I am dragging my 7-year old son by the arm, and carrying my one-year old daughter, both of whom are not excited to be there. I'm there for one specific thing - a card box for my son's Pokemon cards.
When I walk in, the two store employees are talking to each other. I say in a loud voice to my son that we will only be there a few minutes, as soon as I find the card boxes (plenty loud enough for the attendants to hear). They continue their conversation, oblivious to my presence.
I walk through the store, saying several times, loud enough for them to hear, what I am looking for. They continue to ignore me. I could have asked them, but I didn't. I went through a lot of trouble to physically drive to their store, wasting gas, with two annoyed children, just to buy something I could have bought online with a click of a button, and these gentlemen ignored me. So I left, deciding that this store did not deserve my business.
An hour later, I was on my way home (still with grumpy kids), and as an afterthought pulled into another game shop located downtown in the old district. I walk in, the employee immediately asks me if I need help, he gets the stuff I need, which involved climbing a ladder to a top shelf, and to boot, gives me a copy of the free Black Crusade adventure.I ended up buying a couple of extra Pokemon packs from him.
Great shops are awesome, was the mall place one of them franchise deals.
ReplyDeleteThe mall place is a small chain. I won't mention names, because I don't want to judge a business on two employees behavior on a random Sunday afternoon. The point is that they have jobs in a retail industry under fire from the internet in the middle of a recession. They should probably be more concerned with sales than they were.
ReplyDeleteSo your firstborn was giving you a hard time...even though the errand was for him? Pokemon yo!
ReplyDeleteAs for the first place, yeah, if you don't make the store inviting and welcoming, you won't get repeat traffic.
As for the second store, yeah, they're awesome even I do have to pay retail prices:
http://miksminis.blogspot.com/2011/05/some-more-flgs-action.html
T-Bone, then you should come out to that great gaming shop, where we play Blood Bowl, specifically so you might come out once a month and play!
ReplyDeleteI was worried reading through your post...Happy that you found what sounds like a great shop. I fell like you about shopping online so I decided a couple of month ago to go get my stuff from my local. It was too late as the shop was closed down. Sorry, no uplifting ending here...
ReplyDelete