Monday, February 16, 2009
Discount shopping
posted at 1:13 PM |
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So, after getting my car its 30,000 check-up and on the enthusiastic recommendations of two friends, I went to BJs to see what it was like. Yes, I'm one of the 11 Americans who had never stepped inside a shopping warehouse on my own steam until today (although I did go to Costco once with my daughter). I methodically walked up and down and across the aisles for over an hour and found several neat things. They have organic ravioli of various interesting kinds, paper sheet covers about half the price of Office Depot, Paneira soups (yum), packages of what looked like eight thousand batteries for about the price of 4 in regular stores, sealed-together cans of 12 cans of tuna for the price of 4 usually, fresh vegetables (even some organic though no organic bananas which disappointed me), loads of deli selections, etc., etc., just to name a few things that caught my eye. So I'm a member now, right? Especially considering their on-site bakery and that I wanted to grab a dessert for tonight, right? Well, no. Nope. Wrong. And here's why. I brought my one-day pass up to member services and the guy stirred from his elbow-leaning conversation with the other person there and roused himself enough to point to the coupon and say, "See this? just to let you know you'll be paying a 15% surcharge unless you join." Mind you, I'd seen the comment but interpeted it to mean the discount would be a fixed 15% on the first visit even if prices were lower for members. The fee is $45 a year. Assuming a 15-20% discount over regular prices, one needs to spend $300+ before the fee pays for itself. That's not much of a problem since their merchandise is pretty good but I wanted to think about it before committing myself. It's a large commitment. The guy didn't even say "gee, sorry" or "occasionally we have free days or anything like that" (which someone standing in line did tell me). I would have coughed it up with just a small incentive or encouragement. But none was forthcoming. So I put the stuff I'd gathered back and, instead, rewarded my car for its check-up by getting it washed.
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