How Many Shopping Days?
The holiday shopping season is on all of our minds this time of year. I don’t have a particularly vast shopping list this year, as it seems right to give priority to the necessities over the luxuries in life. So my thoughts have turned more to where I don’t shop, rather than where I do shop.
There are a few retailers that don’t want to welcome me, so I will oblige them by not bothering to go to their stores. There are plenty to choose from, anyway.
My first irritation is retailers who want to charge me an admission fee to visit their stores. The most well known of these is, of course, Costco. The famous local non-wholesaler (despite having the word “wholesale” in their name) will not admit me to their store unless I purchase a membership from there. Many people do, but at least for me, it doesn’t make sense to do so. Even if it makes sense to purchase a large quantity of items selected from an inventory off items with inconsistent availability, it still doesn’t make sense to me to pay for the privilege of entering the store. I feel more insulted by this than enticed to see what is inside today.
The same story goes for local company Bi-Mart. Yes, the membership fee is only $5.00. It is just the principle of the matter. Perhaps I’m old fashioned. Perhaps I want to be welcomed as a shopper, but not with a guard at the door asking whether I’m a member yet. Frankly, it’s not even particularly clear what they sell inside their windowless stores. It looks like I won’t be finding out soon, either.
I do not buy my groceries at the Safeway Club. Historically, I do not have any particular bias against Safeway. They have fine stores. I simply find it insulting that they raise their prices much higher than their competitors, then say that they are willing to sell them to me at a “discount” if I use their card. The discount brings the real sales price down to a more typical price for groceries. I don’t particularly want to have my shopping tracked. I also don’t want to be insulted by a company that plays card games instead of offering fair prices. So I will shop elsewhere. While I have periodically purchased an item or two from them over the years, I havent bought a cart full of groceries from them since 1998 or so.
Those who know me know that I do my grocery shopping at Fred Meyer. Astute observers will tell me that Fred Meyer also has a Rewards Card program. There is a big difference here. The difference is that I am not required to use the card to get the best available price on groceries. I am potentially missing out on several dollars worth of coupons in the mail every three months, but I am willing to make that very small sacrifice in exchange for not playing the card game.
In the end, many retailers are trying to lure me into their stores to spend my money. There are plenty of choices out there without patronizing stores that require me to become a member of a club to shop at their store. I would encourage my readers to avoid these retailers and others that play games with you rather than offering you free admission to their stores and fair prices to all shoppers.
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