Letter to Abercrombie
Dear overpriced mall chain store (aka, Abercrombie in this case, but this has happened in other stores as well),
Perhaps I don’t understand basic economics, but it seems reasonable to me that when a hapless 40-something year old mom finds herself dragged into your obnoxiously loud and smelly store, willing to shell out more than she can afford on clothes for her teenage daughter, in order to emerge relatively soon and sane, you might help her out by having some of the clothes that you advertise in stock. I took my daughter clothes shopping the the other day, and was irritated and then simply dismayed as outfit after outfit that you have ON YOUR STUPID MANNEQUINS were not in stock. Not because they were sold out, but because this particular branch of the store isn’t big enough to be deemed worthy of receiving these particular outfits. And the poor teen-aged help you pay minimum wage to work here, surely going home with migraines from the perfume and throbbing music and bitchy angry mothers, are not allowed to take the previously mentioned outfit off of the STUPID MANNEQUIN, so that my teen could try it on and perhaps (gasp) give you actual money for it.
Doesn’t it make more sense to you, that if I want to buy an outfit, I can find it there in your store? That I wouldn’t be sent to another mall half an hour away? Or sent online, when my daughter and I are both too smart to fall for that, and insist on trying things on first? (Besides, two of the outfits on your stupid mannequins were not even available online…which makes me wonder, why are those clothes on the STUPID MANNEQUINS to begin with?) Doesn’t it make some degree of sense that, if you’re not going to bother to carry an outfit (or three, to be angrily honest), you NOT put it on display all over the store for girls and their hapless 40-something moms to try to find for half-an-hour before accosting your poor, underpaid, under-trained, teenage workers, who then have to try to explain your skewed version of economics to said angry and hapless moms and their embarrassed daughters?
All I know is, someday when you file for Bankruptcy, I won’t wonder why. I’ll know. For now, I’ll take my money elsewhere. Or at least, most of it. You did mange to con us out of some of it.
Sincerely,
~J
8 Comments
Linda Atkins
Good rant! Right on. 🙂
Autumn's Mom
Ridiculous! I am not a fan of that store and neither is Autumn. Hollister is my nemesis. I still can’t get over them selling thong panties to very young ladies. And WTF is with the trend of stores filled with loud noise, smelly perfume and ignorance? I feel your pain J, the things we are willing to do for our teenagers.
ML
What a crock of sh**!!! Down with Abercrombie!
Donna
Girl, don’t get me started. It’s not much better with boys…there are the “skate” or “cool” shoe stores that are just the same, just minus the perfume. OMG!!!! the pounding headaches I get from going into those places – the music (if you can even call it that) is awful and so loud. Not to mention the looks of death I get not only from my own teen for speaking up, but from the idiots that usually work there who are “too cool” to answer questions. HELLO! You want me to drop money on your f’n shoes, you’ll pull your head out of your ass and…oh, there I go getting started. D’oh!
OmbudsBen
Woof! Wonderful! One more reminder of how I became so allergic to shopping mall consumerism …
Had you been living in a Woody Allen comedy, and if you were reasonably sure it fit, it might have been great to find out how much the outfit cost, slam the money down on the counter and quickly disrobe the mannequin, fleeing for safety–but only if you could film it for YouTube.
There is a principle at work here!
Jenny's BFF
I’d like Michael S. Jeffries to see this. (CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch).
J
Jenny’s BFF, me too! I wrote two emails to their customer service, but got pretty lame replies back. OK, after they told me that they spray the clothes on their mannequins with their ‘signature scent’, I didn’t want them to take the clothes off for us anymore. But I DID want them to take them off and put them away, since there was NO WAY for us to buy them, not even online. Very stupid.
Starshine
I find the ambience inside Abercrombie stores to be so nauseating (both for the loud, pounding music as well as the obnoxiously strong “signature scent”) that I choose to shop else where.