Pain free trip to the Kmart Toy Sale!!

Today I was amazed. I hate shopping (my husband thinks that is fantastic lol but most people find a woman who hates to shop is a little...shall we say "unusual"!!) and I do my best to be in and out super fast any time I go there.

After thumbing through the toy sale catalogues and feeling very disappointed in the prices and ranges of both Big W and Kmart, I circled a few bits and pieces that I thought would be good to layby for the kids for christmas.

I decided to go to Kmart first as it is the furthest away from home and thought the earlier the better is generally the rule with any sale.

Well when I pulled up in the carpark at Kmart at Ingle Farm I was amazed to see very few cars there which I guessed was a good sign. On entering the store and making my way to the back toy section I was amazed that you could actually walk around in reasonable comfort and there were actually staff wandering around that you could ask questions of.

Kmart truely have it all worked out this year I think. There were alot of signs up saying that you don't need to take the items to the layby counter, just let them know what you want and they would layby it for you (I think this only applied to their christmas laybys........one thing I hated was the fact that only certain things are eligible for the christmas layby which I thought was pretty unfair). I was after some Wii games first so I headed down there and began the horrible task of trying to find the games you want.......an "angel" appeared out of nowhere and said that you could just go up to the counter and they had all the games that were on special at the counter so they would just hand you the items you wanted. Fantastic...off I trotted to the desk and for once in my life everything I asked for was handed to me.

I got Singstar Queen for my hubby (he has been looking at this since it came out so there is something for xmas) for $26, Buzz Brain of Oz for $30?? for Mr14, Wii My Sims for $20 for Ms10, Wii Sports Party for Mr12, Zelda, Links and Gun on Wii for $69 for Mr9 and Mario Kart with Steering wheel on Wii for $69 for Mr7. Not a bad start to Christmas I thought, something for everyone in there almost for around $250.

I went down to the layby line expecting a large lineup and found to my delight that I was second in line and was served within a few minutes. I laybyed a table tennis table for $129 as our family present, this at least was available as a christmas layby so at least I don't need to find a place to hide it lol.

I was in and out and laybyed within the space of half an hour.....that is what I call perfect toy sale shopping experience!!!

I then decided that I would brave the Big W toy sale since I had such a great experience at Kmart,,,,,,,I so wish I had quit while I was ahead. I mainly wanted to get my hubby Monopoly on the Wii which they had out for $25. I went to their Parabanks store to find next to nothing left of their sale items in the games section, no helpful staff to be found and a layby queue that stretched for a long distance. I decided it just wasn't worth my effort to look any further, there were people everywhere, so walked out empty handed.

I hope Kmart learn from there efforts this year and other stores learn from it too.....now to put my thinking cap on and work out what else to get for thekids lol, they are all at an age where it is starting to get hard to think of ideas!!