Best Buy, Circuit City, et al. I just want a little minisystem for my dear mom and a few other things. Got a lot on my mind and want peace and quiet. You go to a big box store and there’s blaring hiphop music, everything’s wide open and everyone is looking at you. You can’t actually listen to the thing you’re looking at. You’ve got little money and the aggressive salesbastards pounce on you. You just try to look at something and they come at you and ask you if you need help, like you’re a criminal for browsing and you need to move along. Fucking hiphop music has given me such a headache I can’t compose a decent post but here it is. I’m sure this has been done before, better than this.
Doesn’t anybody sell consumer-grade electronics in a quiet environment? Audiophile shops are usually decent, but I’m not in that league now. What is wrong with the world?
I personally despise Abercrombie and Fitch for this reason. On my thrice-yearly trips to a shopping mall, I am assaulted by their insanely loud music while walking down the other side of the mall. I really should have to go inside the store to experience the idiocy, don’t you think?
Once in my entire life I went into an A&F store, with a friend who wanted some pants. I ended up sitting on the couches with all the moms, all of whom looked as if they were developing the same headache I was getting. Yech.
I’m really not in their target market, so I suppose it’s fine that I don’t like the music. But keep it down to a dull roar, hmmm? At least outside the store?
I hate going into Future Shop or HMV to look for DVDs for my husband because of the music they have cranked up too loud. The music and its volume must appeal to some segment of their customers, but looking around, I’d say it does NOT appeal to the majority of us.
You haven’t heard loud obnoxious music until you go to a Hollister clothing store. They have the music cranked up to club levels in there. Seriously. I’m not saying that in an “its pretty loud for a store” way. I’m saying it in a “the music is as loud as a dance club for real” way. I hate that fucking store with a passion.
Best Buy and Circuit City have my votes for “most hated stores.” In addition to the noise and the aggressive salesbastards, they contain way, way too many adults who need to spend their money on things other than toys. Like, say, dental work.
I have a minor tendency towards social anxiety, and those stores trigger it every time. I’ve never made it through the checkout–I have to just LEAVE.
There’s a Hollister store at a local mall, and until the most recent time I was at this mall, I honestly thought it was a restaurant. It’s dimly lit inside, there’s loud music cranking away, and they have the entrance set up to look like a patio with fake tropical plants and stuff. I swear I thought it was a restaurant/bar.
I think that the stores don’t want you to actually think about your purchase, just buy it and get out and make room for the next sucker. I wish that there was some sort of noise pollution law that would apply to stores. And restaurants too, now that I think about it. After just an hour or so at a noisy restaurant, my ears are ringing. I wonder how much hearing loss the staff suffers at such places?
What’s wrong is that you’re not BestBuy’s target consumer. Their target consumer is young, dependently wealthy, and deaf from listening to music via earbuds for most of their lives.
Up until pretty recently, the noise background in the nearby Best Buys and Circuit Citys were no different from what you’d find in Office Depot. But I went into the Best Buy at Potomac Yards in Alexandria to look for something several months ago while my wife was shopping in Target at the same center, and the level of allegedly musical noise just about drove me nuts. I mean, ‘wanting to pull racks of merchandise down and slam them against walls and floors’ nuts. When I realized what their environment was doing to me, I got out as quickly as I could. Haven’t been back.
My first thought upon reading the thread was Hollister. I went in there last week for the first- and last- time in my life, only to buy my nephew a gift card for Christmas. Holy Jesus, what a crappy store. It’s loud as hell and so dimly lit, it’s a wonder they get any sales at all. My wife asked me to go get the gift card because, with our -3 and 5-year old tagging along, she was afraid to take them in there because of the volume. Now, I know I’m not that much of a cranky old man (at 39)- I like the Red Hot Chili Peppers (what they happened to be blaring that particular day), and the style of clothing isn’t as bad as much of what I see the kids wearing these days. But that place just about drove me nuts.
It’s as if they’re conducting a social experiment- let’s see how much we can alienate society at large and still run a successful business.
I only go in A&F when they have their models there. Hmm, hot ad model boys in just jeans…sometimes just underwear…almost makes the trip to the mall worth it.
Wow. I just went into my local Best Buy on Friday. I remember thinking how nice and soothing the music was - they were playing instrumental Christmas songs, and fairly softly. It wwas a big difference from the rest of the mall.
I just have to speak up again for the local Best Buy in Albany - they ask me politely, once, to buy the warranty/batteries/what have you and then shut up. They’re nice and some of the cashiers are pretty cute! (Both male and female). I wish I could extend my BB experiences to all of you because I get some pretty nifty deals there, and I am part of the Rewards Zone club and spend enough to merit it. I get a few $5 store coupons every year.
I do agree with the Abercrombie rant! They are across the hall. Plus we have several stores that market what they call “urban” clothes - pants down to the knees, whatever. I don’t go into these stores because I don’t wear those clothes, but I can hear the hip-hop/rap/reggae across the hall anyway!
I agree. The first time I went into a BB was, I swore, the last time I’d ever go into a BB. I had a lambrusco-type headache within minutes. Years later I was forced against my will to enter another BB (they had driven all competitors out of business), and actually found it to be a not entirely unpleasant experience. I’ve been back many times since.
I’ll nominate The Body Shop for annoyingly loud music. One time I saw an outfit in there that I wanted to try on, but I decided not to because I couldn’t endure the noise for that long.
I made the mistake of entering a “BrandSmart USA” once. I lasted approximately five minutes before I fled. I’ve never had a panic attack, but I really felt as though one were coming on. That place was a chthonian nightmare of flurorescent light, earsplitting noise, and signage gaudily lettered in day-glo orange and blue. They could be giving away plasma TVs and I wouldn’t go back.
I guess I should’ve known better just from the highly obnoxious exterior design of the building. but I was lured in by the promise of cheap electronics. Sorry— to me, no price is low enough for me to patronize a store that makes Wal-Mart seem subdued and tasteful.
I work at a Circuit City (ugh). When I started in September, the music was pretty damn loud. All newer, obnoxious music. But over the last few months I’ve either learned to ignore it or it’s gotten quieter. I think it has gotten quieter since we switched to satellite radio - they finally turned the volume down. I sometimes play music in my department on the computer there, but always softly and I turn it off it it’s busy. Neil Young and Guster and the Beatles and stuff like that. Roadshop is always blaring music, but it makes sense there, and it’s in a seperate garage area. But we’ve had a Christmas XM or Sirius station on for a month straight now and I’m about to kill myself. I know where they hide it but I’ll get in trouble if I change it.
I went in to Express one day and they were BLARING some crap French new wave or something and it was the same lyric repeated over and over. I swear they were looping the song too. Hollister is the worst - I had to go in there to get a gift card for my cousin - music was so loud I could barely hear the clerk. And it’s dark as fuck in there; I don’t know how any one can pick out clothes in that environment. I prefer Gap - well lit. Hollister and Abercrombie both seem to have speakers on the outside of the store as well.
I seldom go to our local mall because I am not a mall’s target customer. I know this because 99% of the stores are seemingly targeted at teenagers, both in style of clothes and volume and style of music.
Also, when I do go and I’d like to grab some lunch while I’m there, it’s an ordeal to go to the food court. Every food stall is blaring music, the junk food sellers shout, trophy wives chatter on their cell phones, and swirling hordes of children scream and sob. The din is astounding. It’s like being inside a giant video parlor which is inside a massive Chuck E. Cheese’s. Like Vinyl Turnip, I start to feel like I’m having a panic attack and can’t leave quickly enough.
It’s pretty absurd. Folks in my age range have a bunch of disposable income, yet we’re driven from today’s stores by the racket and the inane assortment of merchandise. Why doesn’t someone wise up?
