Torn Between 2 Systems

Last week Sony released the latest version of its PlayStation gaming system.  This week Microsoft is releasing their latest Xbox unit.  At $399 and $499 respectively, these systems are nowhere near cheap.  Add the cost of at least 1 game to each and you are at a $1,000 if you invest in both systems.

 

Yes, that is a 1 with 3 zeroes attached.  Too much for many people to afford especially given that many people can’t even afford to put food on the table.  Even the cost of 1 system could send anybody well over $750 if they buy even one of the systems.  Even that is too much for many.

 

This is why I have never been swayed into buying a gaming system.  Never.  Ever.

 

Oh yes I used to sell video game systems back in the days of Woolworth.  Back then, it was Nintendo versus Sega.  Both were around the same price, but each had their strengths and weaknesses.  I always preferred the Sega Genesis system because the games looked better and seemed less glitchy.   However, the biggest difference was that the Sega display was the game “Sonic the Hedgehog”, whereas the Nintendo display was a laserdisc playing a loop of various titles with the ability for the users to press buttons to watch various categories of titles.

 

At one point, I asked the reps of both companies if they had any sales brochures on how to sell the units.  Both companies response was that they didn’t and felt that the systems could stand on their own merit.  In other words, no salesperson was necessary to sell the units and the employee like me was left being unable to answer customer questions unless I did my own research mostly from reading magazines in the bookstore across the way on my lunch break.  It was my own opinion that usually swayed the customer.  I was probably the most researched employee who was the most knowledgeable on these products even more so than the department head.  In fact, the department head preferred the Nintendo system because it was a better seller.  Not a great selling philosophy to me.

 

Fast forward to today and we still have some companies running playable game displays whereas others are still using loop DVDs to show off their systems.  Unfortunately now, employees are still left stumped about the merits of the systems they sell.

 

This of course will lead to much customer buyer remorse this holiday season.  It is expected that retailers will see many returns with the customers saying that they should have bought the “other system” or “none at all”.  Back in the Woolworth days, this was very common right after Christmas and there was nothing that could be done about it.  It came with the territory.

 

When Woolworth was selling out of video game systems, the Nintendo and Sega systems were marked down dramatically, to the point where $200 systems were selling for as low as $50.  As much as I wanted to buy, I still resisted.  Today, I regret that a bit, but given that obsolescence is guaranteed when new systems are released and old games don’t work on new systems, I thought better of it.

 

So, my advice to those million people who bought the new Sony or the million who will probably buy the new Xbox, stop and think of the following:

 

Do I really not need this?

Will the price come down right after Christmas?

Did I buy the WRONG system?

Will my money be better spent elsewhere?

 

After answering any of these questions with a yes, then walk away like I did.  As I have done through every evolution of the video game industry.

 

Have a happy Black Friday!

 

 

Please note:  There will be no posting next week in celebration of thanksgiving.  I will be back in 2 weeks with a new posting at that time.

 

 

 

Oh the Merchandise We Carried!

Editor’s Note:  I know it has been about a month and a half since we continued this story, but I felt other topics were as important to discuss and will continue to discuss other topics between set topics that are pre-planned.  Hopefully, I won’t have such a long stretch like this again, but if I do I will do another note like this.

Instead of being an exhaustive list of everything that all the places carried, this is basically a short list of items along with a short bit on some of the more interesting items.

Woolworth:

Besides candy, jewelry, cosmetics, cigarettes, toys, housewares, curtains, sewing supplies, video/audio items and clothes, the store also had its share of odd items.

ODDEST ITEM::

English: A North American Virtual Boy game console, made by Nintendo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Nintendo Virtual Boy – for those who remember this joke item will recall that it had a bright red screen that you looked into like binoculars and tried to play the games on it.  Sadly, it added more to headaches and really didn’t work very well.  At about $100, it was Nintendo’s worst seller and was only in our stores for a couple of months.

ITEM I REALLY SHOULD HAVE PURCHASED:

The Sega Genesis or the Nintendo Super Nintendo were both great bargains when they Woolworth went out of the video game business.

English: Logo of the Nintendo Virtual Boy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

While other stores were still selling these systems for over $100, Woolworth worth selling each of these units for well under $50. This was a stupid move on my part.

Home Quarters (HQ):

Everything for the home could be found here, just like as Home Depot and Lowes still does today.  The only difference is they are still around and HQ is long gone.  HQ’s biggest problem was that much of its merchandise was loose and never tagged such as screws.

Screws were matched up to a drawing in a flip book to determine which one it was and what to charge for it.  Usually it took more than one person to figure it out and sometimes even the front-end supervisor took a guess on some of the items.  The difference of prices in some of the screws were priced from about 10 cents up to almost $2 a each.  Certainly a big difference in price that could cost the company a lot of money and I believe it cost them quite a bit.

Staples:

It would easier to list the items that they didn’t carry during my time with the company.  However, one product stood out far and above as the worst product I have ever seen.

Worst Product:

Flexplay DVD discs were simply the worst product ever carried by Staples.  The lifespan after opening the package was just 48 hours which meant that after that time the disc was no longer usable.  The item started out around $5 per disc, but eventually dropped to under $1 each. Unfortunately, these discs didn’t conform to the DVD specification so they were not as high quality as real DVDs, nor were the movies in widescreen format or have any extras on the discs either.  Sounds like 3 strikes and you are out, Staples.  If only that really was the case as this joke item was ignored by virtually everyone.  Sort of makes that Virtual Boy a great item now.

Up Next:  Pricing the Merchandise

 

The Other Woolworth Positions

Besides working the customer service desk, cashier, and front-end supervisor, I also held other positions in the store as well.  Some were one-time shots, others more often.  Listed below in order of appearances are those other positions and comments about them:

Restaurant Cashier 

There is nothing more awful to look at then watching people eat.  Try this experiment if you don’t believe me:  put a mirror in front of you and start eating.  If you are not freaked out within a couple of minutes, then congratulations, otherwise welcome to my personal hell.  Even though this was a sitting position, it had a lot of downtime.  Most employees read between ringing up customers and it was quite obvious why.  I just sat there staring at the smoke-filled room, waiting for the next customer to come to the counter with their bill to be rung up.  This brings up another point:  many of the bills were added wrong.  So I had to account for these errors and ring their bill up as listed on their check.  No wonder this register was always short.  Nobody ever knew how to ring up over in the restaurant.  It would not be for a couple of years when smoking was banned in the mall and smoking in the restaurant was eliminated.  This was an eventual state law, but too late for the couple times I worked in the restaurant.  Certainly not worth the 50% discount for restaurant employees, which I was for about a week.  Probably the worst place in the store to work short of the pet department, which I never worked.

Women’s Department

It wasn’t often that a guy would work in the women’s clothing section.  This section also included the baby section as well.  Spending a night or afternoon in this section might interest some people, but the thought of endlessly straightening women’s clothing on racks was more than just dull – it was super dull.  Besides that, dealing with the fitting room was almost an endless task as well as this was a babysitting job just to make sure that nobody ever stole anything.  I would also note that this position also required endlessly straightening up the shoe department.  As anybody who has ever looked at any store’s shoe section, this could be an endless task by itself.  I am so glad that I was only in this department a couple of times, just because the store was very desperate.

Men’s Department

Across from the woman’s section was my other hated section: the men’s department.  It was easier to relate to this section because I was a guy, but it still was not the fun section either.  Most importantly this section was small and had just one fitting room unlike the woman’s section that had 4 fitting rooms.  The worst thing about this department was the straightening of the Dickies clothes.  Anybody who has ever handled these clothes know how heavy they can be especially the full suits.  What made this department so bad was that it was a very claustrophobic space.  It was a great relief when I finally got to leave this department for even for a few minutes.

Jewelry Department

Speaking of tight spaces, nothing was any tighter than the jewelry register area. The space between a wall and a counter was about 3 feet wide, which made it a pretty tight squeeze to enter the register area. The rest of the department wasn’t much better either. It was not uncommon to bump into one counter while trying to maneuver around another. In doing so, it was very easy to knock the jewelry onto the floor, which I did frequently. This was another one of those thankful departments that I rarely appeared in only when the store was desperate.

Domestics Department

This one should almost be disqualified as this area was part of my customer service desk duties as well. During my downtime (read: when I felt like it), I was supposed to straighten up the curtain and bedding section, which was 5 aisles wide to the right of the customer service area and the area of the sewing section which was about 4 aisles straight forward of the customer service desk. I usually wandered into these sections just for the exercise alone, but the straightening was sometimes very frustrating. Curtains were especially troublesome as it was difficult to sometimes figure out which package each open package piece belonged to. I know many times I probably screwed this up, but what do you expect from somebody who knows nothing about curtains.  The sewing area was hardly any better as keeping the different types of yarn in the right bins was sometimes an endless battle of emptying the bins and resorting the yarns out by type.  No matter what neither section of domestics were enjoyable, thus I tried hard not to spend a lot of time in either section.

Sporting Goods Department

Yee-Hah!  Nothing more satisfying to a gun-toting cowboy than working in this section.  This section, which was nestled between the Stationary department, the toy department, and the housewares department, was probably the most depressing department to work in.  As I knew nothing about rifles, camping, or bicycles, this section was not a favorite of mine.  Since this department wasn’t visited much, not much ever needed straightening.  So this department was nothing more than walking around being bored.  The worst thing about this department was the handling of the rifles.  The smell of the gun oil made me sick and getting it on my hands was even worse.  I eventually figured a way to handle the guns by wrapping my hands in paper towels to handle them.  Yea, it looked stupid but it worked for me.  Worse than handling the rifles was the paperwork needed to sell one.  Thankfully, a form needed to be faxed to Augusta to perform a background check before any rifle could be sold.  This took about 5 days and it did anger some people.  I guess the satisfaction of having a rifle today was not in some people’s plans.  I usually got stuck working in this department on Saturday nights when one of the two regular associates were off.  Never looked forward to those nights at all.

Music Department

Finally, the one department that I spent the most time in by far was this one.  It was also the department I also enjoyed the most as well.  I mean who would not enjoy being surrounded by videos, cds, boom boxes, and video game systems.  This was my playground of fun.  When nobody was around, I would go over to the Sega Genesis machine and play Sonic the Hedgehog.  I was never any good at it, but I enjoyed it just the same.  We also had a Nintendo kiosk, but was not set up to actually play games – it just looped a demo on a laser-disc player contained within the display.  When we stopped carrying video games, I purchased that laser-disc player and got the Nintendo demo disc left inside as a bonus.  I think I have quite a collectable despite laser-disc players no longer being manufactured.

Another fun part of the department was watching VHS tapes, listening to the radio, and playing cds.  The important thing about cds was that I was working there when the transition was made from the long extended cardboard boxes that the cds were in and were left in their smaller cd jewel cases.  Thank the tree-huggers for that one.  To protect the cds, a new security package was introduced that housed the cd that needed to be opened with a special key.  A similar package was also used on cassette tapes as well as their cardboard packages were also eliminated as well.  I will have more to say about product security in future posts.  One thing I proved about cds while working there was that it was absolutely possible to play a cd to death, did that twice with the same title.  The cd, which was a department favorite, was Weird Al Yankovic’s “Jurassic Park”.  A very enjoyable cd for those who love parodies and all his work is always entertaining.

However, not everything was fun and games in the department.  I spent a lot of my time endlessly pricing things that were brought over to me.  My hands were sore after a long day of pricing merchandise.  More will be said about pricing merchandise in a future post as well. 

The funniest thing that ever happened in that department was when a bird got loose in the pet department and decided to fly over to the music department to do a little looking around.  The little bird sat upon a video tape rack and one by one knocked each video tape to the floor while standing on the one next to it.  When the bird got to the last tape, the bird jumped to the shelf and pushed the last one onto the floor.  This bird was easily caught because it just wanted to sit on this rack with nothing else on it.  It certainly wasn’t the first time that a bird got loose and certainly wouldn’t be the last either. 

Conclusion:

Overall everyday at Woolworth brought variety.  Hardly a day was ever dull as there was always something to do or maybe just a little time for some fun.  But you can’t have fun if you don’t carry merchandise and with that will be the next topic as I discuss the regular merchandise carried along with the more odd stuff carried.

Up Next:  Oh the Merchandise We Carried!