At various points in the recent past, I've had "interesting" experiences at retail chain stores.
- I walked in to do my regular groceries at More/Smart. I went to the refrigerated section and hunted high and low for butter. No luck. I called one of the support staff to ask if they had any. The reply was, "Sorry madam, out of stock". Out of stock? Essentials -- at a grocery store?
- I wanted to buy non-toxic Holi colours for my son. The day before Holi. Not too early, right? I saw a colourful "Holi Hai" sign at Spencer's "Hyper" and (erroneously) interpreted it as a sign that they would sell colours. I walked in and asked the support staff for colours. They sniggered at me and said, "Holi powders madam? No, no". So I asked to speak with the manager and find out why they put up a Holi poster and not carry Holi basics. The manager's reply was "Madam, we put the poster to wish people, we WILL get Holi powder stock later." When? After Holi?
- I checked the Food World next door for Holi colours and got the same answer. "No madam".
- At the same Spencer's "Hyper" mentioned above, sugar was on "discount". Rs 215 if you bought a 5 kg pack, down from Rs 245. That worked out to Rs 43 *per* kg, if you bought 5 kgs. *1* kg of sugar at MK Ahmed was Rs 39 on the *same* day. I know this is what people call a "free market" but somehow the words "stop, thief" keep ringing in my ears.
- Another time, shopping at Food World, I found myself in a checkout queue, that had more than 5 people in front of me and growing.Why? There was *only* one checkout counter open of the four that they had. Obviously no one in the store was particularly concerned about customer experience. Maybe they thought that shopping at Food World was such a charm that I wouldn't want to leave the store in a hurry.
- Billing errors. Typically this happens when price of an item rises and the store has both old AND new stock of the same. They update the price in their system so that irrespective of what whether you pick old or new stock you get billed at the new higher price. The way to stop yourself from overpaying is to keep checking prices as your items are being billed and point out errors, which will then be manually corrected. For the customers who don't notice, no prize for guessing who pockets the extra money. For some reason it makes me hear voices -- voices that say "stop, thief".
- They never run out of essentials. I mean *never*. And for all of you stores mentioned above, it's not rocket science -- just inventory management.
- They don't treat customers like fools -- selling discounted sugar at Rs 43 if you buy 5 kgs. You can buy a kg for Rs 39.
- They stock Holi colours so you *can* get them the day before Holi (non-toxic ones from Pidilite, organic ones from another company *and* local ones as well)
- They *always* have enough checkout counters open so that even on the busiest shopping day, you have a short wait.
- There are no billing errors. I've seen the way they handle price differences. For the same item, if they have stocks at different prices, their systems show up all the price ranges available, and they quickly choose the correct one.
