Walmart.

Zhu Zhu Pets At Toys R Us Canada?

I found a forum posting on SmartCanucks.ca where a poster says that Toys R Us is the only place in Canada carrying Zhu Zhu Pets. I can't find any further information to back this up, but it seems that Toys R Us is the best place to start.

However, further down the same page someone says that Toys R Us Canada can't keep up with the demand so they removed Zhu Zhu Pets from their website.

I ordered 2 Zhu Zhu pets in early October on the Toysrus.ca website. I preordered them to receive Nov30...since then they have taken them off the website completely. I called the customer service line and she said that I would still get mine if I had an order number but they couldn't keep up with the orders so they took the zhu zhu pets right off the website.

Sure enough, when I do a search for Zhu Zhu Pets on the Toys R Us website, I get a message (at least at the time of posting) which says:

We are having trouble locating a match for your search: zhu zhu pets

So strike Toys R Us from the list of possibilities! They are supposed to be carrying the Zhu Zhu Pets range, but they can't keep them in stock, same as the stores south of the border.

Zhu Zhu Pets At Walmart Canada?

Next I turned to Walmart, even though I've found no confirmation that they will sell Zhu Zhu Pets in Canada and the poster on the SmartCanucks forum says that Toys R Us are the only provider. It just seems inconceivable that Walmart won't sell Zhu Zhu Pets. I mean why wouldn't they? However a search of the Walmart Canada website gives me:

We found 0 result(s)  for "zhu zhu pets"

So whatever Walmart are doing in Canada, they're not selling Zhu Zhu Pets on their websites. I can only presume that if you're lucky you may be able to find them in a Walmart store, but that your chances are slim. I'd say it's pretty obvious that they are also having trouble keeping them in stock.

Where Can You Buy Zhu Zhu Pets In Canada?

So really, it seems Canada is no different from the US. Zhu Zhu Pets are available in Canada, but they are just so popular that they can't stay in the stores. Therefore, my answer to the question above is that same that I give to people in the US:

Your best option to buy a Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster before Christmas is to buy them online (but obviously not from Toys R Us or Walmart, who don't have any!). So what's the best option? I think it's Amazon:

There are Zhu Zhu Pets available right now on Amazon.

Yes, they do cost more than list price (and they seem to be going up as Christmas gets closer), but they are in stock and you can buy them right now and have them in a couple of days. That's got to be better than running around and wasting your time at shops that don't have any.

I think the reality is that if you do want to buy some Zhu Zhu Pets before Christmas, you'll have to pay over the odds. It's either that or forget Zhu Zhu Pets and find something else for your kids.

Zhu Zhu Pets Not Available In Walmart

I haven't seen much in the mainstream media about this, but I have seen this reported on Twitter, Yahoo Answers and on blogs: Apparently Walmart refused to sell Zhu Zhu Pets stock to customers and held them back for a sale on 11/8 - but then they had virtually none to sell for that sale!

It started when I noticed quite a few unhappy people on Twitter saying that they found Zhu Zhu Pets in Walmart, but were told they couldn't buy them when they got to the counter. They were told that the stock had to be held for a sale on 11/8.

Some argued and eventually got them to sell the stock, some got them to put the Zhu Zhu Pets aside for them to come and buy on 11/8 and some left the store empty handed and angry.

There is a story on DigTriad about people mistakenly thinking that Zhu Zhu Pets had been recalled, which goes on to confirm that stock had been held back from sale at Walmart. The story quotes Walmart as saying:

In a handful of stores, a few hamsters were placed on shelves too early, and therefore their sale was already blocked until this Sunday. Walmart apologizes for any inconvenience to customers, but says it is important to ensure when a product is advertised, it is indeed on the shelves. The product will be on store shelves Sunday, Nov. 8.

However, that's not the real story here - the real story is that come the sale on 11/8, there were still almost no stock in the Walmart stores. There are some scathing comments over on a post on Paula Neal Mooney's blog. Here's just a couple of quotes from the comments section:

Simnuts on November 7th, 2009

Went at 12:10 am on 11/08 and was told ’sorry all sold out already we had only 5 although our stock tickets say we have 16, but well we cant find them.”

Yes, that's sold out at 10 minutes after midnight. So much for a big sale! Personally, I'm wondering where the other 11 Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters disappeared to! Simnuts goes on to say that another store in the area didn't get any stock for the 11/8 sale and that the sale was obviously a marketing ploy.

barbie on November 10th, 2009

Wal-mart scammed consumers once again, by providing a limited supply of Zhu zhu pets. I went to two wal-marts on 11/08 and expected to see at least a large empty display, but there was one small empty hanger that could have contained maybe 10 toys.

Barbie goes on to call it false advertising and claim that Walmart had only received 40 toys from the manufacturer that week.

Anyway, this has obviously left people even more frustrated in their search for Zhu Zhu Pets and not particularly happy with Walmart. However, for whatever reason, this hasn't been widely reported in the mainstream media.

Personally, I'd forget about trying to buy Zhu Zhu Pets at a local store as it's just too much hassle! I'd be willing to pay a little bit extra to buy them online from Amazon right now and not have to deal with all the troubles that people are encountering.

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Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters On The Web - 9 November 2009

Here are some of the recent Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters related picks from around the web over the last week or so. This week, we only have entries from Twitter, but hopefully we'll have a wider cross-section for you next time!

Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters On Twitter

Here are some of the best recent Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster related tweets, along with my comments in italics:

• by Jyork230: on a mission for zhu zhu pets !!! today i finally found the fun house hopefully sunday all get jacob 2 hamsters and the car thing !!!!!!
  Comment: Congratulations on finding the fun house. If you're after the 'car thing' try the Zhu Zhu Pets Add On Garage and car from Amazon at http://bit.ly/1xRK3A
• by Cubsmom61: Did some xmas shopping today ..Found Zhu Zhu Pets .Grandkids will love em
  Comment: Congratulations on finding the Zhu Zhu Pets. Where did you find them? There seem to be a lot of people searching for them.
• by Jeanne515: On the search for zhu zhu pets slide
  Comment: As I tweeted back to Jeanne515, this item is actually available on Amazon. Go to http://bit.ly/3s0x2D to buy it right now!
• by MoniqueBatson: I'm searching for ridiculously hard-to-find Zhu Zhu Pets for Christmas. Naturally my daughter just "HAS" to have one...
  Comment: Of course your daughter just has to have one. All kids seem to be the same! However, they're not that hard to find - the Zhu Zhu Pets are available online at Amazon. Sometimes they're not quite as cheap as if you bought them at Walmart or ToysRUs, but they are availble right now. You don't have to run around searching for them, you can order them online.
• by kkmaz: Zhu Zhu pets. Battery operated hamsters in hot demand. Of course they made the 7 YO's Christmas wish list. Sigh. Here we go.
  Comment: Yep, the Zhu Zhu pets are the hottest gift this Christmas. Every year it's something else, this year it's the Zhu Zhu Pets turn! Anyone between 3 and 10 are going to want these toy hamsters!
• by prthdjen: is wondering if any of her FB friends have connections to get Zhu Zhu Pets?!? They seem to be impossible to find!
  Comment: Some else having trouble finding Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters - but I don't understand why - they're not that hard to find. You can buy Zhu Zhu Pets online at Amazon.
• by daniperaza: Zhu Zhu Pets are sold out at Wal-Mart....damn you
  Comment: And I've been hearing stories that Wal-Mart have some in stock but won't sell them! People can see them, but can't buy them! What's the world coming too?
• by cooktravelmom: I'm so glad that I don't have to know what Zhu Zhu Pets are yet!
  Comment: You're time will come cooktravelmom!
• by twentyfive2life: @ToysRUs yes, are you guys getting any Zhu Zhu pets in anytime soon?
  Comment: I'm sure they will be, but why wait when you can buy them online at Amazon right now?
• by missydawnrox: @ToysRUs Why yes, I'm looking for Zhu Zhu pets! But I can't find them anywhere!
  Comment: I'm not even going to say it this time!
• by miss_leahg: In the battle against the elusive Zhu Zhu Pets, I finally emerged victorious. Those little electronic rodents didn't get the best of me.
  Comment: Never give up, never surrender. You'll all catch those pet hamster toys if you keep trying. They really do want to be caught!
• by slique84: i dont understand why zhu zhu pets r so freakin in demand...its jst fuckin fake hamstrs runnin around. the wii was way better to b in demand
  Comment: Um, how old are you? Zhu Zhu Pets are for kids from 3 years to 10 years. If you're older than that, they're not going to do much for you.
• by saraellington: Anyone bought Zhu Zhu pets for the kids? Daughter wants for Xmas but Amazon reviews are not great.
  Comment: There are loads of reviews out there. Not all reviews are positive, but I've yet to see one that says that the kids didn't love them! I think they're worth the purchase just for the joy they are likely to give your daughter.
• by motleyclimber: I have just captured four Zhu Zhu pets...they were all nesting together and I swooped in and caught'em all! Muhahaha! LOL!
  Comment: That's the way to do it, once you find them, grab as many as you can!

Final Thoughts

That's it for this post - I'll be adding more Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster updates from around the web every few days.

Where To Buy Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters?

Where can I buy Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters? That's the question that every parent will be asking themselves this Christmas time, as they search for the hottest toy on the market, the Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster (formerly known as Go Go Pet Hamsters).

Hint: I'll talk about where you can buy them below, but the quickest way is to buy them online from Amazon.

Where To Find Zhu Zhu Pet Hamsters?

You SHOULD be able to buy a Zhu Zhu Pets hamster at a toy shop near you. The big toy store chains, such as Toys R Us, will all be carrying them. You'll also be able to get them at stores such as Walmart and Target. In fact, any toy store not planning to go out of business will be carrying these popular pet hamsters.

As well as buying them from a physical store, you can also buy Zhu Zhu Pets online. Personally, I find this much more convenient. No need to go out into the rush, just find the product online, place an order and wait for it to turn up a couple of days later.

The number one place to buy Zhu Zhu Pets online is Amazon. You'll notice that I only to link to Amazon on this site. They are a reputable seller and you can often find items cheaper on Amazon than you can in a physical store (though not necessarily in the Zhu Zhu Pets case!).

If you want to purchase Zhu Zhu Pets via Amazon, you can either go there directly or you can browse the full range of Zhu Zhu Pets products on our site and follow the links to the product you want to buy.

Ebay is another option, although I've heard stories of over inflated prices on eBay. Amazon occasionally suffers from this, but the problem doesn't seem to be anywhere near as bad. Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable buying Zhu Zhu Pets on eBay. Neither would I buy from smaller shops online as they don't have the same reputation that Amazon has.

But The Zhu Zhu Pets Are Sold Out

One of the recurring themes I've noticed is that people are having trouble finding any Zhu Zhu Pets products left in the shops.

Have a look at the Twitter section of my latest Zhu Zhu Pets On The Web roundup. Out of the 15 tweets I've listed, 8 are about people desperately looking for Zhu Zhu Pets, while 3 are from people celebrating that they have finally found some. Apparently neither ToysRUs, Target, or Walmart can keep any Zhu Zhu Pets Hamsters in stock. The tweets mention people sleeping outside ToysRUs, or camping out at Target, just to buy Zhu Zhu Pets!

Also, when I look at the search terms people have used to arrive at this website, I can find similar themes. Here are just some of the real search terms that have been entered into Google:

• does anyone know when the zhu zhu pets will be back in stock
• when will walmart get more zhu zhu hamsters
• when is the best days to get zhu zhu pets at walmart
• can't find zhu zhu pets anywhere
• best way to find zhu zhu pets
• zhu zhu pets how to find them
• zhu zhu pets where to find them
• zhu zhu where to find it
• zhu zhu find
• why are zhu zhu pets so hard to find
• why can't find zhu zhu pets
• where to buy zhu zhu, skateboard
• find zhu zhu hamsters
• where can you buy winkie zhu zhu pet
• looking for zhu zhu pets accessories

Okay then! People are obviously having trouble finding Zhu Zhu Pets in the conventional stores and asking for help in their search for them. I have an answer for these people below!

Another thing I noticed were the following search terms:

• can't find zhu zhu pets in canada
• where do they sell zhu zhu in canada?
• when will zhu zhu pets be available in canada?

Okay, so people in Canada are wondering where to buy Zhu Zhu Pets in Canada. Fair enough. People all around the world are wondering the very same thing. There will be people wanting to buy Zhu Zhu Pets in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and probably hundreds of other countries. Once again, I have the answer for these people below!

The Answer: Zhu Zhu Pets Are Available Online!

Yes that's right! Go to Amazon's Zhu Zhu Pets page and you'll see that there are Zhu Zhu Pets products available. For example, right now at the time of posting, Mr Squiggles is available - there are 176 new ones that can be bought.

Admittedly, the cost is a little higher than if you manage to get one at Walmart, but you can buy one right now! No sleeping in front of the store. No running around from store to store. Simply go to Amazon, place an order and your Zhu Zhu Pets Hamster will turn up in the post.

This is also the answer for those people wanting to buy Zhu Zhu Pets in Australia, UK, etc, as Amazon can ship stuff to you.

Anyway, I'll leave it there for now. If you're chasing Zhu Zhu Pets, buying them from Amazon is the way to go!