It never ceases to amaze me how many people decide the days right before an event are the optimum time to purcahse gifts and other items for that event. These same people are then amazed when the stores are out of stock of items, and quickly complain about lines being backed up and everything taking time, in conjunction with the lack of anyone to help.
What the hell do you expect coming at the last minute? Seriously, do you expect a store to magically have full quantities of items which have been in high demand for the past month and a half? That’s just not how it works. What’s worse most of these items, save for the few very hot items of the year, are available the other 11 months or so out of the year – not just in December. There is no reason whatsoever to wait until the last minute to get something!
Hinting back on my previous entry on ordering things before Christmas, there is also the fact that these items will come back into stores in January and February, as manufacturers produce and ship out new units to retailers. That process takes time though, and is part of why as the holiday season winds down items become scarce – they make as many as they can without going overboard, and ship them out as soon as they can, but once you hit about early December, or sometimes earlier, the time it takes to go from manufacture to retail shelves is just too long of a time frame – whatever is made is made, and that’s the end of that.
Let’s not forget seasonal items – stores want to sell all if it they can, and don’t want any left after the season. To that end, the safe option is to stop receiving supplies of such well before the holiday comes so that it will all be sold by then – don’t get mad the day before Easter, for example, when all of the chocolate bunnies are gone. You should have bought them sooner!
As for the stores being busy, what else is there to expect? You, as well as everyone else in that store, has decided to wait until the last minute to purchase these items. Everyone has questions, most often the same few ones depending on the store, with most, if not all of them being quite honestly a waste of time to answer, not in that they are asked, but the time it takes with follow up questions and explanations of how supply and demand work in a capitalist economy (yes, it basically becomes that every time as it seems people don’t have a clue how things work.) Now, helping people isn’t a problem, but having to tell people over and over that we are out of this item which we obviously would be out of (always the cheapest stuff first, alongside the “hot” items) just eats up time and gets more annoying than it should even to the most patient of people.
What’s worse on that front is even when you are nice in responding, some people just get angry. It isn’t our fault that you decided to wait until December 23rd or 24th to try to find a game console, or a $60 tablet for your child for Christmas. It isn’t our fault that while you were doing whatever it was you were doing, dozens of other people came in hunting for the same item, depleting supplies. It isn’t our fault you waited. Don’t yell at the retail worker for your mistakes.
Now, I get that those of us who work more common jobs (I.E. in the service industry) might damn well be forced to do last minute shopping, but the funny thing is we are also the ones who understand the reasons behind these things – I know when I go out, I do my damnedest to understand the problems for workers wherever I’m at, and I try my best to be a good customer. I don’t know why most people seem to have no empathy, but to those who do, workers in retail appreciate it far more than you would ever know, and often times, during these stressful periods, it can benefit you to be nice and caring to those who are in the stores to help you.
Keep that in mind next season, although to be fair, I doubt any of my readers are the kinds of people I talk about in the #RetailHell series.
Oh, and one last time: No one has any NES Classic’s. Quit asking, and get over it. 😉