When you’re a major retail chain in a highly competitive market, it’s generally not good form to have your customers leave feeling like criminals (as opposed to the RIAA, who benefits from a virtual monopoly over its market and thus can afford to). Such was the case when I recently visited just such a major electronics retail store, who shall remain nameless (but relying on its name you would believe it to be a bustling metropolis in some nation of electronics).
I went there to buy a videogame…
- The new releases are locked in a glass cabinet, and unlike places like Wal-Mart, which always seem to swirl with the unwashed masses, this store requires I stand around for five minutes pathetically begging uninterested employees to let me do what at another store I might have done in seconds: pick up the product.
- Not that they really needed the glass cabinet — every videogame is individually sealed in a sturdy plastic codex (presumably to foil anyone clever enough to break into the cabinet).
- Now at the cashier, my photo ID is (obviously) needed to ensure I’m not making my purchase with a stolen credit card.
- After swiping my card, the cashier demands to know my telephone number, though I bet with enough resistance I could have fought it (my will was broken at that point). How nice it was, and not at all creepy, to see mine and every one of my other family members’ addresses and telephone numbers pop up on her screen, ensuring our participation in direct-mail marketing and salable consumer statistics for years to come.
- The cashier finally slips the printed receipt into a cute holder for me to sign, although my signature on the paper is not what they’re after. Apparently the holder goes ahead and captures my signature digitally as well (for what nefarious marketing purpose I can only guess), after which I am free to take the worthless, signed paper with me out the door.
Much of it is standard these days in the world of retail, but when all combined in what should have been a five minute visit, I just left feeling lucky they deemed me worthy of making my purchase at all. And a little dirty…
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