Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Ryujin]

The last time I worked retail, the store manager/s got in more trouble for inventory loss than for anything else--including inventory gain. They had no incentive to mark expensive things as gone.

EDIT: Also, anyone who's worked retail for any length of time knows that an inventory listing of 1 can be any number of errors/mistakes/problems; while an inventory of 2+ means they probably have at least the one they can find and sell to you.

Oh, I'm well aware. My heart sank when I saw that they only listed 1.

I went home and immediately placed an online order for the same thing (multi-calibre gun cleaning kit). I got a call about a half an hour later from the same store saying, "Sorry, but we only have one and it's incomplete." "You can't just transfer the order to another store?" "No." "OK, please cancel it." "I can't. Please go online and cancel it yourself." Why in hell would you not be able to do any of that?! Absolutely stupid online model.

Complete idiocy. Any wonder that Amazon is a multi-multi-million dollar business?

EDIT - I should note that I was going to use a gift card that I had, from the same store, for a time that I went in to buy a can of spray paint that they said they had 5 of, but there were none on the shelf. The card was by way of apology.

No. What kind of hellscape are you shopping in?

Canadian Tire. I've stopped dealing with businesses completely over less than this.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Oh, I'm well aware. My heart sank when I saw that they only listed 1.

I went home and immediately placed an online order for the same thing (multi-calibre gun cleaning kit). I got a call about a half an hour later from the same store saying, "Sorry, but we only have one and it's incomplete." "You can't just transfer the order to another store?" "No." "OK, please cancel it." "I can't. Please go online and cancel it yourself." Why in hell would you not be able to do any of that?! Absolutely stupid online model.

Complete idiocy. Any wonder that Amazon is a multi-multi-million dollar business?

The way that brick and mortar stores seem intent on self-immolating is bizarre. You can't keep making it harder to shop at your stores at the same time that Amazon is openly coming for your business.

 

[dragoner]

Let's talk about D&D all the time, in every thread.

 

[Scribe]

Let's talk about D&D all the time, in every thread.

 

[dragoner]

It's happening

 

[Ryujin]

The way that brick and mortar stores seem intent on self-immolating is bizarre. You can't keep making it harder to shop at your stores at the same time that Amazon is openly coming for your business.

Brick & Mortar stores only really have two things going for them; customer service and the ability to see/handle the product in person.

Years ago I went to a local motorcycle accessories shop, looking for a specific product. A place that I'd been dealing with for a couple of decades, at that point. I knew that the product existed for use on other models of bike so just needed to have them look it up in their catalogues, then order it for me. When I got there, I had to wait for 20 minutes before someone came to the counter of the otherwise empty store. When they finally came out of the back two different people told me that product didn't exist. Not just that it wasn't made for my bike. It didn't exist. They didn't even check the catalogues. I went home and had what I wanted ordered, from an online supplier, in under 5 minutes. When I say "years ago", I mean almost 15 years, not today's online market.

The real kicker is that the owner, who I had known since something like 1987, went on Facebook the next week and ranted about how the online market was going to kill local business. You can bet that I had words for him.

 

[dbolack]

The way that brick and mortar stores seem intent on self-immolating is bizarre. You can't keep making it harder to shop at your stores at the same time that Amazon is openly coming for your business.

My wife works at a specialty clothing store that's one of the highest grossing and metricsy in the District and is constantly punished because they aren't growing at a high enough rate by reducing hours ( which has massively increased shrinkage ) but the biggest problem is that they usually have a better sale online than in the store and the store, while allowed to match it, isn't allowed to promote that they match it. So you have customers come in, try on volumes of things, tie up sales floor assistance, and then order in the app before even leaving the store - usually with it being a ship to store order....

It's baffling. It's like thety want to close the stores.

 

[Velderan]

My wife works at a specialty clothing store that's one of the highest grossing and metricsy in the District and is constantly punished because they aren't growing at a high enough rate by reducing hours ( which has massively increased shrinkage ) but the biggest problem is that they usually have a better sale online than in the store and the store, while allowed to match it, isn't allowed to promote that they match it. So you have customers come in, try on volumes of things, tie up sales floor assistance, and then order in the app before even leaving the store - usually with it being a ship to store order....

It's baffling. It's like thety want to close the stores.

For a long time Barnes and Noble wasn’t allowed to match their online prices and you couldn’t order online to pick the order up there. A $50 book on their shelf would be $30 online, but since their shipping was (and still is) very slow if you needed it sooner than a week or so, you either had to eat the $20 extra or buy it on Amazon to get it the next day.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For a long time Barnes and Noble wasn’t allowed to match their online prices and you couldn’t order online to pick the order up there. A $50 book on their shelf would be $30 online, but since their shipping was (and still is) very slow if you needed it sooner than a week or so, you either had to eat the $20 extra or buy it on Amazon to get it the next day.

Barnes & Noble pulling out of its tailspin by making their online stores and brick and mortar locations work together well has been nice to see as a consumer.

"Why, yes, I think I will go to my local store and pick it up instead, where you may then try and get me to buy all sorts of other stuff there."

 

[Deset Gled]

Barnes & Noble pulling out of its tailspin by making their online stores and brick and mortar locations work together well has been nice to see as a consumer.

Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, and Best Buy all seem to have gotten the whole "order online, pick up local" down pretty good as well. It's definitely stopped me from using Amazon a few times.