"Seasonal" and "In Stock" apparently don't mean what I think they mean

The BBQ Pit
1

The gas logs in our living room are leaking a little bit, and need to be replaced. It isn’t a big deal; it’s a matter of screwing the old set off and the new ones on. Nobody had any in stock locally, and since we’re throwing a party next weekend and wanted the new ones in before then, I drove up to Lexington today to pick up a new set.

You’d think I was trying to buy a camel. From the looks on the salespeoples’ faces when I asked for a set of gas logs that I could put in my car and take home with me today, I might as well have said, “I wish to purchase a live camel.” Oh, we don’t have those, they said, baffled that anyone would ask for this fixture found in just about every new house in America today.

Lowe’s and Home Depot gave me very similar, especially baffling responses–“that’s a seasonal item. We don’t have any more. We’ve got the air conditioners and fans and stuff in now.”

Two things about that. First of all, it’s fucking February. What season are you waiting for, Ultra-Winter? It’s also one of the coldest winters we’ve had around here in years. That “clunk” sound you keep hearing is the sound of actual balls falling off of actual brass monkeys. I just refuse to believe that more people are looking to buy air conditioners now than heating accessories, because I’m having trouble even typing the words “air conditioner” right now without my teeth chattering. (My wife tells me that this is the same phenomenon that keep you from finding a swimsuit or a pair of shorts in July, something I complain about annually. Am I the only person on Earth who buys stuff when he actually needs it?)

Second, when the clerk at Lowe’s told me this, we were standing in front of a very large, floor-to-ceiling, prime-retail-space display of…wait for it…turkey fryers. Dozens of them, and dozens of giant boxes of peanut oil. I was going to point out the bad comedy sketch we were acting out to the clerk, but he didn’t seem like he’d appreciate it.

I finally found a place that said they were open and that they had plenty in stock…but when I got there, I found that the ones they had in stock were at their warehouse store, which was across town and closed on Sunday. Silly me, to think that “in stock” means “you can drive off with it”. “You can pick it up tomorrow,” they said. I could, except that I live two hours away!

I should just give up buying stuff.

2

Hey, I can get you a good deal on a camel!!

Stick it in the corner of your living room, and its warm (if foetid) breath will have you and your guests all toasty in no time. I’ll throw in the gas-masks at no extra cost.

:smiley:

3

I don’t get the seasonal thing either. Two weeks ago I tried to buy long underwear at a local Target. All I could find were a few XXL and S sized ones - in the “clearance” section. It was 20 degrees outside, you’d think people would still be buying them…

4

Odd that you should bring this up today.

When I was at work today, I asked one of the ladies in Hardware if we still carried winter gloves (I couldn’t find them where they were supposed to be). She told me that we stopped carrying them right around the same time the lawnmowers came in. :confused:

Um, didn’t we just get a shitload of snow not 5 days ago? Don’t we still have big piles of snow and ice everywhere? Isn’t it still February?

So, my response to her was:

“What the hell kind of fucking stupid practice is that? Less than a week ago, the whole front of the store was packed almost to overflowing, with snowblowers. Now we’re selling LAWNMOWERS? It’s going to be at least 2 more months before I even see my lawn again.”

She laughed at me.

I guess I just don’t understand. I work in Floor and Wall. We don’t really have seasonal stuff. We have a winter storage event in January but we still sell totes during the rest of the year, just not in such large amounts.

I find myself glad that I don’t work in garden.

And I have no clue at all what a gas log is. I’ve never even seen a gas fireplace. I’m not super concerned about it though since that’s not likely to be a question I’ll be asked any time soon. I do get people asking for fireproof hearth rugs. That one is easy. No.

5

Reminds me of my fruitless search last winter for a dehumidifier. Early winter, none to be had. That’s a seasonal thing too – there’s tons in the stores now, and we’re still in high summer.

But I have my eye on one, and I’ve asked the salesman (who I know) very nicely not to sell it until I get round to buying it later on this month.

There is a difference between “in stock” and “in store” but that doesn’t help when there’s a 2-hour drive though, sorry, DoctorJ.

6

Did winter sneak up on you or something? Did you somehow forget that it was going to get cold and snow and stuff? Why would you wait until February to buy a pair of gloves?

What is “obvious” is going to depend on which person is spending thousands of dollars on merchandise to stock their store with stuff that nobody is going to want in 6 weeks. Do that a few seasons in a row and you’ll never take the “CLEARANCE” sign out of your window.

7

Up till recently, winter has been relatively mild in the Midwest. Then it suddenly hit. I can understand a prson not needing gloves until February this year. I can also understand (in a way) the shops getting rid of their unsold supplies of gloves, snow-blowers, etc.

8

HA! Yes! It’s dang cold (single digits) here in PA. We tried to find warm sweatpants for my girls (ages 3 & 4) and all the stores are carrying are shorts, bathing suits and summer-type items!!!

This has been the mode of clothing stores forever. I’ve never understood it. Thank goodness for online shopping, where I can always find someone who sells what I NEED as opposed to what some shmuck thinks we should be buying.

9

I have actually been told that an item I wanted wasn’t sold any longer, because ‘it kept selling out’. :confused: :eek:

10

Hey, I was glove-shopping last week because my gloves got ruined. Shit happens and you need to get new gloves. You should be able to buy them in February.

11

I don’t understand this in the slightest even after a year working for the Biggest Evil Retailer On The Planet. All I could do was say, “I don’t know why we do it this way either!” to somewhat irritated customers. Most of them were understanding because it seems to be the way things work. But I wish I knew why!

And I don’t see why it should be so odd to want gloves in February. You lost one of a pair (that happened to me a couple of weeks ago), you might have just moved from a warm climate to a cold one.

We carried school uniforms, since almost all schools in Louisiana (my former abode) wear them. We only got them in at the beginning of the school year, though. If your kid outgrew them, if you moved in from elsewhere, you were screwed as far as Wally World was concerned. Not that I’d buy their uniforms anyway, but they really should have carried them through the whole school year!

12

I’m prone to lose things like gloves, or to decide in the middle of winter that I need a warmer/lighter/dressier coat. I also replace items of clothing when the previous ones wear out, which means I’ll often need shorts in the middle of July.

Similarly, had I known in the heat of July that our gas logs would need to be replaced, I would have gone for it back then.

Who are these people buying air conditioners right now?

13

I was all prepared for winter long before it got cold*, but I can see how it might sneak up on somebody this year. We didn’t get any snow at all until a few days before Christmas, and it promptly melted. We didn’t get real snow cover that lasted until February, when the temperature suddenly began dipping into the -20F range. If you didn’t need your gloves until February, and then suddenly discovered that they weren’t up to snuff, it could happen easily.

Having worked retail, I know you can’t keep everything in stock all the time, but seasonal stuff is a bitch all around, especially when the weather gets wonky.

*Which means I was prepared for winter by December 26th. :rolleyes:

14

It was explained to me by mine Frau that stores sell items exactly one season in advance. In other words, if you want a decent bathing suit that fits, you better be shopping for them this very week.

This came to light as I had been asking for a different piece of clothing: a new heavy leather winter jacket as my Xmas present. The week after Xmas, we finally went out to buy it and found… very few in stock. The irony of people, possibly needing clothes to deal with cold weather, being offered a mall selection of mostly Bahamas cotton beach wear when the outside tempertature is bursting water pipes, exceedes my capacity to measure acurately.

15

It’s even worse in a place like South Florida, where the seasons are kinda reversed from the rest of the country (in the sense that the outdoor weather is winter). I tried to get a new lounge for my patio, but because it’s not the “right season”, almost nobody is carrying them. It’s right season for us, dumbasses, it’s Florida! That’s why most of us are goddamn here!

16

Hah. Try buying summer clothes in August for a baby who grew out of the ones you bought in June. All you can get are nice warm flannels. At least for us (relatively) grown up folks, you can say you knew winter was coming so you should have anticipated all your winter needs in September, but who knows in May exactly which size a baby will wear in August? What is one supposed to do, buy every possible size? :confused:

17

This is reminiscent of an anecdote in Jim Bouton’s Ball Four. The ballplayers kept having to badger the clubhouse man to maintain supplies of orange juice, and his response was “Well, every time I have orange juice, you guys just drink it up.”

Garden departments of big box stores actually are somewhat of an exception to the “stock too early” mantra. If you put tomato plants on display in the garden section now, they’d be dead in minutes. Of course, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to stock them in early April when the last expected frost is mid-May, but they have to do that for all the idiots who pester the clerks for them ahead of schedule.

On the bright side, the Xmas stuff should be out in just a few more months.

18

Here’s an earlier thread on the same topic.

19

That reminds me of a friend I had back in University. There was never bread in his house because his mother said “Well when I buy bread it just gets eaten.”

Hmmm. Strange phenomenon. In a house with a 22 year old, a 19 year old and a 16 year old. All boys/young men. All of them over 6 feet tall. And two of them rather muscular and sport playing etc. (My friend was the exception. He was tall and skinny but still could eat like a horse. )

The seasonal stuff annoys me too. I have bought approximately 6 hat and mitt sets for my son since September. He loses them. He needs a set dedicated to day care. Some get left at my mom and dad’s house. (They also buy him hats and mitts) Some get dirty, or whathave you. I need more hats and mitts. There are very few left in the store. ARRRRGH. On the other hand, I guess I should start stocking up on SUNHATs, since I will need about 29,748 of between May and September.

20

Same thing happened to me when I moved here three years ago and tried to buy patio furniture in September. Hell, it’s still too hot to sit outside in September!