just bought one last night at my local staples. ~$33 after tax. here's my tale:
i have two staples, both within 15 minutes of my house. (not gloating, just being thankful during this thanksgiving season. ) so on my way home from work, i hit the furtherest staples first. no go. not even a product label on the shelf. a clearance table (maybe not the only one; didn't ask, didn't look) was at the front of the store and no drives there either. didn't ask customer service because i had the other store to visit (a second chance) and was in a hurry to get home (no time).
the second store didn't have a product label on the shelf either. looked around the front of the store and didn't see a clearance table. was standing at the customer service counter, going to ask the manager (the only person at the counter) if they had the drive, but before he finished ringing up the customer already there i saw an inventory terminal at the front of the desk. i walked over to it, punched in the sku (thanks for posting that!), and saw the store inventory for almost all the staples stores in the state. the store # was previously listed in the search field (i only had to change what sku to look for) so the store i was standing in was the first in the list and the display showed several columns labeled "sales", but the in-stock (or was it labeled "on-hand"?) column listed six. six? i didn't see any?!
by this time the manager had finished the sale and was just chit-chatting with the customer, so i looked his way with a puzzled look on my face and he asked if i needed any assistance. i said that i believe the computer says that there are 6 cd-rw drives located in this store, but i didn't see any. he asked where i got the sku (as if i didn't know what i was doing), and i told him it was listed on the internet (i always like to see the look on people's face when they realize people on the internet know more about their business than they do) as this drive was on clearance for a good price (purposely not mentioning the rebate). this is the oddest thing: he said that they may have already been pulled for the black friday sale. (he did not call it "black friday", but instead "the day after thanksgiving" or something like that.) i don't remember these drives being listed in the staples black fri thread. so i'm not sure what he was talking about. he asked if i wanted to buy it (i felt like saying "no, but can i take it home anyways ), i said yeah as it's a good price, and he said that he would check in the back (i guess where they put "pulled" stock). before walking off he closed the store-inventory (mainframe terminal-like) application on the computer and brought up the store website (which is what is usually displayed on those front-of-the-store computers/kiosks) as if customers weren't suppose to be using the inventory app (it does list sales quantity, which is probably "proprietary" info). he disappeared, reappeared, grabbed a scanner, disappeared again, and reappeared with a drive. i looked on the back to see if it was a lite-on, but there wasn't a model # listed (as there was on the cendyne 48x cd-rw i recently purchased). there was a 12-digit (all numbers) serial #, so i assume it is a lite-on (haven't opened the box yet as it is for a computer that i'm in the process of purchasing the parts for). he walked with me to the check-out counter (manned by a high-school aged girl) and i asked about there not being a clearnce section and he said it was all the way in the very back corner of the store. the check-out girl has already scanned the price of the drive, but i asked her to hold on as i wanted to check out the clearance. the manager said there was some other cd-rw drives back there but not as fast as the cendyne. actually, there were two cendyne 32x drives back there, but i checked the serial #, and they were not lite-on (really long alpha-numeric serial #; aopen?). a few pacific digital (i think) 24x, a handspring visor docking cable for travel (for $6 where i paid like $20, full price, for mine almost a year ago), and some other stuff, but as i'm currently only spending money on building a new computer i didn't pay too much attention to the miscellaneous stuff.
i went back up to the counter, bought the drive, the rebate printed out, the girl (cashier) didn't even look at it, but knowing it was a rebate form she folded it up and stapled it to the rebate receipt and handed me the whole pile of paper. thank goodness i always get the female cashiers who could care less about how cheap a cd-rw drive is and how i make $10 profit after rebate. i can imagine some computer-geek male cashiers hounding me about what a great deal it is and how i found out about it (not that they would demand the drive back, but i like to retain a low-profile, and keep the store employees from hogging/hiding all the hot deas, as i've heard happens).