Two Cents: Retail Fail

Thu, 19 January 2012 11 Comments

about this blog

Two Cents

Sam Geer and Alex Ryan are two young thinkers trying to make their way in a big agency. Working at MediaCom, they're passionate, media savvy and unashamedly opinionated, standing up for the belief that young people need a voice in this industry.

I used to love Christmas shopping. Walls of toys, Christmas carols and a buzz of excitement in the air. They were simpler times, before old mate Mick Bublé cornered the carol market and while Tim Allen was in his prime. Dad got grundies, Mum a Body Shop hamper and everyone was happy days.

Maybe I just grew up, maybe it was screwed all along, but after this Christmas, I never want to shop retail again.

I’ll admit that I haven’t been the type to frequent your typical department store over the last few years but it was clear from my last visit, something had changed. What had been a happy, joyous part of Christmas, had all of a sudden become a slow, inefficient, unnecessary shit fight. Maybe what had changed, was me.

With a day off, a laundry list of things to buy and a pocket full of hard earned cash I was ready to do my bit for the retail economy. Unfortunately for me, it turns out, a pocket full of cash and a burning desire to spend isn’t enough for retailers any more, you also need a bucket-load of patience.

After a long dizzying search for a park it took me no less than two hours to negotiate through a list of five things before I gave up and went home. No help, no direction and no service led me to utter the words I swore I would never say again: “Surely there is an app for this.” I couldn’t have left more disappointed.

We constantly hear about the state of retail and put it down to things like the economy or online price competition yet no one has acknowledged that to buy a blender or a pair of undies these days is a four-hour ordeal. Are retailers doing everything they can to streamline our shopping experience? Hell no! We are used to every facet of our lives being continually reinvented to be more efficient, serviced and speedy. At the moment, everything in retail is not!

With all the access to technology, great ideas and innovative thinking we have, surely we can think of a way to help me spend my money faster. Retailers need to acknowledge that people don’t want to spend their days in store looking for things that may or may not be in stock. They need to adapt or get left behind.

Some department stores have tried to tackle this by increasing their numbers of private shoppers at key outlets. While that’s a great time saver for the “Real Housewives of Bondi”, the rest of us plebs are still left to share the one service representative per cubic kilometre of store space. I’ll be sure to remember to book an appointment when I next need a toaster.

The reality is that these days if I know what I want I have two choices... I can simply type in what I want, and have it the next day, or I can get in my car, fight traffic, queues and prepubescent mall rats with bum bags in the little free time I have. I know which one I choose.