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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

That's hilarious!

Do you... try that regularly?

Stores are so understaffed, you're lucky to get them to pick up the phone at all, and if they do you often won't get accurate information. They'll never walk to an aisle to see if something is physically there, they'll tell you if it's "in the system", but frequently "the system" will show 3 in stock while the reality is zero on the shelf. Or 48 in stock but they're all on a pallet in the back they can't get to.

And good luck finding a sales associate in the store itself. Quite frequently there simply aren't any -- only cashiers, a security guard, and people restocking who don't have the knowledge to help you at all.

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You sound like you're describing a Walmart or Target. I thought we were talking about local small businesses. All the niche small businesses around me, the store owner is often the one who takes the call and they know their inventory inside and out

Yes. Just tell the guy to get off his butt and go and see if the item is in stock. This has worked every time for me. I call walmart on a reg to see if an item is in stock before having to drive all the way there.

So my choice is to harass/insult a minimum wage employee and distract them from their already-overloaded and already-minmaxed job so that I can spend more, get in my vehicle and spew carbon into the atmosphere to......give money to a family of ultra-billionaires instead of one ultrabillionaire? And that's helping my local economy?

Why are you harassing and insulting them in the first place? Nobody taught you how to speak politely?

The GP said to tell the employee to get off his butt, which is usually interpreted as rude.

They didn't mean you should literally say those exact words. You could say something like "Would you mind checking it for me yourself? I'd really appreciate it."

Not sure I’d consider Walmart the kind of local business being discussed here...

Walmart is not a local shop. They have a pretty large software dept i house and you could probably check availability online yourself.

Actually my wife does this all the time and it works, especially for small businesses. Larger companies have websites, and small businesses care enough to do things like check the stock for you.

So I guess my anecdote cancels yours out?

This goes for San Francisco retail shops but also I'm sure other places: Some of the stores don't open till noon. Some are only open 3 days a week. Some stores are open the days the other stores are closed. I'm talking about some of the most popular retail storefronts in SF.

There are no good options. I went through this recently where I had to call different stores on 3 separate days, waiting till 10am, 11am, or 12pm. And you still don't know the product you are asking about is really the one you are after. There are so many versions of products and specific use cases nowadays.

The previous posters experience resonates much more with me than your experience.

Even when you do go to a shop you are often redirected online. That item isn't in stock on the computer. No attempt to upsell you or suggest an alternative which they might have in stock. It's no wonder high street stores are dying out.

To be fair, small specialist stores are usually much better. I even got a call back from a company the last time I was trying to buy a specific BBQ. Sadly they didn't have it in stock and a day or two later I found it online.

The underlying problem with these anecdotes is that All of these experiences depend on who is working that day.

It may even be influenced by who is working that week or that month or who runs the place this year.

Ecommerce is imperfect in many ways, but it is far more consistent in its imperfection than local retail.

W.C. Winks Hardware Inc. in Portland, Oregon has been around since 1909 and is amazing.

You can go in there with some odd piece of hardware and someone will personally wait on you, assess your request and find the exact item or closest likeness.

The staff is patient and friendly, in my experience it is ideal local retail. But Winks doesn’t do ecommerce at all, so I often must relegate it to unusual hard to figure HW needs, because not every project needs this level of service.

I’m in agreement that retail has some pretty serious work to do to stay in the running. It might not be fair or “right” but it has to happen nonetheless.

I live in a fairly small town. Almost every store is minimally staffed, often by a single person. Phones regularly go to voicemail. Calling up the local shoe store to ask whether they have something in my size will get an interesting response. I’m also thinner than average here, so entire pants racks at the local clothing stores just don’t carry a single piece in my size.

One store I frequented was owner operated with probably their daughter as an employee. They would walk around with a cordless phone on their hip so as to not miss a call. If there's enough interest, people find a way.

A phone without a cord? What is this magic?

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