Did you ever encounter a situation that was so unbelievably silly that you can’t even really get mad as it’s happening, but you get more and more angry about it later? Let me tell you a little story about my Staples adventure!
I had been thinking about getting an external keyboard for my iPad mini. Because my printer is low on black ink I ran to Staples and thought I’d see what they had. I’m kind of a Goldilocks when it comes to keyboards so I like to try them out.
I found the section with iPad keyboards pretty quickly. All the boxes had “Display Unit” on them (one box per brand/style) so I walked around looking for the display, which didn’t appear to be anywhere in the store.
Sales guy approached and I asked to see the keyboards.
“We used to have them on display but they took it away.” (Who is they, and why would they do that? And how is this a valid explanation for anything?)
“Oh, because the boxes all say ‘Display unit.”
“Yes.”
“…so there aren’t any in the boxes.”
“No.”
I wait a moment, because surely he’s going to help me, right? I’m pretty sure it’s his turn to offer up information.
But no.
“So I can’t even take one out of the box to try it because you literally don’t have any on the shelves.”
“Right.”
“Just empty boxes.”
“Sorry.”
Okay, Staples? How is this even remotely acceptable? Aren’t you in the business of selling things? What is this nonsense of filling shelves with empty display boxes? Watch me walk out the door and not come back the next time I need something tablet or computer related. Because “Display only” boxes with no display is one of the most stupid things I’ve run into in months. And I can go to Target or Walmart or Best Buy and get a damned keyboard and I’ll bet the boxes aren’t empty.
Also, train your sales “people” to anticipate my follow-up questions and not give a one word answer to a reasonable line of questions if you want us to bother driving to your store instead of just ordering things online.
