Last week when I returned from the National I hit up Target on Monday and Tuesday to see if anything new was out early, or anything was out period since 2017 baseball has been scarce on the retail level. Monday and Tuesday there was a cart full of boxes, about half of what is pictured, in the aisle unopened. I attempted to open some and an employee said neither I nor they can open the boxes. Bull. Everytime in the past I have asked someone to open them they have done so with no problem. This lady coincidentally was there everyday all week, and the pile of boxes grew and grew. She still would not help.
I decided to take my gripe to Twitter and tag Target and AskTarget in my tweets with the pictures and see what happened on Friday since they moved the cart but refused to display or open when asked. It made me mad for several reasons, the obvious being that I wanted Chrome. The other is that in terms of customer service, if you are standing around, not busy and only scowling at customers you can help and open a couple of boxes. Her reason for not wanting to was "the person who opens them has to know how many of each are on the shelves. Bull. Never seen a packing slip in the boxes nor have I seen a vendor ever check them as they shelve them.
AskTarget messaged me and asked for location and description of events because they were going to contact the store. This conversation took place probably around noon on Friday. I went back to Target around 230-3pm Friday and every box was gone and all merchandise displayed.
I got all the Chrome they had and half the Optic blasters because I like it for some reason. I never buy Panini stuff because it's not licensed and the no logo cards are pretty boring but for some reason Optic became my friend.
Here are the highlights from the first two blasters in case you missed it on Twitter. Notice the Future Stars cards... Those are the same ones from the 2 hobby boxes I opened so now I have 4 of each... Good thing I didn't want to try and complete that set.
Anyone pick up any retail Chrome and pull something to trade me?! Pujols, Cano, Judge, Sanchez?
that Neshek is awesome!!
ReplyDeleteWow... that's a lot of cards. My local Targets suck. Either they don't really order a lot of sports cards, or I'm never in the right place at the right time, or there are guys who have made deals with the managers who give them first crack at this stuff. In fact, the only reason I was able to finally bust any Stadium Club was because I went down to visit my parents in Vegas. #notamused
ReplyDeleteIt does sound like your (very reasonable) complaint got through to the right people - and forced some lazy lady to do her effing job. Managers can be picky about protocol, but when corporate senses a lost sale they're going to override everyone and make sure the customer is pleased. Good job of you to grease the wheels.
ReplyDeleteNice lookin' cards! I had an equally infuriating experience regarding Allen & Ginter at Target a few years ago. In general they've gone downhill.
ReplyDeleteI can not find any, the Target near me is about 15-20 miles away so I am stuck with Walmart. I checked there today and they were wiped out.
ReplyDeleteI think Target does cards through an independent vendor, and I have never seen a Target employee maintaining those shelves. I believe that the Target employees were telling you the truth when they said they can't touch those boxes.
ReplyDeleteThe question of whether the representative of that vendor was doing his/her job is a very legitimate one.