…because the zipper broke. We hit three different stores after school, and struck out at each one of them. I come home, go online, and found one online within thirty seconds. But this isn’t a post about how this shows why brick-and-mortar stores are dying. It’s a post that asks a question: how do we keep those stores alive?
I mean, they do provide jobs for people and everything. And you gotta have people generating economic activity if you want to have an economy. And, honestly, same-day delivery online isn’t a thing yet. Which is one reason why I went to the stores in the first place. So how do we save these things from (apparently) themselves?
I suppose this begs the question of what manner in which you struck out. Size? Style? Price? One would think that children’s lothing especially would be generic enough to find anywhere.
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You already mention the immediacy angle. My thing is, there’s not service or support knowledge in the box stores anymore. My body has…odd dimensions, and I wouldn’t dream of asking anyone there for assistance. If some teen schlub is just gonna search the website for info, I’ll do it myself. Educate the bum(and the mass-production managers for that matter.) in the finer points of fitting clothes and shoes, and we can talk.
The only coat that I could find in my kid’s size was $135. Which seemed… insanely high for a coat.
and your child will quickly grow out of that size. helps if there is a younger to wear it, too. for the parental pocketbook
on the other hand… the hand me down one….
As the elder sister…. I will spare you what my younger sister thought of the matching dresses that our mother bought that she had to wear the hand-me-downs of…. volcanic.
Walmart is already thinking about this very problem. You can now order stuff and then pick it up at the store. My Walmart is currently building an addition in order to get this done quickly.
amazon prime is two day delivery. that is just one day more than shopping. without the hassle of driving/parking/ etc. additional thought. there does have to be some employees in the warehouse/ delivery driver system.
and on the third hand. I honestly don’t know if I will ever shop in a mall again. Nothing to pull me there… and it doesn’t seem safe, anymore, anyhows.
A big part of your problem is that you 1) wanted a seasonal item (winter jacket) and you 2) are getting very close to the end of the season where they are used.
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Brick and mortar stores simply can’t afford to waste precious hanger space on an item that they might not sell 3 of in the next 8 months.
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TL;DR winter coats at the tail end of February qualify as a long-tail item.
> tail end of February
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January, I meant, of course. Comes from dithering about whether to say “end of January” or “two days before February”.
Are there no seamstress’s around?
Also, many (good) dry cleaners will do small repairs like zipper replacement.
The coat’s like, a few years old at this point and it was getting rips everywhere. But God forbid we could be allowed to throw it out before now…