On 2007-02-11 00:04:19 +0000, Peter Twydell said:

You used to be able to ring them and order stuff to pick up, and I have
done so a few times.

The service was withdrawn a while ago, and my local Trade Counter
(Luton) told me it was because there were too many instances of people
ordering stuff and not bothering to collect it.

Which is easily fixed by collecting payment at time of order. They
then pick and box the goods ready for collection when the customer
arrives



They said it was still possible to ring and check the stock, but you'd
have to be lucky to actually get someone to answer the phone. Last time
I spoke to Yeovil, they said they weren't able to check branch stock
levels on their system.

There are two concerns the

1) It's a lost business opportunity. I'm very unlikely to spend at
least 2 hour making a trek to the nearest of their counters to me on
the hope that they might have the things I want

2) How do they track what the branches have and therefore their
business position? Suggests manual intervention? Prone to error
and costly.




The staffing levels can get a bit like Argos

I haven't seen them wearing fake gold junk and Burberry, but I suppose
they may this on under their overalls.


or your local bank at times.

Hmm.... the only reason I ever go there is if I receive a cheque and
need to pay it in. I then ask the sender to make payments
electronically in the future.

I was in there during the week and there was only one till manned.
When the bloke went away to query something with his supervisor I gave
up and came home as the queue to order stuff was growing and there were
still several people waiting for orders to be filled.

Exactly. Similar experience. It will take a lot for me to want to
waste half a day with them again.