Dear Local Grocer:
I appreciate your courageous stand for Bygone Era Service to
your customers. Really, I do….I’m not one of those Millennial types who
uncritically fetishizes the newest, hippest thing at the expense of what is The
Best Thing. I like, for example, that you have fostered an atmosphere of
friendly, interpersonal warmth in your store. It is still nice to “know your
grocer.” I like the 1970’s-era carts; they remind me of going to the grocery
store with my Mom back in the day. I understand that you are smaller and locally
owned, and unfortunately this means your selection and pricing won’t be in the
league of the bigger stores. [Don’t worry…this isn’t some misguided and
ignorant hippie rant about GMO’s or Those Evil Terrible Big Corporate Demon
Stores or how We Must Shop At This Place In Order To Defeat Corporations. I’m a
grown-up, and actually get my information from places other than Salon.com and
The Huffington Post, so I know better.]
No, I go to your store mostly because you have managed to continue
carrying an excellent brand of Texas-made habanero salsa, while most of the
other stores around here cater to the Very White crowd who can’t handle true
heat. That, and I can get to your parking lot quicker and more conveniently
than crossing a busy street to get to the bigger store. And—to reiterate—just because
something is “new” does not make it an “improvement.” Conversely, however,
there are a few innovations that have cropped up in the last 30 years that DO
represent a better consumer experience in shopping, and I thought I’d help you
out by sharing five of these tips with you.
· Tip #1: Your items may be a
tad more expensive, but I’ll be more apt to buy them if they’re IN THE SAME
FREAKING PLACE EVERY TIME. I’m not sure if you guys get together at managerial
staff meetings and decide how often to play this game of “rearrange all the
shelves at random,” but you must understand that time is an invaluable resource
to me. If I can’t park, walk in, go to the correct aisle, get the product I
need, and get out….well, I’ll just stop coming in. If your habanero salsa was
on aisle three last week, I shouldn’t walk to that aisle this week and see
tampons. That’s just criminal.
·
Tip #2: Hire some checkers. I know that Auto Zone pioneered the preferred retail method of refusing to hire enough checkers to take care of the amount of customers that come in. O’Reilly’s quickly caught on to the genius of this marketing gimmick, and now it seems that everyone else has too (including the bigger stores). But you must understand how it short-circuits the customer to see rows and rows of checkout registers that are unmanned. I don’t need to hear about the expense; you already shelled out the dough to install 12 registers. Just having half of those with actual warm bodies manning them would have been money better spent.
Tip #2: Hire some checkers. I know that Auto Zone pioneered the preferred retail method of refusing to hire enough checkers to take care of the amount of customers that come in. O’Reilly’s quickly caught on to the genius of this marketing gimmick, and now it seems that everyone else has too (including the bigger stores). But you must understand how it short-circuits the customer to see rows and rows of checkout registers that are unmanned. I don’t need to hear about the expense; you already shelled out the dough to install 12 registers. Just having half of those with actual warm bodies manning them would have been money better spent.
·
Tip #3: Either put in an automated checkout line or establish a special line with a sign over it that says “Idiots Only.” I should not have to bring my ONE ITEM to the checkout line and have to wait behind Lottery Ticket Buying Moron. Nor should I have to stand there while Check-Writing Hillbilly hand-scrawls out an actual check (which the rest of us haven’t used since the Clinton Administration), complete with driver’s license number, and hands it to you to feed into a machine—that will then spit it back out and require you to interview Hillbilly further for more information. I understand that a significant percentage of your clientele come into your store for the human company….that’s why they stand at the register and blather on for a half hour about the weather with Register Chick, while multitudes gather in a single-file line behind them with grim-faced doom written on their visages, as if praying for the Apocalypse to end this torment quickly. BUT GIVE THESE GENIUSES THEIR OWN LINE. The rest of us can zip in and out….handing our money over to you in a more efficient fashion. That’s a good thing, right?
Tip #3: Either put in an automated checkout line or establish a special line with a sign over it that says “Idiots Only.” I should not have to bring my ONE ITEM to the checkout line and have to wait behind Lottery Ticket Buying Moron. Nor should I have to stand there while Check-Writing Hillbilly hand-scrawls out an actual check (which the rest of us haven’t used since the Clinton Administration), complete with driver’s license number, and hands it to you to feed into a machine—that will then spit it back out and require you to interview Hillbilly further for more information. I understand that a significant percentage of your clientele come into your store for the human company….that’s why they stand at the register and blather on for a half hour about the weather with Register Chick, while multitudes gather in a single-file line behind them with grim-faced doom written on their visages, as if praying for the Apocalypse to end this torment quickly. BUT GIVE THESE GENIUSES THEIR OWN LINE. The rest of us can zip in and out….handing our money over to you in a more efficient fashion. That’s a good thing, right?
·
Tip #4: Hire sentient beings to work the registers. I know it’s not rocket science, and I know that the literacy rate of each year’s high school graduates goes down at an alarming percentage. Still, would it kill you to put people behind those registers who aren’t oozing pus from any number of the 1,230 piercings in their faces? Can you hire people who can construct a complete sentence in conversation? Maybe someone who doesn’t look like she’s about to explode out of a tube top while she hacks up cigarette phlegm? If you’re trying to attract people to spend money in your store, try harder.
Tip #4: Hire sentient beings to work the registers. I know it’s not rocket science, and I know that the literacy rate of each year’s high school graduates goes down at an alarming percentage. Still, would it kill you to put people behind those registers who aren’t oozing pus from any number of the 1,230 piercings in their faces? Can you hire people who can construct a complete sentence in conversation? Maybe someone who doesn’t look like she’s about to explode out of a tube top while she hacks up cigarette phlegm? If you’re trying to attract people to spend money in your store, try harder.
·
Tip #5: Let’s decide—ONCE AND FOR ALL—which button to push for “credit.” I can’t imagine that there is a single human being alive who is still choosing “debit” over “credit” on the machine. We all now know that they both come out of your bank account immediately. The only difference is that, with the “credit” option, you haven’t given your PIN number to a stranger. We’ve all seen the exposes about how easy it is to install a number-reading machine that steals the numbers and empties the account; heck, the scam made its way into Sopranos episodes—15 years ago! So….for those of us who opt NOT to have our money stolen, why do you make it so difficult to select “credit”? I mean, seriously….one store has a machine that requires you to push the Red “X,” and another one requires you to actually hit “cancel,” while some actually do have “credit” as an option. Get on the same page, make things easy for the customer, and see how grateful we are to not have to swipe our cards more than once.
Tip #5: Let’s decide—ONCE AND FOR ALL—which button to push for “credit.” I can’t imagine that there is a single human being alive who is still choosing “debit” over “credit” on the machine. We all now know that they both come out of your bank account immediately. The only difference is that, with the “credit” option, you haven’t given your PIN number to a stranger. We’ve all seen the exposes about how easy it is to install a number-reading machine that steals the numbers and empties the account; heck, the scam made its way into Sopranos episodes—15 years ago! So….for those of us who opt NOT to have our money stolen, why do you make it so difficult to select “credit”? I mean, seriously….one store has a machine that requires you to push the Red “X,” and another one requires you to actually hit “cancel,” while some actually do have “credit” as an option. Get on the same page, make things easy for the customer, and see how grateful we are to not have to swipe our cards more than once.
I know change is difficult. But sometimes it’s necessary. If
I have to spend 15 minutes pushing past the Tampax and greeting cards to get to
my salsa, then wait in an interminable line behind Charlotte Check Casher, then
determinably avoid making eye contact with Register Hoodlum so as not to set
him or her off on a Grocery Store Murder Spree, then press “cancel” and realize
that “cancel” means something else in your store than it does in the one across
the street…..well, I’ll just go back to making my own salsa.
You’re welcome.
