Right off the bat, I'll admit that I didn't plan ahead well enough. Nonetheless, we've been packing up my dad's place since he passed away last month, and yesterday was the big day for moving stuff to storage. I didn't reserve a truck, due to my own indecision. I am usually pretty decisive on such things, but somehow I let this one slip. So yesterday morning I have stuff to move, but no truck. I tried the Uhaul place near my, house, no dice. Fine, internet to the rescue, right? Went on the Uhaul website, there's another yard nearby that has the truck we need, and we can just reserve it online. So we go through that process, reserve it with the card, good to go. I thought we had better call first. Not only do they not have the truck, this particular yard has never had a truck that size. Oh boy. Now my wife is frantically googling, and finds a truck available at Budget (a misnomer). I call them. No, we don't have that truck. Wait, maybe we do. Cool, I can get a truck that just came back and hasn't been cleaned up. So I rush down there and grab it and order 6 moving blankets as well. Drive to the house, no moving blankets.
The good news is we got the stuff moved, even with my poor truck planning. I feel fortunate to have gotten a truck at the last moment, even if I paid more for less truck - live and learn. But one lesson here is the difference between the internet and reality. If I had continued to use the Uhaul website, I could have made reservations on trucks all over town that weren't actually there.
While I was at the Budget place, I hear a gal talking on the phone. "No, I can't give you that price, that's an internet price. You have to reserve online and then come in. No, I can't do it in the store, you have to do it online to get that deal." What kind of crazy world is this, where somebody in Kansas or Pakistan or who-knows-where can give you a better deal on a truck in San Diego than the person who actually has the truck in San Diego?
This reminds me of when I tried to buy some Castrol GTX that was on sale at Kmart. I don't remember the price, but I could buy 5 individual quarts for a little less than a 5 quart jug at Walmart, and there's a Kmart much closer to me than the Walmart. So I go down the the Kmart, fat, dumb, and happy, and gather up my GTX quarts. When I get to the checkout, I notice it's ringing up for $4.99/qt. "Oh, hey, that's on sale for $3.xx/qt." I show her on my phone. "That's the online price. We can't do that here." She sends me to customer "service."
"Hi, I'm trying to buy this oil that's on sale for $3.xx/qt." I show her the ad.
"That's an online price."
"Right, it's the Kmart website. This is Kmart isn't it?"
"Yes, but we can't match the online price."
"Let me get this straight. This is Kmart, and you can't match the Kmart price."
She gives me that geez-what-a-moron look, and says, "Right, you have to order it online." Then she stalks off to update her Facebook status about the dolts she has to deal with.
So I go to order it online, for store pickup, and the website tells me it's not available at my local store (where I just had it in my basket), but I can pick it up at a store that's 20+ miles away. Walmart's definitely closer than that.
I deal with a large plumbing supply chain. They want to encourage online ordering, so they award you "points" for ordering from their e-commerce site. It's approximately 1 point per dollar spent. The trouble is, it always takes longer for them to fill the order than if I just go down and order at the counter and wait for them to pull the materials. Also, now that I have over 6000 points, I think that I qualify for a very nice pencil eraser.
So, while I have been very happy with the service I've gotten from some strictly internet sites, the integration between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar has a little way still to go.
The good news is we got the stuff moved, even with my poor truck planning. I feel fortunate to have gotten a truck at the last moment, even if I paid more for less truck - live and learn. But one lesson here is the difference between the internet and reality. If I had continued to use the Uhaul website, I could have made reservations on trucks all over town that weren't actually there.
While I was at the Budget place, I hear a gal talking on the phone. "No, I can't give you that price, that's an internet price. You have to reserve online and then come in. No, I can't do it in the store, you have to do it online to get that deal." What kind of crazy world is this, where somebody in Kansas or Pakistan or who-knows-where can give you a better deal on a truck in San Diego than the person who actually has the truck in San Diego?
This reminds me of when I tried to buy some Castrol GTX that was on sale at Kmart. I don't remember the price, but I could buy 5 individual quarts for a little less than a 5 quart jug at Walmart, and there's a Kmart much closer to me than the Walmart. So I go down the the Kmart, fat, dumb, and happy, and gather up my GTX quarts. When I get to the checkout, I notice it's ringing up for $4.99/qt. "Oh, hey, that's on sale for $3.xx/qt." I show her on my phone. "That's the online price. We can't do that here." She sends me to customer "service."
"Hi, I'm trying to buy this oil that's on sale for $3.xx/qt." I show her the ad.
"That's an online price."
"Right, it's the Kmart website. This is Kmart isn't it?"
"Yes, but we can't match the online price."
"Let me get this straight. This is Kmart, and you can't match the Kmart price."
She gives me that geez-what-a-moron look, and says, "Right, you have to order it online." Then she stalks off to update her Facebook status about the dolts she has to deal with.
So I go to order it online, for store pickup, and the website tells me it's not available at my local store (where I just had it in my basket), but I can pick it up at a store that's 20+ miles away. Walmart's definitely closer than that.
I deal with a large plumbing supply chain. They want to encourage online ordering, so they award you "points" for ordering from their e-commerce site. It's approximately 1 point per dollar spent. The trouble is, it always takes longer for them to fill the order than if I just go down and order at the counter and wait for them to pull the materials. Also, now that I have over 6000 points, I think that I qualify for a very nice pencil eraser.
So, while I have been very happy with the service I've gotten from some strictly internet sites, the integration between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar has a little way still to go.
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