During the last two trips for Staples, I've noticed more empty shelves and a reduced number of things you might actually want to buy. They have plenty of staff on hand, though. Nice people who wander around the store, waiting for you to ask for their help."Can I help you?"
"Thanks. I'm looking for small windowed envelopes." I'd seen a box of 500 at Sam's Club. I won't use 500 of these in my lifetime. A box of 25 would be fine.
Both of us looked high and low on the shelves. No small windowed envelopes.
We concluded that both of us could not find the envelops. "You can order them on the web," the sales assistant said. "I can go look it up for you." He motioned to the computer at the end of the aisle.
Indeed, we could order the product online from the store.
Those of you of a certain age, remember the old Sears catalog stores? You could walk in to a storefront where they had Sears catalogs on the counter. You'd look up the item you wanted, pay for the purchase in cash, and have the product delivered to the store or to your home.
Staples is doing something weird here. They have made an effort to put good sales support staff on the floor and then give them nothing to sell.
They used to have a slogan, "Yeah, we've got that." It was a good slogan. It inspired confidence without arrogance.
Time was, we'd go there and buy what we wanted and another armload of stuff that caught our attention - boxes of pens, a deal on manila folders, a power strip, and a wastebasket to carry home all the stuff that we just bought.
On my last few trips, I've bought less than what I sought and very little on impulse. OK, so we bought yet another 4GB flash drive.
P.S., Staples has the envelopes online, but only in quantities of 500.
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