Saturday, May 14, 2011

The recession will never end until stores figure out how to let us buy stuff. Easily.

Man, you have to really, really, want something these days to get a store to sell something to you.

Back in the good old days - if you saw something on a store shelf with a price tag, you could reasonably expect that store actually had that item. If you wanted to buy it, you'd point at the thing, and they'd bring a fresh one from the back of the store. You left happy.

Now you have to go through all sorts of crap. Just to buy things. Normal things.

Sometime last week my television crapped out on me.

So, on Friday we ran down to Fry's. Picked out a television we liked. Only to find out the one we picked out, they wouldn't let us take it home ourselves. Not that they didn't have one, just that they wouldn't let us take it. It *had* to be delivered. For an extra 40 dollar charge. And the soonest we could have it would be Monday. We passed. Which bummed out the sales guy. I was all ready to buy, and I let him know that he'd lost the sales b/c of the delivery policy.

We come back to the house and surf the Best Buy website. Which claims they have the television in stock. We call Best Buy. They claim they have one and have set it aside for us. When we get there, they don't have the TV. Good news though. They have 106 of them sitting in a warehouse in the city I live. However the warehouse closed at 7:00.

Oh we'd already been at the store for about an hour because it takes along time to find out if you can buy something. If they have them. Where they have them. By 6:00 we got that sorted out, and just needed to pay and run to the warehouse. Which was a monumental event. It took us more than 30 minutes to check out. Despite the fact I was just leaving with a sheet of paper.

To be continued....

3 comments:

  1. Y'all have a Costco nearby? Some of my techie friends would rather buy home electronics there than at Fry's or Best Buy any day. (I hate BB's customer-no-service; haven't set foot in there for years.)

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  2. I have to admit - Costco makes me a little rage filled ball. I am not a very good shopper. I try to avoid places where I might get stuck behind a giant SUV of a cart waiting to get free food. As much as I hear their electronics are pretty sweet. Just can't do it.

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  3. I know what you mean. My friends keep telling me to get a Costco card, but I haven't had one in five years because I hate shopping anyway, and even more so with crowds (hence the 6:00am Wally World trips). One time I actually went to Costco during the week before Christmas. That was utter stupidity and definitely murderous-rage-inducing. But I had to go, because they had the complete sets of all the Babylon 5 seasons sale... :P

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