Video Exposes Walmart Warehouse Hoarding PlayStation Consoles Amid Supply Chain Issues One worker's TikTok showing a storage facility at Walmart is going viral amid the pre-holiday shopping surge.
By Emily Rella
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
There are rumblings (and warranted warnings) about supply shortages hitting retailers this year ahead of the holiday season.
While there have been hopeful signs that the national Covid-19 infection rate is declining, supply chain issues still have not fully resumed to normal, and big name retailers have warned that shelves will not be stocked to their full potential.
But one TikTok of a Walmart storage room is now going viral for showing that some of these retailers might in fact be stockpiling their supplies in anticipation of the big shopping season ahead.
TikTok user Hisham Hasan (@hishamhasan3) posted a video of a Walmart storage room that has since been viewed over 5.3 million times.
"This is why y'all don't have the PS5 because Walmart is hoarding all of them," the text overlay reads over a video of a warehouse that shows hundreds of boxes of the gaming device stocked on shelves.
@hishamhasan3♬ BOZO ALERT - Janice
The post has garnered over 4,500 comments, with many explaining that Walmart stores purposely only release limited boxes at a time due to scalpers.
"I work for a Walmart distribution center too and it's the same there," one user wrote. "They only release a little at a time because of scalpers."
"It's been almost a year since released and still almost sold out," another said. "Scalpers are ridiculous."
Walmart did not immediately respond to Entrepreneur's request for comment.
In Sony's earnings report dating back to March 31, 2021, the company reported that it had sold around 7.8 million PlayStation 5 devices, citing a 14.7% increase year over year in terms of subscribers.
The Verge noted that around 3.3 million PS5 consoles were shipped worldwide between January and March, pointing out a high demand yet limited supply.
"Given supply constraints, our in-stock suffered significantly during portions of the year, store standards were impacted," said Walmart CEO Doug McMillan in the company's Q4 (2020) earnings call this February. "We would reduce store hours and limit customer density all over again, but that did impact our sales. Those realities should provide some upside in 2021 as we lap the extraordinarily strong results of last year."
Walmart was up 7.9% year over year as of early Tuesday morning.
