Unhappy Birthdays

Although we originally promised to use this weblog to rant about the sorry state of ecommerce, it's still my preferred means of shopping. At Christmas this is even truer, as traditional shopping becomes an absolute nightmare. More than ever, shop assistants seem to resent being interrupted from their job by customers, as they have so many more important things to do like stacking the shelves, answering the phones and chatting to their friends.

On Friday, needing a decorative gift bag for a bottle of vodka, I tried Birthdays, where I noticed that the one I liked was in a special 3 for 2 offer. Knowing that I could easily use the others I decided to take the 3. I fought my way through the narrow aisle to the counter, only to discover that there was only one shop assistant serving, and that I had to fight my way half-way back down the other narrow aisle to the end of the queue. Three other employees hovered by the stock room door, presumably so they could make a quick getaway if any one approached to ask a question.

When it was finally my time to be served, I handed over my three bags, and prepared to pay my £4.98. When I was asked rather for £7.47, I explained that the bags were in the offer. The shop assistant retorted that as there weren't any promotional stickers on the bags they could not be on offer. When I tried to explain that I had deliberately searched for bags without the stickers as I didn't think I would be able to remove them without damaging the bags, she called for the manager, who, without checking into the matter, reiterated that if they had no stickers they couldn't be in the offer. When I again pointed out that other identical bags had the stickers, she snippily stated that "someone must have just stuck those on".

As the manager disappeared back into the stock room, the assistant asked if I still wanted to buy the bags, and looked really put out when I told her that I would only buy one bag. As this meant cancelling the other items, she needed to get the manager to come back out again to change the details on the till. By now the queue behind me stretched the whole length of the shop, but of course none of the loitering staff deigned to open up another till.

When the manager finally returned to adjust the till, she discovered that the bags actually were on offer, that the till had automatically taken the discount, and what was my problem? Losing patience I asked what made her think that £2.49 times two was £7.47? Looking puzzled she checked the till again, and discovered that the assistant had actually rang through four bags. They removed one, and with the matter now "solved", perfunctorily took my £5 and moved on to the next customer.

Like most customers I won't make any sort of complaint about this. Instead, I'll do what Sam Walton always took great pains to warn his staff about:

There is only one boss: the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.