The Last Word: Pleased to be of service

OPINION: There’s a grey cloud of depression hovering over the Rabid Reseller Kwik-Mart this week.

And it’s not just because we launched into the Kwik-Mart business over the summer holidays, although that hasn’t cheered us up very much either.

The logic behind the move seemed good enough — nobody buys technology after Christmas, at least not from our shop, and those New Year sales are good for cash flow but not for margins. So we shoved all the tech stock into the storeroom and loaded the shelves with holiday essentials instead.

That certainly taught us a thing or two about retail margins. Yes they’re huge, but when stuff sells for a few dollars you really need huge margins and even huger quantities. We now fully understand the Coles and Woolworths model, and also realise just how far beyond our reach that shopping nirvana lies. So we still had the New Year sale after all, to get rid of all the holiday essentials and make room on the shelves for our hibernating tech kit. Then we visited the fortune tellers’ websites to decide what new stock lines to offer this year. And that’s when we got really depressed.

One of our favourite channel forecasters posted his hot predictions for 2006 and if he’s right, the big movers this year will be Blogs, Webcasts, RSS, XML, Open Source and Instant Messaging.

First off, that entire list is comprised of nothing but free stuff. We didn’t do all that well in maths at school but we do remember that zero multiplied by any outrageous margin you care to mention equals no cash flow. Looks like we’re in for another attempt at becoming a service-oriented business. We know the theory, it’s just the practice that constantly eludes us.

But no pain, no gain so we’ve started the process by sending the staff for remedial retail training, in the vain hope they’ll stop greeting customers with ‘We’re really busy now can you come back later? Is never good for you?’ which is only marginally better than ‘I don’t work here I’m the janitor.’ That is so American. What’s wrong with ‘cleaner’? Answering technical questions with ‘that’s because you’re too stupid to use a computer’ has just got to stop, and we’re banning all manner of Californian jargon such as ‘Whatever’ and ‘I don’t think so’ along with New York street-speak such as ‘Wassup?’ and ‘What the problem is?’

When they’ve completed the remedial training, it’s off to the tattoo parlour for some permanent smiles and raised eyebrows to replace the nerdy scowls. The ecstasy aerosol is also proving to be a major boost to morale. You’ve gotta be careful with that stuff though, as it’s hard to perform serious wallet extraction on customers while you’re gushing all over them and drooling on their shoulders while waltzing them around the shop floor.

Mind you, the customers are equally affected and happily mumble ‘I really love youse, take it all, I don’t need no money any more’ until they’re suddenly put off by the clerk behind the cash register wearing a gas mask.

It’s not helping at all that the sales team insists on taking turns behind the register, and forgetting to wear the gas mask. After a few hours on the shop floor breathing in the fumes, they insist on honouring our money-back guarantee before the customer has even left the premises. There’s the nub of the problem; we didn’t even have a money-back guarantee until the staff decided they loved everyone so much that we just had to introduce the policy. The pathetic constant bleating of ‘they’re our friends and we love them’ finally wears down the most resilient of scrooges, Rabid Reseller included.

To make matters worse, you just wouldn’t believe the tragic state of Windows XP on a PC that’s been set up by one of our ‘we love everyone, really we do’ support staff. Microsoft obviously didn’t test the install process for every eventuality, because it’s way too hard to convince the doe-eyed staff that the ‘OK’ button is actually an appropriate response and there just isn’t a button that says ‘I love you too Mr Computer, would you like me to cuddle your mouse some more?’

Gotta go, customers waiting!

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