For all the retail grunts...

[Spiffy McMoron]

Back at my old Crappy Tire, I would have added more:

Automotive fuses: We had lots of the ATM (standard) kind-with the coloured end to it, and two flat prongs. But if somebody stopped by with a tubular filter-good luck, and good night. More often than not, they had to go somewhere else.

Windsheild washer fluid: Well, I would have had more facings for it-we were constantly running back and forth, trying to fill up the homes. Plus, they were on the bottom shelf, which made then tough to see for a lot of people.

Seat Cushions: We would just always sell tons of these. I'm not really sure why.

And had fewer:

Red jerry cans: They were big, bulky, and couldn't pack away very well-plus, we rarely sold them. Especially the large, 5 gallon ones-everybody who needed one has five of the damn things.

Floor mats: We just never sold them, and they took up tons of space.

[Dips]

We'd stop selling to a certain European country. It's not that our customers in that country are suckier than others. Most of them are very nice, actually. It's that we have an exclusive contract with this one agency in the capital. This agency is a pain in the butt. They are polite and honest enough, but they insist on doing things their own way, everything gets messed up and I'm the only one at our company willing and able to wade through all the crap and fix it.

There are many resellers in that country who can't stand dealing with the agency either. They would love to buy direct from us. We offered the agency a deal. Let us sell to resellers in your country, we'll make sure you get your commission as the contract states, and you can make money without doing any work.

They about blew up. Seriously. We wound up on a conference call where the president of the agency reamed us out in his native language while an English-speaking employee translated the ream-out into English. It was so ridiculous that I had to leave the room to cover a giggle fit.

Anyway, we made soothing noises at them and told them that if they didn't want to make commissions without doing any work, that was fine with us.

[Gurndigarn]

We'd stop selling to a certain European country. It's not that our customers in that country are suckier than others. Most of them are very nice, actually. It's that we have an exclusive contract with this one agency in the capital. This agency is a pain in the butt.

So when does the contract expire?

[booger]

From an annoyance standpoint, here is what I would banish from my work:

1. Any electronics that come with a million pieces (i.e. printers, DVD players that have all these wires plus remote) or can't be returned once opened (DVDs, music, and software.) I am really sick of getting yelled at by morons who don't understand copyright laws or that they must have all pieces of the item in order to return it.

2. Anything that is "All sales are final." This includes rifles and ammo, and who knows all what else. It prints right on the receipt, but people still complain! ARGH!

3. We also don't take food back without a receipt because people on food stamps try to scam money out of us. Other people try and bring back outdated food and claim they just bought it even though they pulled it out of their freezer and defrosted it to return it to get some cig money. Sometimes I wish we didn't sell food. Bah.

Things I would add:
1.copy machine: so people stop whining at me

2.mail box: because I am sick of lazy people who can't go to the post office NEXT DOOR, just to get them to shut up. These are the same people who complain that the only stamps we sell are in a machine, and they don't have cash with them. Like I care or something. Again, RIGHT NEXT DOOR!

3.more candy!: what kind of twisted place doesn't sell single Nestle Crunch bars? We have a big selection of bags, but not a big choice with single candy bars.

4.more books: our selection is measly and it's mostly romance novels and the "for Dummies" books. More Dummies books! I know a lot of customers who could use them.

[thesocalledrudegirl]

What I would add:

1) Selling music CDs. We already sell movies on DVD, so it only seems normal to sell CDs along with them.
2) More gaming products. A lot of people call asking if we have what they want. When we actually carry what they ask for, it's a 50/50 chance that it's out of stock.


What I would remove:

1) Rebates. These things are pains in the arse. They suck up more time and energy than necessary. Just give the customers a deal in the store and be done with it. It would save a lot of trees and all the extra time the customers have to fill everything out, send it in, wait for it to be processed, approved and mailed. The nightmare begins when some of these morons don't read instructions thoroughly and their rebate gets rejected because they left something out of their rebate and they come in or call us up all upset because they didn't get their money. And I get to process all these rejected morons' rebates. Me. Because I was stupid and volunteered for something to do in between phone calls when it's slow.

[XCashier]

I used to work at the Novelty Store at the Run Down Mall. Every day, customers would ask us if we carried things you would normally expect a novelty store to carry, like costume accessories, magic tricks, stage knives/blood/makeup, etc. We had none of those things, because our boss refused to stock stuff that would sell, instead preferring to buy cheap, pointless, made-in-Outer Mongolia tchotchkes that nobody would ever want to buy (things like Children's Cologne, which smelled like they spilled Kool-Aid on themselves). When I left, I gave the boss a 2½ page list of items that customers had requested that we did not have. He never bought the stuff. Bet he wondered why he went out of business a short while later.

[Crosshair]

We'd stop selling to a certain European country.

I'm going to guess either France, Germany, or Ukraine. Am I close??? Belarus is nice to deal with, it just takes forever for stuff to make it across the pond.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I thought of something else we can do without...

Last night we got in another huge load of christmas tchotchkies, which put us way behind because the manager can't do the schedule right; she put on another person Thursday night even though it wasn't needed (no truck or planograms), so to compensate we were a person short last night, and of course this has to happen on the night we get a 1700-piece truck...

but I digress.

Anyhow, we have got about 20 different snowman tree ornaments. They all look similar except one is made of clay dough, another is cermaic, another one is made of wood, one has a red hat, the other has a blue hat, this other one has a stripey scarf, this one has a little bell on it, blah blah blah bling bling bling blah.

We could easily make do with half the number of snowmen. Or even a quarter. It would be less junk to go on clearance after the season anyway.

[El Barto]

I'd get rid of the photo lab. It is such a hassle, and from what I eavesdropped, we dont make money off of it. In fact, some months, we lose money because of it.

I've got bad news for you, corprate is doing the opposite of what you want. We're dumping the send out photo service next year. But theres good news, all the signs, ads, etc, that say 1 Hour Photo will disapear, so no more customers bitching about it taking more than an hour, "But the sign says 1 hour, I want all 20 of my rolls of film done in an hour or I'm going to walmart." I can't wait, those morons at qualex are constantly screwing up our customers orders.