You’ve [del]been bombarded by[/del] seen the ads, lauding discount clothing stores like TJMaxx and Ross. I went out shopping today looking for bargains, needing some more shirts. I was over near a couple of these and thought, what the hell, I’ll give it a try.
So first I went in to TJMaxx. The name should be the first clue something is wrong. What’s with the extra x? Are they trying to insinuate that they’re so Max that they need an extra X to capture it all? And don’t confuse it for TJMaXXX. That’s a totally different store.
Anyway, I walked in, scanned the store for the Men’s department, because as much as I might want to, women’s clothing just doesn’t ever look right on me. So I head over to the corner of the store where the menswear is hanging. It’s tiny. Like there’s one rack of shirts of all kinds. One rack of random pants. Um, some jackets and shoes here and there. Yeah, you think maybe there’s nothing there because men don’t like to shop in places like this?
You see, for those of you not aware, where regular clothing stores put lots of each kind of shirt out on racks, marked and grouped with their appropriate sizes so you can find the item that interests you, then look for the correct size, these discount stores don’t seem to operate on the same bulk quantity as “department stores”. And they “save money” by not hiring all the staff that do things like put the clothes in a consistent organized manner. So you get a rack of random shirts, no two alike, that might be sorted by size. Um, thanks, that will make it easy to find anything.
So I looked at the one rack of random shirts, and walked back out. Okay, 1 down. That’s not a Maxx experience to me, should be TJMin.
Next was Ross. It also sufferred from the same problem of unsorted clothing and limited selection. However, there was a dress shirt set of shelves that had a fair number of items to look at, so I gave it a looksee. After culling through the shelves, I came up with 4 dress shirts in their plastic packaging I thought might be viable, and made a bee-line for the dressing rooms. As I approach, I see a sign with some sort of instructions about “hang your items on the rack, then tell the person the quantity and take a number” blah blah blah. I didn’t have time to find out if there was some sort of extra hoops being provided, as the girl says I have to go up to the front to have the inventory control tags removed to try them on. Just to try them on? Yes, you see they put those RFID tags on the shirts, but did so in a way that they pierce the plastic sack, so you have to remove the tag to be able to remove the shirt from the sack. :smack:
So I go back up to the front, already annoyed with the limited selection, the searching hassles in the random stacks, and now another obstacle to my shopping experience. So I go to the front counter. There’s one guy, and a line of about 8 people waiting to check out. I stand there a moment. Nope, only 1 guy. There’s another guy by the entrance, apparently the greeter guy not doing dick. And a line. I stand there, and stand there, and think “there’s no way I’m getting in line for 8 people just to get the tags removed before I go try on the shirts”. Nope. I sat the shirts down on a random chair and walked out. Not worth my time.
So for any guys out there who has never tried these stores, and been considering it because of the hype, don’t bother. I can safely save you the trouble. Stick with those evil “department stores” at the mall, or Target and Walmart, or wherever you currently do your clothing shopping. There’s nothing to be gained by going in those discount stores but irritation and annoyance.
By the way, I bought 2 shirts at Walmart, then drove around to JCPenney, and bought another 9 shirts there. All on steep discounts every bit as affordable as anything at the “discount stores”. And I could find the products, and compare sizes, and see lots of similar products in one area. Say I like this shirt over here. Well, there just happen to be a dozen other similar styles from the same manufacturer in a variety of different colors/patterns, all easy to sort through and find the correct size. And I can go try them on without taking off the RFID tags (that they don’t have). And there wasn’t even a line to check out.