| I think supermarkets are well run because they are highly competitive and you go every week so if you see it as a prisoner's dilemma where they "fulfill the brand promise" or "don't fulfill the brand promise" they get punished then they don't fulfill it so they have a reason to fulfill it. Thus Amazon is going to have a really tough time in that sector, but other parts of the retail sector tend to have you come into the door infrequently enough or are in uncompetitive markets so that they don't get punished for failing. It's too common for people to blame the victim here, or say that people are asking too much but that's just plain wrong. Some examples: * That time I went to K-Mart to buy three numerals for my mailbox but they didn't have the "2" in stock. * That time my wife bought a bra at Target that had a nice print but had a completely nonsensical design that wouldn't be comfortable on anyone * Buying clothes at Target can be really hit or miss. I bought a shirt there once that was great but so often I find things that don't really fit, are poorly constructed, I can't stand the style. * Same with shoes at WalMart. At best you might go there and find a $20 shoe that is similar to an $100 shoe from Brooks, not quite as good, but certainly not five times worse. Sometimes they only have crap * Inevitably in the early spring I still need cold weather equipment such as electric space heaters (sometimes desperately, as in to keep animals alive) but Home Depot, Agway and all of those other stores quit stocking it. * Small storeowners decide they won't get any customers in their last hour so they go home early; so they've decided that the customers that do come will go to a big box store next time * Years ago Staples used to stock only junk brands for cordless phones and similar things (e.g. vtech); today Amazon pushes no-name products from Chinese suppliers which are occasionally excellent but often junk A common factor in those failures is that the stores don't get feedback. K-Mart never knew they lost the sale of a "4" and "7" because they didn't get "2". The small storekeeper doesn't realize that "nobody will come in" is a self-fulfilling prophecy, etc. People also discount the idea that "the customer is always right" to normalize bad behaviors such as not stocking space heaters when you need one right now for your chicken house -- somehow it is my fault for needing heat at the end of the cold season instead of the beginning. |
This doesn't make any sense to me. Stores have limited space for inventory, and they have to make decisions about what the best use of that space is. It's very well possible it the probability of earning a profit on a heater at the end of a cold season is too small to merit stocking it. The store has no obligation to provide you with what you need at exactly the time you need it, so the concept of "fault" doesn't make sense to me in this scenario.
"Customer is always right" is a nonsense saying in my opinion. I always have informed my staff to show the customer the door if they're unnecessarily wasting their time.