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The stupidity of some businesses
by Rick ·
I received a gift card to Barnes and Nobel book stores for Christmas. This was great, I had a book in mind that I wanted so I went online to BN.com to see if they had it. Sure enough it was on their site for a mere $27.50. I was in fat city since my gift card was for about $30, I had this one covered. I looked a little further and found that they had it at a couple of the local stores, so I called the one closest to my house and ask. Yes, they had it and yes, they would set it aside for me.
An hour or so later I was at the store ready to pick up my book. When I got to the check-out and the gal rang it up, the total was…$44.95. What I asked, the web site had it for $27.50. Won’t you meet that price? It’s your company web site after all. No, company policy was to sell for much less on-line then in the store.
Now I understand handling and paying for brick and mortar but come on, this is the last copy of the book in the store and the new edition will come out in May. No, sorry that is the policy. Now I should mention here that Best Buy and several other stores WILL meet their online price. But B & N? NOOOOOOO.
So I went to the customer service desk to recheck my pricing. The gal at the desk looked it up on line and again explained that I could buy it cheaper online then I could in the store. At this point I was convinced and ready to go back home and order the book online. Now this is where it gets really stupid. The clerk at the customer service desk said; “I can order that for you here and you can pay the online price at the counter. The book will be shipped to your house and should be there in about 3 days.”
Excuse me, you would rather mail me the book for which you are going to pay the shipping, charge me $17.00 less and still have to inventory the old version of the book on your shelf? How stupid is that?
So I had the clerk place the order, I paid with my gift card, got 56 cents back in change, they paid the freight and are stuck with a book that I’m guessing is not going to sell anytime soon.
And don’t even ask me about the nasty counter clerk I had to deal with initially, Man just don’t get me started.
