Lamenting the loss of retail business sense in the US. Sigh,

Also you aren't playing the game the way you're supposed to. Ruin one of the steps, replace both.
 
If it's a common part, go to the local pik 'n pull and get one salvage. If you don't want to get your hands dirty, and you've got cash burning a hole in your pocket, pay the yard or some kid to pull it for you.

Screw 'em.
 
Henning said:
Retail business sense in America? Burn your store down, go to work for Walmart and get on the dole, or open an Internet drop ship business. There's no one small with a lick of sense left in retail.
Click to expand...

There are a few. A very few, but a few. Almost all smaller mom & pop shops that haven't sold out yet. Trouble is that most Americans want "cheap", and that means Tar-jay, Wally World, and Harbor Freight.
 
kyleb said:
Why not just give them the number from your childhood home? Easier to remember and doesn't cost you a dime.
Click to expand...

Firstly, because it would be a security risk. My MagicJack number is the number I give most retailers (except local ones); supermarkets and other mass retailers for their "loyalty cards;" and all financial institutions other than my credit union, PayPal, and Fidelity. Gasoline and store credit cards, for example, get the MagicJack number because they're likely going to sell it to telemarketers who will use it to try to sell me merchandise, credit protection, insurance, and other useless and overpriced ****.

Secondly, someone surely has my childhood phone number now. It was in New York City and was a 212 number from back before they split up the city into different area codes. 212 numbers are coveted enough nowadays that they're auctioned on eBay.

Thirdly, although it's uncommon, there are times when I have to call the entities in question (for example, when some item purchased from an online retailer was damaged in transit). I want that number to remain the only one they have on file for me, so I need the ability to make outgoing calls from it.

Fourthly, note that the answering machine recording begins with a SIT tone. That does away with some (but not all) of the telemarketing robocalls. Many, perhaps most, robots disconnect when they "hear" the SIT tone. A few go a step further and mark the number as out of service so it's not called again. Most seem to mark the number as out of service after two or three failed attempts.

Fifthly, on those exceedingly rare occasions when a human with a legitimate, non-marketing need to talk to me calls, they'll hear the recording, immediately realize that they're not calling from a pay phone, note that a prompt to leave a message follows the recording, and thus conclude that it's just a goofy answering machine message. Unless they're telemarketers (who generally don't leave messages and would therefore have hung up already) or actual morons (in the former clinical sense of the word), they'll simply leave the message. It's not the most bizarre greeting they've ever heard.

Finally, the MagicJack number also works as an outgoing fax number for those fairly frequent occasions when someone needs me to fax proof of my address. That's because my legal address is a Post Office box. We don't have carrier route mail delivery in Sparrow Fart, so everyone has a PO box. Financial institutions and government agencies in particular often require that I fax them a boilerplate letter from the local postmaster that verifies that I have no "street address." (I have a 911 address, but it can't receive mail.) MagicJack, in my experience, works surprisingly well for faxing. YMMV.

My MagicJack number costs about $35.00 a year. That number rings anywhere from two to six times a day, and maybe once every two or three years it's someone other than a telemarketer or a scam artist calling. It's well worth the cost. And as I mentioned before, it's really not that bad a service when connected to a router (rather than to a computer). Call quality ranges from mediocre to good, but never horrible; so it's perfectly usable on those occasions when I actually have to use it to talk to someone.

Rich
 
Last edited:
wsuffa said:
There are a few. A very few, but a few. Almost all smaller mom & pop shops that haven't sold out yet. Trouble is that most Americans want "cheap", and that means Tar-jay, Wally World, and Harbor Freight.
Click to expand...

Yep, want to sell quality American products? Move to China or Dubai, that's where the buyers are.
 
How often do you see both sides of your truck at the same time ? Just buy a used part at the recycler, and they take cash, no need for a phone #.
 
JoseCuervo said:
Yep. You gotta know when to turn customers away.

Certain entitled customers aren't worth the risk, effort, or pain to try and please.
Click to expand...

Being familiar with this particular customer, I think they may have all made the right call in this case. :D

*said in good fun*
 
Jeff Oslick said:
This.

The basic problem is they tried to help you in the first place, but they really should've just said "no" from the get-go.

I run a specialty retail shop, and I'll only special-order for really good customers, or customers who I'm confident will become regulars. For a lot of special order stuff retailers get hit with either buying a bunch of stuff (that they are likely not that interested in buying at that time) to meet a minimum order requirement, a bigger order to get freight discount or else they end up eating a big freight charge on a small order with essentially no profit on the order. The issue of ending up with non-matching parts from different batches is a real concern as well.
Click to expand...

Well no, they really didn't try to help me at all. But I can appreciate the fact that retailers have bad customers who should be fired. In this case, it really would have been easier if they would just say 'gosh, sorry but I can't help you'. I can take no as an answer and won't get upset, but the 'oh jeez, what a tool' attitude isn't gonna make it in retail. Just send me on my way, and it's all good.

I have a close friend who sells specialty car parts for Porsches. He and I sit around over a glass of wine sometimes and he gives me his favorite azzwipe customer complaints. The best one a few months back, he got an angry call from a customer shouting and harassing him for not filling the order right, and for overcharging, wrong shipment, blah blah blah. He was really livid, and taking it out on someone in a nasty way. So, my buddy says 'ok, hold on lets have your invoice number and I will make it right'. The guy gets out his invoice and reads off the number, and it doesn't fit the form of my buddy's system. So he says 'look on the top and see what the vendor name is'. The guys says 'xyz part sales'. and my buddy says, 'yeah - well you have called the wrong vendor. This is ABC part sales, so here is the number you want to call and complain. Then, after you send your stuff back, call me and I will get you the right stuff'. So, the guy on the phone apologized, and called the other shop and complained. I asked him if he was gonna take the order from that guy who acted like such an azz, and he said he would take ONE order from him and if the guy complains, he'll never sell him anything again.

I get that, no problem. I wouldn't go into a hair salon and ask for an oil change. but I'm in a truck acc shop, with step bars on the wall, and I know they sell one at a time, but the clerk just thinks it's far too much trouble for a modest retail sale. Too bad, cuz I was looking to buy a topper, and maybe a winch as well. Guess I'll go online and get what I need like the rest of the world.
 
As an aside, MagicJack also includes call forwarding. Recently I somehow wound up on a calling list for a "Canadian Pharmacy" in India, possibly as a result of one of the two recent health insurance company hacks I've been caught up in.

The "Canadian" pharmacy called me half a dozen or more times a day, from different numbers, at all hours of the day and night. I noticed the high incoming call valume and searched on the numbers, and found they were from a "Canadian" pharmacy in India. So I called one of the numbers from the MagicJack, and the Indian fellow who answered greeted me by name and immediately tried to sell me Metformin (which I actually take) as well as Viagra, Cialis, etc. (which I don't need, thank you).

I asked to be removed from the list, and he said of course. But of course, they kept calling. Not that it bothered me much, mind you, because I never answer that line anyway. But just for ****s and giggles, I logged into MagicJack and set the forwarding number to the "Canadian" pharmacy's number, so they were in effect calling themselves. The calls stopped within a day.

Rich
 
Last edited:
RJM62 said:
As an aside, MagicJack also includes call forwarding. Recently I somehow wound up on a calling list for a "Canadian Pharmacy" in India, possibly as a result of one of the two recent health insurance company hacks I've been caught up in.

The "Canadian" pharmacy called me half a dozen or more times a day, from different numbers, at all hours of the day and night. I noticed the high incoming call valume and searched on the numbers, and found they were from a "Canadian" pharmacy in India. So I called one of the numbers from the MagicJack, and the Indian fellow who answered greeted me by name and immediately tried to sell me Metformin (which I actually take) as well as Viagra, Cialis, etc. (which I don't need, than you).

I asked to be removed from the list, and he said of course. But of course, they kept calling. Not that it bothered me much, mind you, because I never answer that line anyway. But just for ****s and giggles, I logged into MagicJack and set the forwarding number to the "Canadian" pharmacy's number, so they were in effect calling themselves. The calls stopped within a day.

Rich
Click to expand...

It almost sounds like MJ is worth is just for the controls it gives you. I'd love to be able write a lookup table that forwards specific callers to specific other places. :lol:
 
Before this thread, I knew practically zero about MagicJack other than it existed. I might have now been sold on getting one. Damn it! I'm not here to find new ways to spend money. :lol:
 
SkyDog58 said:
Before this thread, I knew practically zero about MagicJack other than it existed. I might have now been sold on getting one. Damn it! I'm not here to find new ways to spend money. :lol:
Click to expand...

It's actually relevant to OP's topic because so many retailers sell your phone number to telemarketers or use it themselves for further marketing. It's one of the reasons why more and more, I'm shopping online, but buying locally. The local mom and pop shops don't sell your number or harass you by phone.

Rich
 
RJM62 said:
It's actually relevant to OP's topic because so many retailers sell your phone number to telemarketers or use it themselves for further marketing. It's one of the reasons why more and more, I'm shopping online, but buying locally. The local mom and pop shops don't sell your number or harass you by phone.

Rich
Click to expand...

Hell, just make up a phone number or an email address. Register monkey gets to add it to the database like a good little employee and life goes on.
 
gov98 said:
Unfortunately, this is not about "loss of retail business sense" this is about planned obsolescence.

.......



And that's the reality of where our society is headed, instead of believing that self-repair and maintenance is a good thing, it's now seen as the enemy of profit. And that's because our current society has no idea what profit ought to be. Profit used to be the value added by a goods/services purveyor to another party. Profit is quickly becoming a redistribution of governmentally allocated benefits.
Click to expand...


Nice fantasy, but I can't drive any direction without passing a newly built O'Reilly Auto Parts or a new AutoZone. I had no idea there was the need for all these new stores.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
RJM62 said:
It's actually relevant to OP's topic because so many retailers sell your phone number to telemarketers or use it themselves for further marketing. It's one of the reasons why more and more, I'm shopping online, but buying locally. The local mom and pop shops don't sell your number or harass you by phone.

Rich
Click to expand...

Oh, I totally understand. That is why I wrote that you might have sold me on it.
 
Gerhardt said:
When I'm at a store with an item in hand and they won't ring it up w/o a phone number I just give my old landline number I haven't had in ten years.
n.
Click to expand...

Back 20+ years ago, before it was made illegal, stores would ask for my phone number when I used a credit card. I had a standard number I gave them, just not mine. The area code and prefix were local, but I have no idea who, if anyone, had line 1369. :D

ejensen said:
CH3-4449
First phone number I remember.
Click to expand...

SK3-2754. No, I won't say where that was, or when, but I still remember the home phone from when I was really young.
 
cowman said:
I have the same kinds of results all the time. I've found if it's a physical thing I need, I'm better off just figuring it out using the internet and ordering online.
Click to expand...

This x10

If it's anything remotely unusual amazon prime gets it here faster and cheaper than a brick and mortar store every time. No one has any stock anymore.
 
My first few working years were spent selling truck parts. Big truck and earth-moving stuff. It took me a while to realize that I hated it and wasn't doing either myself or the company any favors. I went to work doing what I was made to do: mechanical stuff. Design, manufacture, inventing, repair. Loved it and made the company lots of money. Moved on into aviation eventually, and enjoy making bad airplanes into good airplanes for their owners.

I think the parts shops are full of guys with no aptitude for the job, no motivation, no interest. I was the only one to study catalogs and learn stuff even though the job overall was boring. The others coffeed all the time. A serious shop owner should look for the right guys, pay them well, maybe even pay commission. Guys with interest in cars or trucks or plumbing or whatever. His payroll would be a lot higher, but the returns might surprise him.
 
Ghery said:
Back 20+ years ago, before it was made illegal, stores would ask for my phone number when I used a credit card. I had a standard number I gave them, just not mine. The area code and prefix were local, but I have no idea who, if anyone, had line 1369. :D
Click to expand...

So is it illegal for the store to ask for my phone number? They do that all the time.

Or is it illegal for me to give a wrong one? Better not give any at all, since sometimes I fat finger the keyboard, or the cashier misunderstands, and a wrong number is recorded . . .

Next thing you know, it will be illegal to make up an email address to keep the spam away. Usually with an obscenity on one side of the "@" or the other. :yes:
 
PeeGee said:
This x10

If it's anything remotely unusual amazon prime gets it here faster and cheaper than a brick and mortar store every time. No one has any stock anymore.
Click to expand...

Amazon's obviously a great online retailer, but they can't always beat the local shops. I have a few by me (like the aforementioned home improvement store) that have all the stock they reasonably should carry, offer excellent service, and come close to (or sometimes beat) Amazon in prices. If one has such a store locally, I advocate using it. Local merchants who deliver good service deserve local support.

If the local shops suck, on the other hand, then they deserve no special consideration just for being local. I'm willing to pay a bit more to support a local business, but only if they're well-run, and only if their prices aren't absurd. I'll always give them 10 percent, maybe more for some items, and even more if high shipping costs are involved. But they have to be knowledgeable, have good stock considering whatever it is that they sell, and treat me courteously; and their prices have to be reasonable considering the remoteness of where I live.

Hank S said:
So is it illegal for the store to ask for my phone number? They do that all the time.

Or is it illegal for me to give a wrong one? Better not give any at all, since sometimes I fat finger the keyboard, or the cashier misunderstands, and a wrong number is recorded . . .

Next thing you know, it will be illegal to make up an email address to keep the spam away. Usually with an obscenity on one side of the "@" or the other. :yes:
Click to expand...

I'm not sure it's illegal to ask, at least not federally. I do know that every merchant processor I've ever used had policies against demanding any additional information or identification for most routine card-present purchases. There were some exceptions based on total price or the nature of the item being purchased (for example, if it was something like an extended warranty or service contract that had to be registered to the customer); but for most card-present sales, no additional identification or information could be demanded.

Rich
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top