Shopping list: Bread, Milk And An Ancient Laptop
Recently while standing in line at the customer service counter of my local Pathmark supermarket, I overheard a mom ask the sales person if the store still had any of those Dell notebooks available.
I stopped picking my N.Y. Lottery numbers long enough to look up and watch the sales person turnaround and pick up a small box marked Dell and hand it to the woman. It was stacked right in front of the cigarettes. She rang it up for $399.
The mom and her 10-or-so-year-old son were thrilled with their purchase. She even smiled at me and said, “Isn’t this a great price?”
I looked at the specs on the box and was dumbfounded. The store was selling a small Dell notebook; no model number was obvious. It had an Intel mobile Pentium III, yes P3, processor, 256MB of memory, 25GB hard drive and it was running Windows Millenium. Man, Windows Me was a lousy OS when it was introduced. The notebook’s design was more than six years old. So it was either a refurb or Dell just discovered a warehouse full of these things in Round Rock, Texas, and decided to blow them out.
I’m not sure if I failed in my journalistic responsibility to the public, but I did not say anything to the lady. I just smiled. She was so happy and nothing I could say would probably help.
All I could think about was what was going to happen when that kid tries to go online with his new toy. These notebooks have been out of circulation for so long that I cannot even remember if they came with an Ethernet port. It certainly will not have any kind of built-in networking ability.
I then asked the Stop and Shop person if they were going to take the notebooks back when people realized they had purchased the computer equivalent of a loaf of moldy bread. She replied with a blank look and took my lottery money.
Passing off what was a totally out-of-date notebook as something brand new to an unwary customer is a pretty despicable act. I know we live in a buyer-beware environment, but the average person does not know a P3 chip from a Dorito. They just see the nice new box, inexpensive price tag and plop down their credit card.
Larry McDonnel commented:
I find this to be very typical when customers are shopping. Some
won't even entertain the idea of going into an electronics store
for electronics because they "don't want to go through the whole
deal." People are weary of being dominated in the store by someone
and told what to get and what they need. They feel they are saving
some money when in fact $399 is a horrible price for a machine with
those specs. You could get a new machine with 8 times the memory,
and at least 5 times the hard drive space for only $180 more at the
local P.C. Richards. I cringe when people buy things at stores that
aren't in the business of selling that item. If I was there, I
would have probably shaken the lady and given her a gentle slap to
the face to snap her out of her ignorant coma.
Larry McDonnel commented:
I find this to be very typical when customers are shopping. Some
won't even entertain the idea of going into an electronics store
for electronics because they "don't want to go through the whole
deal." People are weary of being dominated in the store by someone
and told what to get and what they need. They feel they are saving
some money when in fact $399 is a horrible price for a machine with
those specs. You could get a new machine with 8 times the memory,
and at least 5 times the hard drive space for only $180 more at the
local P.C. Richards. I cringe when people buy things at stores that
aren't in the business of selling that item. If I was there, I
would have probably shaken the lady and given her a gentle slap to
the face to snap her out of her ignorant coma.
Larry McDonnel commented:
MichaelR1951@gmail.com commented:
Disnonest? I don't think that's fair, at least in this case. The
lady wanted something CHEAP. She didn't want to do any homework to
see if the laptop was really what she needed. So cared only for
PRICE. The customer who cares only for price is willing to
sacrifice a lot to get it sometimes. Did it work for what she
wanted? We don't know. We really don't. It may have worked
perfectly. But, if the unit didn't work as she wanted, she had an
obligation as a buyer to at least have some sort of checklist of
what she needed to do. She bought it at a grocery store. A
non-threatning enviroment to be sure, and one where no one would
have an answer if she did have a question. She bought it at a place
that sells commodities and that is exactly how she treated this
purchase. If it worked for her, great. If not, she no one to blame
but herself. Remember, the oldest rule in selling is "Let the buyer
beware". In this modern age, many times, the buyer chooses to
ignore this age old advice.
MichaelR1951@gmail.com commented:
Disnonest? I don't think that's fair, at least in this case. The
lady wanted something CHEAP. She didn't want to do any homework to
see if the laptop was really what she needed. So cared only for
PRICE. The customer who cares only for price is willing to
sacrifice a lot to get it sometimes. Did it work for what she
wanted? We don't know. We really don't. It may have worked
perfectly. But, if the unit didn't work as she wanted, she had an
obligation as a buyer to at least have some sort of checklist of
what she needed to do. She bought it at a grocery store. A
non-threatning enviroment to be sure, and one where no one would
have an answer if she did have a question. She bought it at a place
that sells commodities and that is exactly how she treated this
purchase. If it worked for her, great. If not, she no one to blame
but herself. Remember, the oldest rule in selling is "Let the buyer
beware". In this modern age, many times, the buyer chooses to
ignore this age old advice.
MichaelR1951@gmail.com commented:
TimG commented:
Another of a never-ending example of the basic dishonesty of much
of American business...
TimG commented:
Another of a never-ending example of the basic dishonesty of much
of American business...
TimG commented:
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