Savvy Shopping 'n More Blog April Archive

This afternoon I went to the grocery store and found the opposite. When I entered the store there were no shopping carts and no baskets. I collected a few items I wanted in my arms and checked out. I didn't browse the store. I didn't buy those things I probably would have thought of while browsing. I bought the minimum!

Now this is not uncommon at this particular grocery store. The difference today was that there were few customers.

There were actually lots of baskets I noticed while checking out. However, to get to them I would had to climb over cashier closed chains and/or push customers waiting in line to pay out of my way.

The better alternative was to buy less and spend my money at a different store another time.

Today I vote for the man on the bus.

Today was different. The old man was selling plastic covers for remote controls. A truely useful item and a bargain for 83 cents. He had a nice variety of colors, but only one size.

Sales were brisk and he could have done much better with a selection of sizes too.

I didn't buy one as I like to see how quickly I can break my remote control dropping it on the floor.

A pretty women will often use a dash of perfume to add a little sparkle to herself. An ugly women will often use half a bottle mistaken by with the idea that a little more perfume will make her a little more pretty! Even the ugly women would have a nice presence with just a dash of perfume.

A few others mistake a perfume with the scent of a public restroom to be appealing for some reason.

Now that we have that concept down, a little is great. A lot is just really, really stupid! Let's move on to shopping.

One of the local malls has a whole row of little perfume kiskos at the enterance. They have gone far beyond making the entrance ugly and are even beyond obnoxious! During Christmas seasons it is even worse as everyone is waying little pieces of paper with perfume on them.

Not only do you have too much perfume you have too many different perfumes. It turns what could be a delightful presentation with a dash of perfume into an ugly smorgesborg of nasty smells leading one desire puking or at least shop someplace else.

I think it polutes the air of the entire mall making it a terrible place to see a movie.

Now, I was told that "well, people like it". I don't dispute people like perfume. I doubt however anyone goes to that mall just to enjoy the perfume! Others have told me that avoid that mall except at certain times.

Let's talk shopping and money. The goal of the mall is to SELL. Now, my theory is if you do something obnoxious to a quantity of people you will sell LESS.

If the ugly perfume discourages just 1,000 people from shopping at that mall, and they might have otherwise spend $1,000 in a year, you've sent a million dollars of sales else where!

I don't believe 1,000 people or $1,000 a year are very large numbers.

Now when you put on your perfume remember no one wants to smell it from six blocks away no matter how good the smell is or how expensive!

Wednesday evening is one of those times. Yesterday I was lucky enough to get a shopping cart, unusual for a Wednesday evening. I should have known better and gone at a different time, but I guess I am a slow learner.

However, I quickly abandoned my shopping cart as the produce department was packed with people and shopping carts.

It was going to be an exercise in frustration to push the cart around. I grabbed a few items and then put the ones that needed to be weighed back. For some reason, they seem to have a single person to weight produce on Wednesdays when they are packed.

I think it would have taken more time to get my apples weighed than to wait in line to pay. The store is large and nice to shop in when it isn't packed with people.

Now after leaving Disco, my next adventure was to actually leave the mall. I chose the main entrance. The main entrance has nice doors with lots of glass so you can see out. Except they often have decals covering the glass so you can't see much.

To everyone's surprise just outside the main entrance was some very fancy event that you needed tickets to enter and was being filmed by Montecarlo television. The problem this presented to those leaving the mall was that the exit was pretty much blocked.

Rather than going straight out you had to go to one side or the other. Not a big deal, except as soon as people opened the doors to exit they stopped cold.

It started to feel like the line to get out of the mall was going to longer than the cashier line at the grocery store!

The building using to be a prison, so I guess that adds new meaning to having a captive marketplace!

Deli debacle

A female employee at the Clarion Wal-Mart deli counter was grabbed by the hair, drug across a floor and struck repeatedly in the neck with a keychain over 15 cents worth of lunchmeat, according to police.

Police said a known female approached the counter at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and asked for $2 worth of lunchmeat. When the lunchmeat order came to $2.15 and the clerk asked if that was too much, the customer became enraged and the incident ensued, police said. [404 Check: was link to http:/ / www. thederrick. co, anchor: ] 2-Bill_Nexium

I think the checkout clerks have a contest going to see how few items they can put in a plastic bag and god forbid you ask them to put everything in one bag!

Buying fresh produce might even be the worst. Even the organic veggies seem to be package with more plastic than vegetables. Somehow I got home without the celery or parsly having its own plastic bag! The plastic police will probably show up on my doorstep shortly to punish me.

I spend more time getting rid of the plastic than unpacking or eating the food I bought.