BestBuy.com (Best Buy) in store pickup...

A few days ago, I tried the in store pickup option offered at BestBuy.com for the first time. In a nutshell, the process is:

• add items to your cart
• choose a preferred store
• check inventory at that store
• place an order with the intent of the order being picked by an associate and ready to pickup at the customer service counter by you

I've used a similar system at CircuitCity.com in the past and it was trouble free. This is not the case after my interactions with Best Buy.

I had a handful of items that were last minute gifts for Christmas. Best Buy has a great website that has a boat load of product on it, and it just so happens that they allegedly had all the items in stock that I was looking for. I ran through the order process, selected one of the three stores that are within 20 minutes of me and submitted.

According to BestBuy.com, there were two emails that I was waiting for: an order confirmation email and a stock confirmation email. At this point, the stock confirmation email worried me. I realized that there is a retail/corporate/web database issue here and that more than likely, BestBuy.com was not running a realtime inventory database system ala WalMart. I trudged on though, thinking that the little items that I was ordering weren't on the 'Top Gifts of Christmas 2007 list'.

I used my Gmail address for the order, as I have for almost all important things lately (another post for another day), as email generally arrives to it nearly instantaneously. I wasn't disappointed this time either, as the order confirmation arrived before I even left the BestBuy.com site. However, things went differently with the second of two stock confirmation emails. The first listed two of the items as being in stock in the store; they were ready, come pick them up. The second listed two of the items as not being in stock.

Because I wanted to grab all the items in one shot, I called the 800 number from the website and cancelled my order. This was a completely pain-free operation.

Now, I'm not blasting Best BuyorBestBuy.com for this. I just think that they need to improve the process a bit. There are a few suggestions that would have made me a happier comsumer:

• Don't dish out multiple emails for the stock confirmation. After receiving the first email, my first assumption was that they were just scanning the items as they picked them and that the other items were going to be in an email to follow. This turned out to be true, but in my case, they didn't have the items in stock
• After receiving one email with all the stock statuses, there should be a cancellation option linked right from the email. If all the items are in stock, I'm alright with not including it. If even one item is not in stock, add the link.
• Fix the inventory tracking system that links with BestBuy.com. This drives me crazy with banks too, but it's nearly 2008! There is no reason that checks need 5 days to clear and there is certainly no reason that inventory updates should not be nearly real time. Walmart has been doing this for years, so there's no excuse!

v.raicovi.net:quotes

You may have noticed my new quote blog. Check it out. Instead of trying to generate a decent amount of quality content like I do here, I will solely be re-posting the words of others that I like. Enjoy!

http://vrquotes.blogspot.com

Need an RSS feed?

Here's quick fix for those sites that don't have an RSS feed. There were a few sites that I check in on frequently, that don't have a feed for one reason or another. If you've been reading about how I'm hooked on Google Reader(here and here), you know that browsing outside of Reader just doesn't cut it.

Enter Feed43. Feed43 can take an html page and with a little help from you, can create an RSS feed for you. Check it out!

Procrastination...

If there's one bad habit that I developed in high school, it's procrastination. Bad habit you ask? You meant art form, right?

Someone on Wikipedia defined procrastination as follows:

-the deferment or avoidance of an action or task to a later time and is often linked to perfectionism. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination)

The only problem is that I'm usually not trying to be a perfectionist. I'm not saying that I'm sloppy and not a perfectionist to some degree, but I have a little calculator/clock combo in my head that continually tells me that there's enough time to goof off and finish later. This is why this is a much better definition for me:

-to put off intentionally and habitually (thelifeprescription.com/glossary.html)

I'll explain all this on another night...

Google Reader Rocks...

From your 29 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 2,506 items, starred 23 items, shared 76 items, and emailed 20 items.

The more I use Google Reader, the more I love it. I'm now reading over 350 articles online, every day. Take that Newsday! The great part is that I'm spending less time on the computer.

Prior to reader, I would get drawn into things that, deep down inside, I had no interest in. Since most of the RSS feeds come down as a title and a blurb, I can quickly scan items to see if they're of interest to me and be a bit more discerning with what I read.

As the quote above states, I now am pulling my news from 29 sources! This is us from a handful, just over two weeks ago. I'm finding that I check twice a day, usually around lunch time and just before I go to bed. As my trend data builds, I'll grab some screen shots and share an OPML file of my feeds, in case you're interested in what I'm reading or if you'd like to use my feeds as a starting point.

Either way, Google Reader rocks and I highly recommend it.