Zhu Zhu Land

Are the Zhu Zhu Pets shelves bare at your local toy store? Can't find Zhu Zhu Pets online either? Afraid that your kids are going to be broken-hearted this Christmas morning?

Take heart. There is a way to find Zhu Zhu Pets that are available from sellers local to you and all across the county. Best of all, you can search for them online, too. And, I'm going to share my secret method for finding listings laser-targeted to your area.

Here's how: Try searching on Craigslist.

What is Craigslist?

Craigslist is one of the most popular online sites for classified ad listings. It was started by a guy named Craig Newmark who started out by emailing around classified ads to his friends and it took off from there. Boy did it. Now Craigslist covers over 570 cities in 50 countries. And, I bet it covers your city, county or region too.

Start Local

Ready to begin your search? The first thing you want to do is go to Google. I know what you are thinking, why Google? Because Craigslist is great at classified ads but not so great at indexing their own pages. The Google search is better.

So, when you are at the Google search page, type this into the search bar:

site:[yourcity].craigslist.org zhu zhu pets

WARNING: make sure to replace the [yourcity] with the closest big city. For example, if you live in or near Boston, you'd type:

site:boston.craigslist.org zhu zhu pets

If the region you live is usually referred to as a county or regional name, use that. For example, I live in Orange County, CA, so I'd type:

site:orangecounty.craigslist.org zhu zhu pets

Got it? Follow this method and you'll get a bunch of results of sellers local to you.

Go National

Not finding anything in your area? That's ok. You can go national. There are plenty of sellers on craigslist that will ship those pesky hamsters off to you - sometimes with no shipping charges, too.

Here's how you find these listings.

Go back to Google and type this into the search bar:

site:craigslist.org zhu zhu pets shipping

Got that?

Remember to remove any reference to city, state, county or region from the search phrase. You want a national search. Also, adding the word "shipping" to the end of the search string tells Google to look for classified listings where sellers have specified that they'd be willing to send you your toy hamsters in time for Christmas.

Happy Hamster Hunting.

Having difficulty finding Zhu Zhu Pets? Across the country shelves of local stores are without stock of the hot Zhu Zhu pets hamsters. If you're one of those hoping to get ahold of a Zhu Zhu hamster for your child this holiday season, you're not alone. Fortunately, you are not without help either! Here are a few surefire tips to help you find the best Zhu Zhu pet, at the best possible price, in time for Christmas Eve.

Forget Your Local Toy/Big Box Store: Unless you have "a friend" inside one of your local stores who's willing to pick up a few Zhu Zhu hamsters for you, you will probably face many back and forth trips to different stores in am attempt to get the Zhu Zhu pet(s) / play set of your choice. Not only that, but in the unlikely event you do find an Zhu Zhu hamster pet or accessory without any help, it may not be what you want, especially if it is one of the more popular Zhu Zhu Pets available.

If You Insist on Searching Through You Local Store: Call ahead and / or make friends with some of the people who run the store's toy department. Ask around and find out how often Zhu Zhu Pets shipments are likely appear, what day(s) they occur, and when the Zhu Zhu Pets are unpacked and placed on the sales floor. If you can get all of this information, then you may actually have a pretty good chance of finding the Zhu Zhu Pets you want. However, even getting the smallest bits of such information can be like pulling teeth; as most stores have a policy that forbids employees from releasing such valuable information out of fairness to other customers. If anything, you would be lucky to get any indication of when the next Zhu Zhu shipment might arrive, and how many days in advance you should plan to camp outside of the store waiting for them to arrive.

Shop Online: Unless you enjoy driving around all day looking for that one hamster your child really really wants, then it's time to check online for your hamster. At last count there were more than 1,000,000 web pages related to Zhu Zhu pets on the web. A good chunk of these sites sell Zhu Zhu Pets and accessories. This makes for an abundant supply available for purchase right at your fingertips. The only issue: finding the Zhu Zhu Pets you want, especially the Zhu Zhu hamsters, for anything less than 2x to 3x (or more) the retail price is currently very difficult. If a certain Zhu Zhu Pet is one of, if not the, toy your child "really really wants" this Christmas, you may have no choice but to pay a bit extra for that one special Zhu Zhu. Although it does not seem to be all that great an option at first, when you look at how much energy and time is wasted in your search through the local stores, a few extra dollars spent with an online merchant for the exact Zhu Zhu Pet your child wants is offset by the lost time and dollars that are saved by not having to go searching each and every store.

There you have it: Your best three options for finding that elusive Zhu Zhu pet and/or Zhu Zhu playset in time for Christmas. Time to get shopping (on-line!)