At Walmart, I found several items, but when faced with a 2-hour wait to buy them, I put them on the shelf and left. Think of how much more money they would make if they made it easy to pay them! But a lot of other stores have this problem too, year round, in a lesser way. You know, the situation where there are 15 registers, and only one is open and it has a very long line. You'd think that retail stores would put a priority on actually getting the money, but they don't. Over the years I'd had several situations where I've put stuff back on the shelf and walked out because the store was badly managed to the extent of having huge lines at one or two registers, and a huge row of closed registers.
Today, I decided to get a few photos of how the town is decorating itself for Christmas. First, is the Halloween billboard. Still up, almost one month after the Halloween Superstores have closed. I don't think that's the wisest use of advertising dollars, do you?
I see that the Christmas store "Holiday Traditions" has decorated itself for Christmas. Oh wait, they decorate themselves like that all year round.
I guess the economy isn't all that bad, even in Michigan, if a dog bakery can thrive. Just keep the male dogs away from the Christmas trees in the window.
I haven't been to Amical in years. It bills itself as a fine bistro. Next door, the State Theatre is showing several Christmas movies this season. Recently they showed "Elf", but I was not interested. I'm none too pleased with Will Ferrell after the damage he did to "Land of the Lost".
Across the street, there is a chocolate bar that has decorated for Christmas. Yes, a chocolate bar. I wonder if they have chocolate bars at the chocolate bar?
9 comments:
I go to Kohl's, but not at 4 am! Not anytime that day, in fact.
I have never understood the business model of those Halloween stores. Obviously, it works, because they keep doing it, but I just don't get how it makes any sense.
You're right on about making it easy to pay, and how failing to do that is a catastrophic mistake. (Although, to be fair, Wal Mart is still in business.) I look at all the businesses I patronize, and by far the ones that I patronize the most are the ones who make it EASY to spend my money. You would think it would be simple-the very idea of a store is a big building where they attempt to separate you from your money.
I think they motivate store managers poorly-they do in my company, at least. They reward people for keeping labor costs down instead of keeping profits up, not seeing that making it easier to separate people from their money is a win win for everybody. But cutting spending on labor is a short term win, and improving the customer experience is a theoretical, long term win. Most businesses appear to take the short term win every time.
One of my reader knows the Halloween store business much better than I do, and might chime in.
It makes sense to me. The places seem very very busy when I go in before Halloween (the few weeks they are open).
A local year-round costume and party favor business runs the Halloween stores. They always open two stores, both in abandoned storefronts. No long-term commitment necessary. When these abandoned storefronts ever get any permanent tenants, there will always be other abandoned storefronts somewhere to use.
Aw, Elf is sweet, Dmarks. I know Will Ferrell isn't always awesome, but he kind of is in Elf...really! :-)
And I have to comment on the chocolate bar. I mean, it sounds like heaven to me. I could totally walk in there and abuse chocolate.
Elf isn't so bad, really. Ferrell treats the material with respect, something he doesn't do in "Land of the Lost". But there is something off about the movie, like it is 45 minutes too long or something.
Well, I am not sure what I can add to the Halloween store discussion, without really getting into it. I am not sure how much profit they make. They do set up in other stores that have gone out of business, and I read this year that there were a record number of Halloween stores. There were just so many empty store fronts that no one with a Halloween store was turned away. Not sure if the stores themselves made record money, or if people spent the same amount of money spread out between more stores, or if they spent even less money because they used to work at the out of business places the stores were.
It is a wonder to me how these things operate, like how do they keep good managers year after year. I mean, if they are good, wouldn't they get year round jobs someplace else. I don't even quite get how there are just regular employees who work year after year. I worked there two years, and that was not the plan at all. I didn't get a regular job after the first year like I had planned, and when the manager called to ask me to come back the second year I really didn't have a good excuse not to. But somehow they have enough people come back from previous years to get the stores opened, and then they hired tons of new people. And then by the time everyone is getting used to the job, it is over, and you have to pack everything up and ship it somewhere.
That is another thing that I wonder about. While they do sell a lot of stuff half off the day after Halloween, the majority of the leftover stuff gets packed up and shipped and stored somewhere, and I would think that all that would cost too much. But they don't seem to mind.
Well, I bought stuff at Walmart on Black Friday, and I did not wait in line two hours. There was a long line when I got there, but by the time I actually found what I wanted to buy the line wasn't so bad. In fact, by the time I was ready, there was no wait at all.
But I do not get there right at the opening of the store. I'm not after those two big screen TVs that other people are trying to get. I tend to buy a lot of the small stuff, and I'm not going to kill myself or anyone else to get it. This year I went to one Walmart about half an hour after the sale started, didn't see most of what I wanted, looked at the long line and decided to go to a different store instead. So I think I was at the second store with most of what I wanted sometime between six-thirty and seven, and then after looking at some more stuff and making absolutely certain what I wanted to spend my limited funds on, I walked right up to a cashier with no line and got out of the store at about fifteen til eight.
I think it would be good to have plan B. I mean, it's great if you find what you want right away and can get in line and get out. But if after you find what you want and see that there is a two hour line, is there something else that you can do for the two hours and not stand in that line. Like, you know you need to buy clothes but you just haven't had the time to try on anything. Well, now you have two hours, if you brought someone else with you to watch the basket, or if you are like me and bought so little that you didn't need a basket. Or maybe you can bring an audio book to listen to while you wait in line. Or maybe there is a restaurant in the store and you can eat breakfast while everyone else is in line.
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Thanks for the clarification on what they did with the stuff at Halloween stores after Nov. 1. I was kind of wondering. It looks like our two Halloween stores had most of the stuff still left after Halloween.
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There was a Subway at the Walmart, but it was closed tighter than a drum during the sale. Not surprising: I don't think they serve early breakfast subs.
I did make a mistake by not bringing the book or something like that. But I think it all worked out: after I left Walmart, I went to Office Depot and got something we really needed, much more than the things at Walmart. These were in short supply. If I had been in line for 2 hours at Walmart, I would have missed entirely on the deal at Office Depot.
I did get a shopping cart at Walmart, but quickly I ran into a massive traffic jam and had to leave it behind.
At least they had them: I went to a sale once at Menard's where there were no shopping carts at all. Thankfully, Menard's also stocks rolling trash cans that don't make bad shopping carts.
Also, I'm sitting out the whole big-screen TV thing. We like our TV very much. I hope by the time it breaks or we need a big-screen TV, the prices get below $200 or something. They are going down, slowly.
The same for Blu-Ray. I guess they don't make any sense unless you have recent big-screen TV. One thing that might force the issue on these is if they stop coming out with movies on DVD.
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