Buy, Buy, Buy!
29/05/2004
Can’t stop shopping!
Today KF and I headed down to Orchard for dinner. The biggest difference between KF and me is he’s the sort who’d eat anything just to try it, and I’d really rather not. So deciding where to eat can sometimes be a nightmare.
Anyway, we headed to Specialists’ Centre because it was next to the MRT, and we wanted to go check DVDs out at Gramophone (which was a bad idea, more on that later). Along the way there was a poster for some korean restaurant in the building called – ok now brace yourselves, it’s coming up, the name, that by any other word would smell as sweet – Korean Restaurant. How could you possibly go wrong with a restaurant named like that.
It was on the fifth floor right in the corner past a dance studio, but it was nice and quiet and the service was satisfactory. We ordered some Beef bulgogi and Ginseng Chicken soup ($22 but the portion enough for 4) which was totally yummy.
After that, we headed to Gramophone, and it was a pretty disorganised place. In a corner KF was busy checking his phone, and backed himself in a nice corner to get out of the way of other browsing customers. He noticed though, that an employee a little behind him was giving him the glare to shoo him off from that area because they were doing something to the stock in the corner.
Why you shouldn’t give your customer The Glare
I know I’m a whiney complaining customer, I think we deserve better than a glare. The local retail market needs a kick in the ass – I think times have either been too good, or shoppers like you and I aren’t exercising enough of our birthright to demand courtesy and reward stores that try, and boycott those that treat us shabbily.
If you’re a retailer, or are thinking about being one – here’re some alternatives to The Glare that I’d prefer to see
1. Speak up – A simple “Excuse me sir, but I’ve kinda made a bit of a mess here and if you could browse over on that end so I could clear it up, I’d really appreciate that”.
2. Organisation – I know shop space is expensive, but surely you don’t have to label your stock in front of your customers? And take up the browsing space while you’re at it. What are mornings for?
DVD update from HMV at the Heeren
Mind Your Language is available at HMV. If I remember correctly it was $38 per season. But I’m really bad at numbers. KT will tell you.
Only Fools and Horses (the complete series 1-3) has been reduced to something like $120, which makes it cheap enough to buy locally (as opposed to getting it from Amazon).
Northern Exposure Season 1 is also out, but cost something stupid like $91 so that’s dropped off my list – it costs only US$34.89. It didn’t even come in the cute orange jacket!
