5 Reasons I Don’t Shop at Your Store
  photo credit: Justin Marty |
When it comes to where I take my business, I’m a pretty picky customer. I demand a lot of the places I shop, especially the ones I’m going to get into my car and drive to.
First, there are the obvious criteria for where I shop. The store has to be reasonably close, has to have what I need/want, be friendly and has to have reasonable prices. But then there are the less-obvious reasons, reasons that it appears many shop owners and managers forget in their bustle to keep the ship sailing forward.
So, as a public service to those stores I haven’t seen in a while, here are my top five less-common reasons I don’t visit your business.
5. Your Parking Lot Sucks
Most stores seem to focus on making sure they have adequate parking, not whether their lots are any good. In a bid to squeeze every space out of a precious piece of asphalt real estate, so many parking lots have been turned into unintelligible death traps where accidents and near-misses are daily events.
Take a moment to ask yourself a few questions: Can I get into and out of your lot without being killed? Are your spaces actually wide enough for a car to get in, park, open their door and get out comfortably? Are the lanes wide enough for two cars to pass easily? Are one-way aisles clearly marked? Do you know what a stop sign is and are they where they need to be?
There are at least two pharmacies and three big-box retailers I almost never visit because their parking lots are accidents waiting to happen. When I do, I park far away and walk.
4. You Don’t Enforce Your Own Rules
If I go to your store for a few items, am I going to be behind some woman with three buggies in the express line and is she not going to be asked to leave? Are you going to have me sign up for a membership card to get discounts but then have the cashier swipe their card for everyone else?
Every store has rules, most of which are just common sense. But if you don’t enforce your rules you only punish those who actually follow them. I won’t tolerate that. If your staff isn’t going to stand up to customers who break your policies, I’ll find a place that will. It’s that simple.
3. Your Store is a Dump
I’m not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination (ever seen my office?) but if a store has headache-inducing lighting, cramped aisles and/or always looks like a tornado hit it, I’m only going to visit under the threat of bodily harm.
I’ve often hypothesized that this is one of the key reasons for the fall of KMart because every one I have visited looks like a scene from a space science fiction movie after the aliens attack the ship.
If I don’t want to be there I’m not going to want to spend any money there. I can overlook messes due to customers and stocking, but a mess caused by lack of a chain or an owner not caring about their store is not acceptable.
2. You Screw Up Your Prices
When it comes to pricing, I don’t like surprises. I like to know exactly how much an item is when I pick it up and I expect that price to not change when I get to the register.
I don’t really care if the surprise at the register is my fault or the store’s. Pricing should be clear and accurate so there is no room for these mistakes. If you routinely don’t have pricing or your items or the prices printed seem to change when I get to the front, I’m not going to stop by often, if at all.
I likely won’t argue over or even mention a few dollars difference to a cashier, but if the problems form a pattern, I stop coming altogether.
1. The Clientele
Who shops at your store? Are they the type of people I’d invite to my home, take out for a drink or otherwise want to spend time with? If not, why would I go there to spend money?
I understand that a public business can’t control who walks in their door, but if it seems that your store is populated with rude, inconsiderate people, I’m not going to look forward to paying a visit. I’m sure there’s a market in advertising to the moron crowd, but you’ll have to compete with Wal-Mart and they seem to have a good lock on that group.
This makes sense, I’m going to go to places where people are nice, but most people in a store aren’t employees (if it’s going to stay in business long), but are other customers. You can train your employees to be nice, but you can’t train your customers. You can only enforce your rules (see above).
Bottom Line
I’m the first to admit that my business probably isn’t worth a lot, even to some of the smaller shops I visit. That being said, I’m more than willing to stick to my principles and only go to shops that, I feel, treat me well.
I’m not saying that these are absolute rules. I occasionally do go to stores with bad parking lots, rude customers, etc. but I avoid them whenever possible. This isn’t a boycott, but me trying to get the best shopping experience I can.
The strange thing is, if I seem a bit picky, is that I have little trouble actually finding places to go. There are plenty of stores and even if only a small percent meet my criteria in any way, that’s still a lot of choices.
The problem is that you have to go through a lot of bad experiences to find the places you don’t want to be. If you can get past that, you have some happy times ahead.
