161–170 of 310 posts
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Why are you harassing and insulting them in the first place? Nobody taught you how to speak politely?
The GP said to tell the employee to get off his butt, which is usually interpreted as rude.
I've basically switched to buying almost everything online, after getting a hard time from my ex (mother of my daughter) for risking picking up COVID with my regular trips to the grocery store, which is a short walk from my home. (Bizarrely enough, I ended up catching it later when I bought a used car, because I needed to take public transportation to bring my old car home. And yes, my daughter and my ex ended up catching it as well, and they weren't happy).
Until the pandemic is over, I don't see how this sort of thing is a positive. I'm not convinced it is even then, it seems a bit like reminding people of print publications every time they browse the web. The world is changing, tilting at windmills isn't going to change it back.
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You can try them on in the local store and then buy the same size online. Works wonders for some products like brand sneakers or jeans.
FYI, things like jeans can have a lot of size variability between seemingly identical pairs (same brand, model, and nominal size). My understanding is that this is because the denim is stacked and then die cut in the factory. Since denim is highly deformable, the cut outs from the top of the stack are not the same size as the cut out from the bottom of the stack. And this can lead to considerable size variance within…
If I buy two of the same pair, the match each other throughout their lifespan.
Small business near me never seem to have online catalogues or stock levels. Hunting for a specific product (for example a washing line) might involve walking into 3 different shops and guessing which shop might sell what you need. When you arrive in the shop, they always arrange aisles differently so unless you have 20 minutes to hunt you might not find it either. Whereas online it's a simple search and click "buy n…
Small business near me never seem to have online catalogues or stock levels. Hunting for a specific product (for example a washing line) might involve walking into 3 different shops and guessing which shop might sell what you need. When you arrive in the shop, they always arrange aisles differently so unless you have 20 minutes to hunt you might not find it either. Whereas online it's a simple search and click "buy n…
I’m sorry, I can’t help but point out that you could call the store before you left your house. And when in the store, you could ask a sales associate for help. Just sayin!
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Being able to test clothes before you buy them to so if they fit is so much more convenient than ordering the wrong size online.
Kohls solves this by giving you 120 day returns so I disagree. Plus you don't have to sort through everything and check the prices in store. Just wait for it to show up, try it out. Keep it if it's good, ditch it if it's not.
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Last weekend, I went looking for a particular kind of garment. I wasn't hopeful, but I thought I would give local shops a chance. I did it by going around, looking in various local stores, and talking to people. I did this in four or so different spots. I spent probably three to four hours at it. After that process, I was no closer to the garment I sought than I had been when I woke up. What I had learned from my eff…
I guess it really depends on what you're looking for. If you're buying a book online, it might be worth going to a local bookstore and checking out the other books on the same shelf. You might find a better book (by being able to skim it quickly), or you might come across another book about a hobby you've been wanting to learn more about along the way. Visiting physical stores allows for "happy accidents" that wouldn…
Instead, I wander the aisles, then pick up my phone and buy the ebook on Amazon.
I can see the reasoning behind this. People don't want to help Bezos get another holiday home; they would rather funnel money into local businesses for obvious reasons (like helping a little boy buy his team jersey or a little girl get dance lessons for example). One caveat to the local alternatives is the friction involved if it's an e-commerce store where users have to register their details. Most will happily regi…
I used to default to Amazon because of this. But nowadays many shops don't need an account anymore, the browser can autofill that data and credit cards with 3d secure (basically 2fa) seem safe enough. Finding those shops to me is now the "hardest" part.
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Unfortunately, things can get quite messy when expert advice gets conflated with inventory management. And most shops struggling to survive against online doesn't make that better at at all. We really need to find some middle ground where foot-on-the-ground shop continue to exist, but not as an antithesis to online but as an extension. For bikes (of the pedal-pushing variety), there's now a market for what is effecti…
You're right, the inventory management part gets tricky. On the other hand they claim to only have inventory they trust and promote. So it becomes a question of "Do I trust this influencer's opinion?" I've seen modern direct-to-consumer brands use the approach you mention. Their revenue stream is instagram ads and online retail, but they also have physical shops in bougie locations where you can go browse and talk to…
Doesn't matter if it's about size and fit. But I guess that's a problem that is very specific to human powered bikes, where an inexperienced rider can make wildly wrong choices based on just trying a few options (some of the best fits could take a year of regular riding for getting used to). There are lots of online shops in that field that make Amazon pale in both price and inventory depth (e.g. literally hundreds of different bar tapes, probably thousands if you count colors separately), I wonder if there could be an upmark percentage that would be acceptable to both retailers/post-retailers and customers for substituting the package delivery hassle with store pickup. Conventional retail competing with that choice is hopeless in a market consisting of nerd hobbyists. The old guard always thinks that customers only buy online because it's so much cheaper, but choice makes at least as much difference.
I suspect that the seemingly obvious hybrid distribution simply hasn't been done yet at scale because the legalities of customer protection require one party to be on the hook when things don't go so well and the online side of the equally wants to get rid of that so desperately that they wouldn't be interested in any arrangement that wouldn't provide for that and the retailer side is fully aware that they would never get a slice of the pie big enough to make up for those risks.