Flying Tiger Rotterdam store: 1 euro sale
On 23 October 2018, the Copenhagen gifts, household goods, and gadgets store Flying Tiger celebrated their tenth anniversary with an everything for 1 euro sale. With everything, they really meant everything. I thought they would fill the store with only 1, 2, and 3 euro items, but they really had everything that you could normally find there. The Flying Tiger Rotterdam city center store opened at 10:00 in the morning and I went around 9:30 to have a look. If there were way too many people standing in line, I would just go back home. I was surprised to only find around 30-40 people. I thought the publicity in newspapers would attract a large crowd, but it was doable. I think the main reason was because they said that it would last for the whole day and certain items might get restocked during the day, so even a visit after school or work would be okay.
There were no limitations, except for the maximum of 5 items per product. This made it possible for people to buy a lot of early Sinterklaas and Christmas gifts at once and for only 1 euro per gift. I was part of the first batch of people to be let in and I was able to get a lot of items that I liked. I went with my mom and we had no strategy, we just grabbed everything that looked interesting and put it in our shopping basket to filter out later. We went from start to the finish at the cash registers and got stuck in the middle in the large crowd, while we should have split up with one starting at the start and the other at the finish and meet in the middle. That way we could get everything, while in stock (the battle strategy I overheard from fellow shoppers during the long wait in front of the cash register). When we got to the end, I couldn't get the Japanese tea pot and marble cutting board that I had on my wish list for a long time and they don't have sales normally. But I did manage to get 21 items for only €21. It was quite an achievement, as I had to wait in the cold for half an hour before opening and stand almost an hour in the waiting line in a super crowded store with the door closed, while it was almost as hot as in a sauna. The oxygen deprivation and heat made it difficult to make good decisions, but I managed to not succumb to stupid impulse buys and everything has proven to be very useful, except for the three padlocks that my mom picked out, as they could not be used to lock hand luggage, because they are too big to place into the holes in the zipper pulls.
There were no limitations, except for the maximum of 5 items per product. This made it possible for people to buy a lot of early Sinterklaas and Christmas gifts at once and for only 1 euro per gift. I was part of the first batch of people to be let in and I was able to get a lot of items that I liked. I went with my mom and we had no strategy, we just grabbed everything that looked interesting and put it in our shopping basket to filter out later. We went from start to the finish at the cash registers and got stuck in the middle in the large crowd, while we should have split up with one starting at the start and the other at the finish and meet in the middle. That way we could get everything, while in stock (the battle strategy I overheard from fellow shoppers during the long wait in front of the cash register). When we got to the end, I couldn't get the Japanese tea pot and marble cutting board that I had on my wish list for a long time and they don't have sales normally. But I did manage to get 21 items for only €21. It was quite an achievement, as I had to wait in the cold for half an hour before opening and stand almost an hour in the waiting line in a super crowded store with the door closed, while it was almost as hot as in a sauna. The oxygen deprivation and heat made it difficult to make good decisions, but I managed to not succumb to stupid impulse buys and everything has proven to be very useful, except for the three padlocks that my mom picked out, as they could not be used to lock hand luggage, because they are too big to place into the holes in the zipper pulls.
