Shopping
Conspiracy and Depression
by Usiku
This
story first appeared at: http://writerswhirlpool.blogspot.com/2007/07/shopping-conspiracy-and-depression.html
When all
I’m trying to do is go to the store, get my
stuff, a few gifts, pay a fair price and get out,
why does everything about shopping seem to be a
conspiracy?
The retail
experience is like a shell game on a massive bass
ackwards, overproduced scale, making shopping a
gambler’s paradise. There is nothing fair
about supply and demand except laissez-faire.
Also, I have yet to find a single free market in
this economy not even between fish and fruit.
I’m
convinced stores rearrange products frequently to
make customers focus on the hunt rather than how
much. You can’t find items or the employees
who hid them.
Newsflash to
retailers: Shoppers move items all over because
you do. Parents lose children in stores because
shopping requires so much concentration and
retaliation. Do you think all those clean ups are
accidents? It’s to coax your child labor out
of hiding.
If it’s
all about the endcaps just make the entire store
a bunch of square pods with an endcap on each
side. Aisles of endcaps and one big dizzying
square dance.
All these
pricing schemes seem unnecessary. If you’re
trying to trick or depress customers, just state
prices using minimum wage work hours and quote
quantities in handfuls. By the way, please limit
my options to five or less per product. When I
automatically go into “Eenie Meenie
Minie” mode using fingers and toes,
it’s embarrassing.
“Give me
more at the store” is the newest customer
movement and mantra. Here’s the customer
service we want:
* Unlock
both doors to prevent the double door dilemma,
eliminate the bounce back effect and reduce
our need to sue.
* Carts with something other
than luggage or stagecoach wheels.
* Carts that can be size
adjusted depending on how much I’m
buying or to match my mood. (See Hasbro’s
transformer technology.)
* Carts with heel guards,
car avoidance systems and that can find their
own way back home.
* Free carwashes while we
roam and free shoe shines, manicures,
pedicures, massages, mimes, magicians…while
customers wait in congestion at check out.
* Check out lines with big
screen TV’s, cable, couches, hors
d’oeuvre...Dinner and a thirty minute
movie at checkout would make the wait
worthwhile and make me shop more.
* These services will fit
into the same space occupied by the twenty
closed check out lines.
* Lastly, we will continue
to mail-in for rebates only if you will bill
us for the purchase, include a copy of the
receipt, mail it to the bill payment
fulfillment center “BPFC” nearest
my zip code and not expect payment until we
get our rebate checks. Contact the BPFC if
you don’t get paid within 8 to 12 weeks
after we receive our rebates.
I’ve
concluded, shopping is not simply linked to
depression, it’s the reason for depression.
Going shopping must also be the precursor to
going postal and can probably be linked to all
craziness and all crime. The conspiracy goes
deeper still…
|
