I bought lampshades for two vanity-size lamps at K-Mart yesterday, along with some other stuff. Noticed at the self-serve register that the lampshades didn’t have barcodes.
This was Sunday morning, and they only had 2 normal registers open, both of which were backed up. After I’d waited awhile in line, they opened the register in the electronics department, and I hustled over there ahead of the crowd. When the cashier got a price check on the lampshades, the price checker told us that the lampshades weren’t supposed to be sold on their own; they went with the lamps on the shelf directly underneath them. I remembered the lamps, and assumed she was right.
So I got out of line and returned to the lampshade area. On a shelf on the next aisle, the same lampshades were for sale, with no lamps in sight, still with no barcodes on the lampshades (but with the Martha Stewart label), and prices labeled on the shelf with sufficient identifying information (“vanity lampshade - ivory”) that they were unquestionably referring to my lampshade.
So I take my shades (future’s so bright…;)) and return to the same register. This time, when he asks for a price checker, we wait for 10 minutes and still no price checker. He finally goes back with me to the lamp department, and writes the product ID down to key in at the register, in lieu of a barcode.
Stuff like this is not an isolated incident - something like it happens nearly every time I’m in K-Mart, just usually not this bad.
K-Mart will go under for real, soon enough.
[sub]Why do I keep on shopping at K-Mart, you ask? Because I do most of my shopping in a town that has no Target or Wal-Mart, that’s why. I’d have to make a special trip, most times, to shop at a different “Mart”. I can only hope that when K-Mart goes broke for good, Target will grab those locations.[/sub]