Demand has also erased stock from every reseller store shelf mentioned on Gemmy's website. Even stores not mentioned there like Sears, blew through the Peanuts versions of the snow globes and refused to restock them being so late in the season. Suckers! So, where is one to turn to when all else fails? I personally devoted several hours of my Sunday to hunt for these things in person because I made the mistake of sending a mobile photo of one to me wife.
I hopped in to the Beemer, and loaded every drug store, target, wal-mart, k-mart, and sears in the San Francisco Bay Area in to the nav system. One by one I was shot down, and faced instead by inflatable sponge bobs, santas and other gemmy products. Following the unsuccessful venture, I decided instead to look for the snow globe on the web. buyinflatables.com seemed like the most reliable source but their product ordering page kept incorrectly indicating they were out of product because my web browser would crash before I could checkout and the session cookie had to expire to free up the inventory. I finally got one and checked out. I received a receipt and a shipping notification, only to be fully refunded a day later due to lack of product. All seemed lost until I resorted to froogle. I typed "gemmy inflatable snow globe" and sure enough, a link to bronners.com, and unlike Sears, they had lots of inventory on hand.
Could froogle actually be the best kept secret for finding hot new items on the Internet?! Well, considering the price gouging happening on Ebay to the uninitiated, it could be. While new owners choose to mount their new snow globes on their roofs to diswade would-be thieves because they overpaid by about 300%, you can be, well, froogle.
