In this day and age of technology that should be able to minimize the stress and grief of buying a product, I find it's only gotten worse. Maybe it's more the selfish culture of the generations behind mine, that really don't care about the issues they cause for other people. I don't know the actual root of the cause, so don't want to point my finger at a particular person or store.
The big box stores that have put the little Ma and Pa shops out of business just really don't seem to care that they regularly have defective products on the shelf, and every customer that finds them thinks "It isn't my problem." as they put the defective item back where they found it, until finally, the entire collection of items that the next customer finds is defective, and the store won't order more because they show all those defective items in inventory. Obviously, they're measured on their losses against profit, and I can understand this to a point. But what about discounting items with minor damage so they will sell? This is particularly true in building materials stores where defective lumber or bumped/scratched/dented items get put back on the shelves. They simply don't purge their inventory of the defected materials. That's one side of the coin, that customers aren't nearly as helpful to the next customer by pulling items and giving them to the store clerks at checkout as perhaps we could be. Guilty of it myself, especially with lumber, but if I think it'll actually help to take a defective product up front and not buy it, I usually give it a try with small items that I find. Don't even get me started about bolt bins and specialty hardware. With lumber, you get to pay full price for an 8' 2x4 of which you may only be able to use 3 feet of it. And Mr. Big Box is quite happy to let you buy it that way, at full price. Or, he'll let you pay for a shorter board, which has the price built in for their cutting services. Not very fair to the customer. I remember getting culls for free at sawmills when I was a kid. Even if we couldn't use them for anything but stove wood, it was FREE if it was culled.
Mostly, because I know what Mr. Big Box is going to do with the item, I rarely bother trying to help him and his customers out. That makes me feel like a bad person, sometimes. He's gonna put it right back on the shelf. I'm not talking about items that I purchased and could not use, I'm talking about a product that could not be used before I bought it. DEFECTIVE, broken, or otherwise unusable for the purpose intended. I went in one big box store, purchased a toilet tank repair kit, not noticing it had been opened before I took it off the hook and until I got home with it. What a PITA, but the ONE part I needed desperately was missing, my toilet tank was disassembled, so I had to return it to finish the job I started because the part I needed was cracked and completely unusable to try to put it back in. I used a Sharpie, and marked the edge of it as missing that part in small letters on the edge of the back side of the card of the shrink pack. What I wrote was on the opposite side of the barcode side of the package, which is probably how the following happened. Lo and behold, the second toilet developed the same problem (probably because they're the same age), so I went to get another kit, same box store, same aisle, same bin. I pulled the front card off the rack, and thought, "Self, last time you did this it took two trips and a lot of aggravation at Customer Service to get it replaced." So, I flipped the card, and SURE ENOUGH, there's my scribble (I know my own handwriting) about the missing part, that I again needed. So, I got another off the rack, verified the part was in it and that the package was indeed unopened, and headed to the checkout with both. The cashier IMMEDIATELY rang up both and it took a bit of protesting to get her to take one back off. I had shown her my handwriting on the back of the package, and told her that I had found it back on the shelf, but, she didn't care. She told me I should have gone to Customer Service, despite me protesting that I got it off the shelf (again) that way. The only difference in the two packages was the writing on it that I'd put on there 3 weeks prior, and the still missing part. Customer service comes over to figure out the commotion and stopped line at the checkout. They didn't care. They put it in the returns basket, which means, and you probably guessed, it wound up BACK on the rack to be sold to someone else that might not look at the package and might not need the part that was missing. Just out of a curiosity, I went by that aisle just to check while I was there for other items, and there it was, front card again. For full price, of course. If full price sale is the policy, shouldn't I be able to expect unopened NEW merchandise that I'm about to pay for?
I can remember when small parts stores and hardware stores were very diligent about making sure the right parts were in the kits as well as very generous about marking down pricing on opened items. If you had to return one, it was a matter of get another off the shelf if you showed up with the original as purchased with a receipt and could verify all parts were back in the package. I know, that some people are dishonest enough to break or steal a component of a repair kit and then return it to get their money back. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in, but that problem could be mitigated by an exchange only policy if there's no proof that a store associate advised on the selection of the returned item. You know, you're the expert, you should know what you're buying, and the store should not be responsible. OR, if the seal of the package is broken, no return, period. But if a package is marked defective, or has duct tape all over it indicating it's been opened, shouldn't there be SOME discount or compensation? Sometimes, I'd be willing to buy "scratch n dent" packages, other times, NO, I want NEW. Shouldn't any package clearly marked as defective or short components be put in a place for disposal or return to manufacturer or a discount area? I've cut shrink-wrap off items and found them to be missing components and unusable, and that is clearly a manufacture's issue, or, maybe someone less honest with a shrink-wrap machine. It happens, I know.
These days, if I pick up a packaged item from a shelf in ANY big box store, the FIRST thing I do is inspect it CLOSELY to see if all seals are in place and if I see ANY evidence the item has been opened, back on the shelf it goes until I find one unopened. If an associate is near, I might point out that the package is opened and missing parts, but most of the time, I'm met with a blank stare, especially if the associate is a 20 something. I don't care if it was opened by a store associate or a curious potential buyer. I don't open packages. I make sure the package is supposed to contain what I need. If it does not when I get home with it, then that's my problem for making the wrong selection. My main reason for that behavior is that whether or not all the parts are there, it is now an opened item, and should therefore be discounted by management, and marked accordingly. I do my best not to add to the cost of items in places I shop (or anywhere else). Any item that is returned, whether opened or not, should by virtue of the fact it's left the store, be sold as a used item. That's the practice with cars. You drive a new car off the lot, you're not likely to get full purchase price back if you're gone more than 24 hours or put more than 10 miles on it. They might fix it at no charge if it's defective in anyway, but if you want a different car, you'll get used vehicle price for the one you want to return, and pay full price for another. The ONLY exception to this in history that I can remember was the Warranty program on Saturns. If you brought it back for a defect, regardless of what the defect was, you were allowed to just pick a new one off the lot and start over. THAT was service. But as it is, if I want new gutters, I have to sift through all the scratched and mishandled pieces for a long time to find items that are in the new condition I'm about to pay for. Give me a discount, I'll take some of the used/damaged materials off your hands and put them to use in places less noticeable. But making me pay full price for anything on the shelves will only make me picky about what I take off the shelf. Sometimes picky enough to go to a different Big Box store.
CLUNK! (me getting off my soap box)
The big box stores that have put the little Ma and Pa shops out of business just really don't seem to care that they regularly have defective products on the shelf, and every customer that finds them thinks "It isn't my problem." as they put the defective item back where they found it, until finally, the entire collection of items that the next customer finds is defective, and the store won't order more because they show all those defective items in inventory. Obviously, they're measured on their losses against profit, and I can understand this to a point. But what about discounting items with minor damage so they will sell? This is particularly true in building materials stores where defective lumber or bumped/scratched/dented items get put back on the shelves. They simply don't purge their inventory of the defected materials. That's one side of the coin, that customers aren't nearly as helpful to the next customer by pulling items and giving them to the store clerks at checkout as perhaps we could be. Guilty of it myself, especially with lumber, but if I think it'll actually help to take a defective product up front and not buy it, I usually give it a try with small items that I find. Don't even get me started about bolt bins and specialty hardware. With lumber, you get to pay full price for an 8' 2x4 of which you may only be able to use 3 feet of it. And Mr. Big Box is quite happy to let you buy it that way, at full price. Or, he'll let you pay for a shorter board, which has the price built in for their cutting services. Not very fair to the customer. I remember getting culls for free at sawmills when I was a kid. Even if we couldn't use them for anything but stove wood, it was FREE if it was culled.
Mostly, because I know what Mr. Big Box is going to do with the item, I rarely bother trying to help him and his customers out. That makes me feel like a bad person, sometimes. He's gonna put it right back on the shelf. I'm not talking about items that I purchased and could not use, I'm talking about a product that could not be used before I bought it. DEFECTIVE, broken, or otherwise unusable for the purpose intended. I went in one big box store, purchased a toilet tank repair kit, not noticing it had been opened before I took it off the hook and until I got home with it. What a PITA, but the ONE part I needed desperately was missing, my toilet tank was disassembled, so I had to return it to finish the job I started because the part I needed was cracked and completely unusable to try to put it back in. I used a Sharpie, and marked the edge of it as missing that part in small letters on the edge of the back side of the card of the shrink pack. What I wrote was on the opposite side of the barcode side of the package, which is probably how the following happened. Lo and behold, the second toilet developed the same problem (probably because they're the same age), so I went to get another kit, same box store, same aisle, same bin. I pulled the front card off the rack, and thought, "Self, last time you did this it took two trips and a lot of aggravation at Customer Service to get it replaced." So, I flipped the card, and SURE ENOUGH, there's my scribble (I know my own handwriting) about the missing part, that I again needed. So, I got another off the rack, verified the part was in it and that the package was indeed unopened, and headed to the checkout with both. The cashier IMMEDIATELY rang up both and it took a bit of protesting to get her to take one back off. I had shown her my handwriting on the back of the package, and told her that I had found it back on the shelf, but, she didn't care. She told me I should have gone to Customer Service, despite me protesting that I got it off the shelf (again) that way. The only difference in the two packages was the writing on it that I'd put on there 3 weeks prior, and the still missing part. Customer service comes over to figure out the commotion and stopped line at the checkout. They didn't care. They put it in the returns basket, which means, and you probably guessed, it wound up BACK on the rack to be sold to someone else that might not look at the package and might not need the part that was missing. Just out of a curiosity, I went by that aisle just to check while I was there for other items, and there it was, front card again. For full price, of course. If full price sale is the policy, shouldn't I be able to expect unopened NEW merchandise that I'm about to pay for?
I can remember when small parts stores and hardware stores were very diligent about making sure the right parts were in the kits as well as very generous about marking down pricing on opened items. If you had to return one, it was a matter of get another off the shelf if you showed up with the original as purchased with a receipt and could verify all parts were back in the package. I know, that some people are dishonest enough to break or steal a component of a repair kit and then return it to get their money back. Unfortunately, that's the world we live in, but that problem could be mitigated by an exchange only policy if there's no proof that a store associate advised on the selection of the returned item. You know, you're the expert, you should know what you're buying, and the store should not be responsible. OR, if the seal of the package is broken, no return, period. But if a package is marked defective, or has duct tape all over it indicating it's been opened, shouldn't there be SOME discount or compensation? Sometimes, I'd be willing to buy "scratch n dent" packages, other times, NO, I want NEW. Shouldn't any package clearly marked as defective or short components be put in a place for disposal or return to manufacturer or a discount area? I've cut shrink-wrap off items and found them to be missing components and unusable, and that is clearly a manufacture's issue, or, maybe someone less honest with a shrink-wrap machine. It happens, I know.
These days, if I pick up a packaged item from a shelf in ANY big box store, the FIRST thing I do is inspect it CLOSELY to see if all seals are in place and if I see ANY evidence the item has been opened, back on the shelf it goes until I find one unopened. If an associate is near, I might point out that the package is opened and missing parts, but most of the time, I'm met with a blank stare, especially if the associate is a 20 something. I don't care if it was opened by a store associate or a curious potential buyer. I don't open packages. I make sure the package is supposed to contain what I need. If it does not when I get home with it, then that's my problem for making the wrong selection. My main reason for that behavior is that whether or not all the parts are there, it is now an opened item, and should therefore be discounted by management, and marked accordingly. I do my best not to add to the cost of items in places I shop (or anywhere else). Any item that is returned, whether opened or not, should by virtue of the fact it's left the store, be sold as a used item. That's the practice with cars. You drive a new car off the lot, you're not likely to get full purchase price back if you're gone more than 24 hours or put more than 10 miles on it. They might fix it at no charge if it's defective in anyway, but if you want a different car, you'll get used vehicle price for the one you want to return, and pay full price for another. The ONLY exception to this in history that I can remember was the Warranty program on Saturns. If you brought it back for a defect, regardless of what the defect was, you were allowed to just pick a new one off the lot and start over. THAT was service. But as it is, if I want new gutters, I have to sift through all the scratched and mishandled pieces for a long time to find items that are in the new condition I'm about to pay for. Give me a discount, I'll take some of the used/damaged materials off your hands and put them to use in places less noticeable. But making me pay full price for anything on the shelves will only make me picky about what I take off the shelf. Sometimes picky enough to go to a different Big Box store.
CLUNK! (me getting off my soap box)
