I TRIED to buy local, but . . .

In My Humble Opinion
1

. . . they didn’t seem to want my business. (Inspired by one of the customer/service threads floating around here.)

Story #1

Shortly after I started freelancing, I decided that rather than keep trekking to my favorite office-supply place 40 miles away (featured in Story #2), I should try getting some of my stuff locally. So I went “downtown” (it’s a small town) to the office supply place. It was like an office museum-slash-gift shop: dusty knick-knacks among the old green-lined ledgers and Ticonderoga pencils. Very dark and rather sparsely populated shelves. When the clerk moseyed out of the back I explained to her that I would like to order some pencils and showed her the sample: Col-erase Blue, with the number right on the side. “Hmm, well how many do you want?” “I need about 6 dozen.” (long pause) “Well, I suppose I could order a box.” (They come a dozen to a box.) “Actually, I use these pretty heavily, so I’ll need more than that. If you could order me six boxes or so, that would be great. I can put a deposit down if you want.” (another long pause) “I’ll order a box.” She was just extremely reluctant to place such a large ( :rolleyes: ) order, even though I was insisting that yes, I really did want that many pencils.

So fine, she ordered the box, I went in a week later and paid for the damn thing, and I never went back. Sheesh. If she didn’t like taking special orders, she could have just said so and I’d have been on my merry way. No wonder they went out of business.

Story #2

So I went back to my favorite office/art-supply place 40 miles away. But soon I got into the habit of ordering online from Office Max, Staples, etc., and my favorite purveyor had no similar convenient system. One day when I was there I saw a sign advertising their new Web site. Great!

Whoops, not so great. No shopping cart system; I couldn’t even get in to look at the online catalog without registering, which involved e-mailing them and telling them I would like to set up an account. sigh So I do it, giving them my account info that they already have from my fax orders. A week goes by with no response. I inquire as to whether my e-mail arrived, and the guy e-mails me back, saying he’ll get to setting me up in a few days. A few more weeks pass and I nudge him again. A few days later he says it should be soon. (WTF?) Finally he e-mails me a username and password so I can get into the Secret Catalog. I e-mailed him back and said, “You know what? Never mind. At this speed, you cannot hope to compete with other online vendors with instant order systems. If it takes this long just for me to get into your system, how long will it take you to actually process and ship my order? So never mind and lotsa luck.”

This just amazed me because the clerks in the store were always so helpful, knew me by name (I was a good customer back when I was an art student), etc. There was no point in complaining because my e-mail correspondent was one of the owners. Sheesh again.

Your turn!

2

I suspect this is the same throughout small town USA. I know it is in my area. Bad customer service is the norm around here. I know we’re supposed to buy locally and support local businesses, but my experience is the same as yours. Unfriendly, slow employees. People who don’t seem to realize or care that they’re competing with Internet based stores that have lower prices, fast turnaround, and a large stock. Heck, even the brick-and-mortars do better than the locally owned stores; Wal*mart carries things that no other store in the area stocks.

I knew before I moved back to my hometown that one of the major reasons I’d be able to do so was the Internet. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck having to deal with the locals for everything; in most cases, they simply don’t appear interested in my business, even if I’m willing to wait a few extra days and pay a bit extra for the pleasure of keeping them around.

3

I’m working on my new condo which means daily (at least) trips to the home improvement type stores. My choices are A) locally owned hardware store in walking distance B) regionally owned home improvement chain and C) Big orange square nationally owned store. I would like to support local businesses when possible and have been to all three in the last week.

Choice A) Friendly greeting upon entering store. Wander around looking for plumbing fixtures even though there are at least 4 people ‘working’ there. Don’t have the part we need. (although later we found the door latch we needed and couldn’t find at B and C) Started to leave. Were stopped by employee “didja find what you needed?” Ummmm…no…we didn’t…that’s why we are leaving your store empty handed. “Whatreya lookin for?” Ummm…well…lots of things could work, but you don’t have any of them. "Oh…doya need this part? Yeah…but you don’t have them. They also carry off-brands of things of a lower quality. This is not a good business strategy.

Choice B) Good selection, but not everything. Some things aren’t in stock. Do you have more of these? You only have one out and I need three and the one you have looks like someone ran over it with a truck. “I’ll check the computer…what’s the SKU” Sorry…I don’t memorize SKU’s. He goes to get the SKU, comes back, it is wrong, he goes to get it again…comes back, puts it in the computer. “Nope, we just have the one” OK, when will you get more? “I don’t know, they seem to be going fast this week” Yeah…they’re on sale…you know…your sales flyer. “I can check other stores” Really…is that so… “nope, none in the area, but we have one” But I need three and you’d have to pay me to take the one you have. BTW the computer has a green only monitor and makes a strange humming noise when used. And don’t try to get paint mixed…its like asking for the soul of a first-borne child and you frequently have to hear the employee bitch about their cow-orkers. And then…when you try to check out…none of the cashiers can run their registers and none of the managers can help them run them. And they have lots of ‘holes’ in their stock where popular items are sold out.

Choice C) Help is even less educated about what they are selling than A and B. Unless you are replacing an entire something and hiring them to do the work, they aren’t interested. Do you have any door latches? “They come with the doors” yes, but we already have a door, it came with the condo. “we could order you something” I’m sure you could, but how would we know it is the right part. “well, what brand is your door?” how the Hell should I know, there is no ass label on the door, that only works on clothes. Ironically, they had almost the right part and didn’t even know it.

We tend to choose A for easy stuff, B for harder stuff, and probably won’t go back to C, but Damn, if anyone had good customer service, we’d go there in a heartbeat. I suppose I didn’t really make a case for the national chain, but the local stores really suck.

4

If the local businesses can’t compete on price or stock, their only hope is service. If they don’t have that, there’s not much reason left to be in business except as a hobby. At least in a capitalistic economy.

Unless they have enough customers that don’t care and just want to patronize their brother-in-law’s emporium.

5

I’ve actually been having the opposite experiances. I’m in a town of 20,000 people, half an hour from a multi-million person city.

Hardware - The local hardware store just doubled their size. The employees usually ask as you enter if they can help you find something. They also use a radio system, and will call the person in the area you are heading to, so that person 2 can be ready to help you out. Not the worlds greatest inventory, but just Sunday, the manager suggested I try one of the competition, because he didn’t have want I needed, but the other guys do.

Liquor store - Heck, they order me what ever it is I’ve hear about and want to try. They then give me a call when it’s in.

Garden/yard store - As much time as I want to spend chatting about possible shrubs for the back yard, they are willing to stand there and share their knowledge.

Drycleaners - They know my SO by sight and are pulling up his shirts as we walk in.

6

Yeah, I don’t think it’s specifically a small-town/big-city thing, or even mom-n-pop/chain-store thing. My experience has been all over the map.

Local hardware store: has a chain name, but it’s still the same guys running it. LIttle rinky-dink place with piles of shit everywhere, but it seems that most of the time, whatever you need, they have it. It’s like Don Martin’s “Glump’s Market.”

Local grocery: We used to have only one, probably the smallest store in the regional chain with the worst selection. Service is OK and employees are nice, but the produce department, for example, is for shit. Last year we finally got a second, locally owned store. Nice selection for its size, clean, attractive displays, organics and imported goodies, great deli and butcher departments, helpful employees. The other store actually had to clean up their act to match the newcomer.

Local “department store”: We don’t even rate a Wal-Mart; we have a Pamida, which is like Walmart’s armpit. Terrible selection (heavy on no-name dollar-store junk), awful “service” (usually only the service desk is open to check you out, leaving the five register aisles empty, and the cashiers are all slow as molasses), dirty and messy. The really irksome thing is the hand-printed signs all over the place: “You Could Drive to the Next County, But Why?” Oh, let me count the ways. We only shop there when we absolutely don’t have the time to go elsewhere.

We have some places like this too. But you can sell only so much stuff to your friends!

7

I tried buying a wool winter coat here in M’boro/Nashville. Not a suit coat, a warm winter coat.

Looked everywhere, & couldn’t find anything but shoddy cr@p made of synthetics in M’boro.
Nashville–could find a woll pea coat…for $130! :eek:
Went online–wool fo’castle coat, $49, with S&H. Love it.

Nobody bothered to stock quality goods, only trash.

8

Yes!! Another victory for “evil” corporations! BOOYA!!
I love how people have the misguided notion that smaller companies are somehow morally superior. Why the hell should I go out of my way and pay higher prices for crappy service so some dickhead can lounge about his country store all day?