More Shopper Beware

I have had wonderful experiences with circuit city. The store has even surpassed Best Buy in my mind for electronics stores. I love their selection, their in store customer service is wonderful, the prices are great and their in store pick up has been a life saver. However, I ran across a hiccup in the system this holiday season that made me a little more cautious.

My Christmas shopping and planning went out the window this year because my father is in the hospital. He may have to have open heart surgery, so I of course came home early for the holiday. My mother and I spent all of Decemeber 22 at the hosptial. We were both trying to figure out how we are going to get our shopping done. I suggested going through your website. I had a good experience in buying my laptop by buying it online and then picking it up in the store. We both jumped on out laptops (the hospital has wi-fi) and placed orders for items we knew we wanted. I made sure my items were available at the Spring Meadows location. After my order was placed, I recieved a confirmation that my order was available for pick up. When we arrived the next day, my mother's items were there. Mine however, "could not be found." The customer service rep cited that there had been something wrong with the inventory and that was why the items weren't there. I was VERY angry, but I of course had no intention of taking it out on the poor girl at the counter. She had been nothing but kind to me, and this was not really her fault. Still, I had to fight back tears as I took the "gift card" and tried to figure out what to do next. I had found the perfect 2 gifts online. I had ordered them online to avoid have to take the time to wonder around the store before finding the gift. I wanted to get back to the hospital so badly, and now I was going to have to come up with a plan B.

Here are the things that really irk me about this.

1) How were these items still listed as available at the store if they really weren't?

2) If they weren't, why was I sent a confirmation?

3) Once the store knew they could not fill my order, shouldn't have they let me know?

4) I had to spend the next 45 minutes walking around your store. I found a similar charger, but it was not the one I wanted and it was significanly more money. I could not find a comperable replacement for the memory card. Actually, I couldn't find any 1 GB cards for 14.99 at all. At a time where I am already stressed out with my father's health situation, I did not need the added stress of trying to find gifts that I thought were already taken care of. I found "replacement" gifts and the gift card helped soften the blow of the higher priced replacement item. However, this NEVER should have happened.

When I contacted Circuit City by e-mail it took nearly a week for a response (which isn't to terribly awful considering it was the holiday season and I sent my e-mail late on December 23) they sent me a canned e-mail about inventory and numbers being off, but it did not address any of my other complaints. I sent a follow up e-mail, but I have yet to hear a reply.

The final verdict: I think Circuit City is still a great place to shop. I will still shop with them in the future. I will probably even use their in store pick up, but I will do so with a few reservations. I think if the store wants this in store pick up to keep it's appeal, a few changes need to be made. Mainly, do not tell you customer that their order is available for pick up if the store knows it is not!