underwhelmed

Sunday saw the first day of the new City Market.  I certainly hope they have things planned for that website – well more of a page right now.  The site made me cringe – all that arty white on grey and grey on white – could do with a bit of contrast.  Not much info on the site other than a location map.  They are on Twitter and that was a bit more informational as they announced the stall holders in the preceeding weeks.  

I was quite excited when I saw it announced but my experience was quite different to that of small acorns.  I’m guessing they got there much earlier than I did.   I intended to get there round 9am but I didn’t and by the time I got there it was overcrowded and I couldn’t see a thing. The only stalls I could see were the ones which were sold out. The space was a bit small for Wellington and the stalls were a bit crammed together.  It is great that so many turned out to support it and I will give it another go but my experience of the first week was nothing to rave about.

It seemed a wee bit pretentious.  It didn’t feel like it was anything special.  They should look at the popular famers’ market in Hastings, it has the same quality of produce in a more down to earth way.  On the plus side a number of the stall holders at the regular weekly produce market right next door commented on how much extra trade it had brought them.  Couldn’t they merge the markets? They’re so close they almost are.

Despite my negative first day experiences I hope it continues and I will return, just a few hours earlier next time.

guide to shoplifting

Have you ever wondered which stores actually use those security systems they have at their doors?  I’ve never given it another thought till I got my new bag with the 8 magnetic catches.

If a store has a magnetic system and actually bothers to turn it on I know about it.  Annoyingly my bag triggers those systems as I walk through the door.  The thing which amuses me is the stores which only turn it on sometimes.  I’m also fascinated that not once have I ever had someone come after me and challenge me. Part of me is pleased I don’t look like a shoplifter but I also wonder why the shops don’t care more.  It can’t be cheap to install one of those systems so I wonder why they bother if they either don’t use it or ignore it.

And of course I’m growing to hate the sound of beeping at those few stores who do use it.  I don’t really need my arrival announced to all shoppers.  I’ve noticed the only people who turn to observe what’s causing the beeping are other shoppers.  Curiously, in the Sydney CBD, the trend seems to be to turn the detection systems off at the weekend – a higher volume of shoppers with magnetic fastening bags causing too much noise I expect.

And no, of course I’m not going to tell you which stores.

i just want to shop

Hello blog, long time no post. Things have to excite me or  annoy me before I’ll post about them and of course they have to be topics which wont get me fired.  Last but not least I have to have time.

A couple of times lately i’ve gone out shopping and two things are reaaaaally annoying me.

1. What is with those giant pushchairs? The size of SUVs these monstrosities have no place in small shops. In fact the owners of these beasts probably have SUVs, I can’t imagine they’d fit in a normal sized vehicle. These are the pushchairs designed for the great outdoors and they make perfect sense their but in small shops and busy shopping malls they just get in the way. Only one thing makes it worse and that’s when parents let the slightly older child push – then no-one’s ankles are safe.

2. Sales which are not really sales. We seem to be in the season of endless sales at the moment along with any excuse for a sale. But they aren’t really the bargain they claim to be. In fact, recently when I was in Farmers pointing out that there discounted price was more then Dick Smiths current advertised price the assistant offered me the item at that price at Farmers since it used to be that price a week ago.  Now I’m not suggesting that Farmers raised their prices then put them on sale at slightly more than they cost the same day. According to the assitant the price had been raised for a whole week before they went on sale and I’m sure it was a coincidence. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel like a sale.

I’m also tired of the endless advertising of sales which end up being not much of a discount. No-one is fooled by the promise of “up to 50% off everything”. You just know  it is the $10 usb sticks which will be 50% off and the $4000 TV will be 5%.   At the moment it feels like everywhere is advertising a sale all the time but not offering anything all that spectacular.  I ’ve stopped looking at the advertising and don’t believe any of it.

too much customer service

This Saturday saw my fourth lot of online purchased groceries arrive. Woolworths are doing okay, but only okay. It looks like they went all out on the first experience but have gotten a little sloppy. The first time I ordered potatoes they were all the same size and perfect. The last lot were a mixed bunch and a couple were marked and I wouldn’t have picked them if I’d been in the store. The week before I ordered 2 bananas and got a bunch of 6. Also that week they’d got the wrong size tins of soup and tuna. Maybe they thought substituting the next size up would be okay – it wasn’t, but actually I think someone was just sloppy.

For the last 2 weeks, the bread I want hasn’t arrived – you’re telling me you don’t have a staple like that? Or is it that that particular brand doesn’t arrive on a Saturday in time for delivery – I wish I knew. I figured out the newspaper thing. You see I want the Dominion Post but it isn’t on the menu yet the Herald is so I select the Herald and ask for a substitution of the Dom. How hard would it be to load the Weekend Dominion? So now I have to play the bread game too – I hope I don’t have to do this with too many other items, it will get boring trying to figure what’s on the shelf for a Saturday delivery and what’s not. Actually it has surprised me some of the things they’ve not been able to deliver.

Sometimes as I select I’m bugged by the nagging feeling there’s a whole lot of products not online. Choice seems limited – sometimes I know it is because they’ve broken things into all sorts of crazy categories I just don’t care about. I still find it hard to believe they’ve got only one type of cous cous available. I was looking for batteries the other week and again they were missing the major brands – I mean who buys panasonic batteries as a matter of course? In some categories it feels like the bargain corner of unloved brands or the closest you can get to shopping at Lidl in NZ for those who know that gem of a supermarket in the UK.

The one thing I don’t yet trust woolies to deliver is the entire ingredients for a meal. I wish I could group items on my list – if you are missing any of the following then I don’t want any of them – don’t deliver the pasta without the pasta sauce.

Anyway, to the point of this post – I got another phone call from them at the weekend. This is the third phonecall and there’ve been two voice messages left as well. Honestly, I’m starting to feel a little hounded. The people have all been perfectly polite but I don’t want to talk to anymore woolworths employees about my shopping experience. I hate grocery shopping, this is supposed to let me spend less time doing it but I don’t want to spend even more time talking about it either. I gave lots of feedback the first time round and this week’s caller assures me they have that on file – well, great then, do something about it stop calling. My opinion on your crappy business focussed site hasn’t changed. Getting familiar with it isn’t going to make me like it anymore.  Just because your customers get used to your site doesn’t mean you can ignore doing something about it.  Okay, so I don’t expect it to have been dealt with in 3-4 weeks. I work on a website, these things can take many months. I guess it depends on how quickly you want to grow your business.  All I can hope is that they get some competition to help them sort their oddly arranged online aisles.

16 plastic bags

Online ordered groceries have arrived and everything was intact.  Somethings impressed me, somethings didn’t.

What went well?

• glass items were wrapped in newspaper
• all the veges look very fresh and unblemished
• everything had best before dates well into the future
• delivery was on time
• fantastic having someone else carry all the heavy stuff to my door

What didn’t go well

• 2 of my 3 saturday morning treats didn’t arrive
• One of the missing treats was the newspaper – now I have to go out and get one. Really, I don’t understand this. If you pre-pack everything too early to inlcude a newspaper, why put it as an option. Maybe there was a printing problem – if I’m being generous.
• there were 16 freaking plastic bags. SIXTEEN. And I didn’t order that much. In a supermarket I’d have packed into 3 smallish carry bags I have.  I can sort of see why they did it but it made me cringe. All the posibly able to contaminate items were bagged separately – dishwash liquid etc, as were the likely to be contaminated – smoked salmon, bread etc. The onions were double bagged – DOUBLE BAGGED – that seemed excessive, I know they smell, but 2 bags? Some of it seems to be because there’s a separate bag for the freezer, chilled, deli departments too. And yet the irony is not everything even comes in a bag. Bagged or not everything is packed into plastic crates – sort of the domestic equivalent of a bread crate.

So all in all how do I rate it? Well, the excited pleasure of it only being just after 11 on Saturday and knowing my fridge is full is pushing the whole experience to a 7 out of 10. I’ll do it again and now I know how the whole process goes I’ll feel more comfortable about opting for substitutions.

supermarkets, why do you torment me?

I hate grocery shopping.  I may have mentioned this before but I hate going to the supermarket with a passion.  Nothing bores me more than pushing a trolley up and down the aisles getting stuck behind dawdlers and aisle hogs.  Then there’s the torment of watching someone pack the tinned goods on top of the bread.

I decided to take the plunge and go online.  How hard can it be? Hmm… Having considered my online options, which are fairly limited I opted for Woolworths.  Honestly, what muppet at New World thought putting an ad for online shopping on their website was a good idea – WHEN THEY DON’T DO ONLINE SHOPPING. Sheesh. Anyway, back to Woolies. Registering was easy – possible too easy.  One thing annoyed me, endless mention of the onecard and the savings to be had but do you think they provided a link to apply for one? Okay, so I understand in the middle of one registration process they don’t want to send you off to another but for goodness sake would it have been too much trouble to add a box to the form “Sign me up for the Onecard” and dynamically add another page to the form for those who tick the box.

The shopping experience took some time – partly I think since I could not get my head around their taxonomy. It went to too finer a level, just show me all the rolls and buns don’t make me try and figure out what type. Browsing the aisles of words got a bit frustrating.  Making a list and searching turned out to be much easier. I realised too I have no idea what a carrot weighs.  Fortunately one of the few good things is that you can buy your veg by the kilo or piece. So I’d like to see a visual representation of the aisles and I want to see the product details. Don’t just show me the front of the packet, either let me rotate it or give me the data from the back of the packet.  If I can’t read the contents and nutritional value I don’t think I’d try something new in an online shop. Woolworths need to watch the labelling too. There were a couple of things I didn’t buy as the pictures didn’t match the words and I couldn’t be sure which I would get.

So, the order was submitted from the comfort of my couch.  I got the confirmation email, all fairly standard. I was sort of surprised there was no evidence of any checking on the first order. Sure enough “Wendy” contacted me at a highly inconvenient time to ask me if I knew I had ordered groceries. She then wanted my birthdate and address – over the phone! Hello, how stupid are you Woolworths? In this time of identity theft do you really expect me to hand this over to Wendy? How do I know she is who she says she is? You don’t say you are going to do this. How do I know it is genuine? The first time you order a pizza with Hell they make it clear they will phone you back to confirm. Why don’t you state this in your email notification. “If this is your first order we will phone you to verify”.  It isn’t rocket science. So many usability issues in one process.  I’m sure they can only get away with it due to the lack of competition.

Fingers crossed my groceries will arrive tomorrow morning complete with Saturday paper and fresh bread and delivered within a 2 and a half hour window which isn’t too bad. Will they be on time, will it live up to expectation and will the bread be on top of the tinned goods for once. In 12 hours or so I will know.

 

customer service – a thing of the past?

As much as I hate the expression “a customer is always right” it surprises me the number of times shop assistants seem to forget it. To be fair, the customer often isn’t right.  In fact the ones you will remember are often the rude and obnoxious with a little self-righteous to go with it. This is the customer who thinks though that you will abide by the ‘customer is always right’ mantra and behaves as though you owe them something.  You do owe them something – unfailing niceness, make them feel as though they are right (even when they aren’t).  As soon as you meet their rudeness with rudeness of your own no-one is going to win. 

What I don’t understand though is why when you enter some stores you are met with complete disdain. Do they not want my money?  I spent my varsity years in Dunedin and as much as I hate to admit it shop keepers during my varisty years treated students as potential shoplifters and time wasters with no money. Go shopping dressed as a student with a backpack and you could expect no service. Dress for a job interview and carry a handbag and you got all the service you could possibly want. Twenty years later and in Wellington  see similar behavious in some stores. If you don’t enter the store dressed as they’d like their customers to be they pretty much ignore you. Have they not watched Pretty Woman? Big mistake.

Funny thing is – it is always the overpriced stores which have the most overrated opinion of themselves. Really, is a friendly hello too much to ask?  Do I really have to dress up before you’ll speak to me?  I was going to relate an experience in a store which had really annoyed me – Wadehouse – but they’ve gone out of business! I don’t know the reasons why but they certainly have lost sales from me in the past.  I did take great delight in picking up a few bargains at ridiculous prices as they closed their doors.

dove, we need to talk

You’ve caused me to break a nail and skin a knuckle and I want to know what you’re going to do about it.

 It all started when I decided I couldn’t face the masses at the supermarket after work so decided to pop into one of the smaller stores and just grab the essentials I needed and something for dinner.  One of the things on my list was conditioner and in a rash move I decided it was time for a change.

I was lured by the display of a new Dove range pro-age, I did ponder whether I was really old enough but I’ve always had thin hair and who wouldn’t be attracted by the promise of thicker fuller hair.  So I’m not sure if my hair is looking thicker or not, I’ve been using it about a week or so now. What I’m not liking is the trauma involved in getting the shampoo open. One thing is for sure there’s no chance it is going to leak if I have to travel with it. The lid on the conditioner is fine but the shampoo is something else. I have reasonably youthful strong fingers but I find there’s just not enough plastic protruding upon which to grip, hence the broken nail. Plus there are too many sharp egdes on the plastic, combine that with the force required to open the bottle and you add a skinned knuckle or two to the mix.

So what do I think of it otherwise? I’m ambivalent about the scent – don’t love it, don’t hate it. The smell doesn’t wow me and make me feel luxurious.  After I’ve rinsed there’s an odd metalic smell.  I do like the fact the bottle doesn’t get slippery when wet. It is an odd shaped bottle to look at but easy to grip.  Though the shape causes me other problems – it is a bit big for my shelf of hair and body care products. It does untangle with ease – not quite as well as my previous conditioner but the final result once rinsed is acceptable.

Would I buy it again? Not sure, the fact it doesn’t fit on my shelf is a pain and the shampoo lid is annoying. If it turns out to do amazing things to my hair then I could be persuaded to transfer it to a bottle which does fit and doesn’t cause injury but it is going to have to work hard to find itself in my trolley again.

i’m grumpy therefore i blog

So perhaps grumpy is a little strong. Tonight I went to the supermarket and to be fair it isn’t something I enjoy.  I didn’t have much time so I went to the New World at the railway station.  That reminds me, New World – your advertisement is wrong.  You say you are the only supermarket in a railway station.  You’re not! Many places in the world have supermarkets in railway stations – it isn’t that special - really!

So what made me grumpy? It was all in the packing – if you can call it that. I don’t know why I bothered selecting the best and least blemished fruit I could. By the time checkout operator A had thumped the fruit on the scale,  shoved it into the bag and thrown a few tins in on top it was thoroughly bruised. The Easter eggs were chucked at the bottom of a bag and a bottle of shampoo thrown on top as well. I don’t think she gave it any thought.  She didn’t look grumpy, I suspect she was just grabbing and scanning and shoving each item in a bag, not much thought involved.

It made me think back to high school, a few years ago now.  I remember my friends who had jobs as packers at the supermarket were trained and tested before being let loose on a customer’s packing. They’d study tip sheets over lunch breaks memorising the order in which to pack, which item could be packed with which.  Does this happen anymore? I suspect it is all about speed these days and keeping the lines moving.

One of the things I like about the times I’ve lived in the UK is that you have to pack your own groceries. All the items for the fridge end up in one bag, likewise the fruit.  It makes unpacking a dream.  If I offer to pack here I usually get strange looks or am told I’ll pack too slowly. I wouldn’t want to pack other people’s groceries for a living but I’ll happily do my own.  With all the practise while I was in the UK, I’ll pack fast enough to keep up too.