Comments on: Down With Big Box!

By: Shauna

Shauna — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:35:00 +0000

Ugh – what an awful experience! One of the many reasons I don’t miss retail. Your story seemed more like an episode of Seinfeld when Jerry rents the car and gets to the rental booth and they don’t have any cars left. Go small business and happy holidays!! Sending love from Oregon!

By: Manderly-Rose

Manderly-Rose — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:56:00 +0000

OMG! Tis the season for stupidity! I refuse to shop at more and more “big” stores these days. I love your term “Evil Empire”. My evil empire is WalMart. I love that someone else uses the same phrase

I hope you get your camera and that your daughter loves it.

By: Christy

Christy — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 05:00:00 +0000

How SO frustrating. Sometimes you get the feeling that they really DON’T care because as long as they are still getting paid, what does it matter?

By: Helen

Helen — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 18:34:00 +0000

Yep, I think NOT shopping there anymore is probably the best way to deal with a customer service issue that the store doesn’t bother to make right.
I bought the camera yesterday at PhotoExpert:-) (last pink one they had!)

By: Jessica

Jessica — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:05:00 +0000

James says that I’m a customer service nazi but I don’t care. I was in the service industry for years and made the crappy wages and still bent over backwards to make sure customers were happy…because that was my job.

We had a similar experience at Best Buy last year. They didn’t have the advertised product in stock…or the next closest thing…or the next. When we asked the woman in the computer department if she could help us out and/or recommend something she DID shrug! We were seriously pissed. We walked out and went to Circuit City, where they were super helpful…and we spent $3500.
We don’t shop at Best Buy anymore…

By: Helen

Helen — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:53:00 +0000

Thanks Dan. This wasn’t really a warehouse situation. They just had a little room behind the CS desk where all the online ordered items were set aside. I’m sure it was sold intentionally. That’s my point.
I know it happens all the time…that’s also my point!

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:41:00 +0000

In their defence, they only do things like this because they hate their customers, and in fact all human life.

Don't get too upset at the CS people - chances are the salespeople sold it anyway (the system allows this), probably intentionally. On top of that, it's trivially easy to lose things in the warehouse.

Having been the warehouse staff responsible for finding things the salespeople have sold but we can't actually find, I can assert that this stuff happens ALL THE TIME. I can't count the times when a salesperson has had to stall a customer for over an hour while we looked for one of the five (!!) large speaker sets that the computer erroneously said we had in stock.

The smaller the store, the easier it is to keep track of inventory.

By: BonTons

BonTons — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:32:00 +0000

Talk about fustrating. If only the kids knew what we go thru to get them that perfect gift….I’m sure your daughter will love her present!

By: ingermaaike

ingermaaike — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:04:00 +0000

Arrgghh that “sorry can’t be helped wasn’t my fault” look. Wants you to want to jump over the counter to do some vigorous shaking! Yay for the little guy that cares :0D