Business Writing, Website Writing, and Other Writing Services by a Professional Writer

Hard to Shop

By Dan Furman

As we are currently right smack in the middle of the Christmas Season, I thought I'd go do a little shopping.

As I pull into the mall, I see I wasn't alone in this idea - everyone within a thirty mile radius has decided to shop today as well. To make matters worse, it seems every checkout line I go to has these two people in it:

The guy who still writes checks, then, after (slowly) writing everything out, decides he must balance his checkbook right there at the counter. So we wait while he painstakingly subtracts his purchase ($7.27) from his balance ($1,456.45), less he won't know how much he can spend at the next store...
And the older lady who, when told her purchase is $17.96 says "oh, ninety-six cents? I think I have that..." and pulls out her special little coin purse and proceeds to count out ninety-six cents in the largest possible combination of small coins.

Ok, I'm exaggerating a little bit. And truth be told, I really love the holidays, and I enjoy holiday shopping.

But on this day, in one particular store, I did end up getting frustrated on a checkout line and walked out, leaving my stuff un-purchased. Allow me to explain:

I was in a particular electronics store I frequent. And today, they were crowded. Ok, no big deal - it's Christmas - I'll wait. But I noticed the checkout line was moving very slow. As I got closer, I found out why:

For every single customer, the cashier was pushing the "rewards" club, which is free to join (it's like a frequent buyer club.) The cashier explained the benefits to every customer that wasn't a member, and a good number of people said "Free? Ok" and joined right there on the spot. This is wonderful for the store - but not so wonderful for those of us waiting. Signing a new customer up takes a few minutes...

But it didn't end there. This store also sells many of its extended warranties at the register. So most customers were asked if they wanted a warrantee on their item, how much it was, etc etc. Each warrantee takes a few minutes to ring up, as item numbers have to be entered in, customer name and address, etc etc...

Literally, because of these two extra things, there were several customers ahead of me that likely took five to seven minutes at the register (through no fault of their own, mind you - this is all on the store.) Being that I still had maybe six people ahead of me in line, I put my stuff down on the shelf and left. I noticed at least one other person behind me did the same.

Why make it such an ordeal to check out? This was well beyond "holiday" busy - I feel this was a blatant disregard for my (and any other person's) time. Not everyone walked. But I (and some others) did. Why this store chooses the cash register to conduct this other business is beyond me.

Or, if that's the place where it makes the most sense, fine - open more cash registers for the holidays. I don't mind waiting because it's busy - I do mind waiting because the store makes every checkout a five minute ordeal because they feel the need to make extra sales at the register.

The lesson to be learned

The holiday lesson here is simple: Take a quick moment during the holiday downtime to take a look at your business.

Are you easy to do business with? Is it simple to get in touch with you? Do people have to jump through hoops to buy your product? Is it difficult for them to pay a deposit to book your service? How can you make these things better?

Bottom line: Does anyone leave your "checkout line" because you make doing business harder than it has to be?

On that note, I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year. See you in 2007!!

Back

Professional writing services for all of your important business writing needs.

Professional Websites by Webeze