Feeling much better after an day of Christmas shopping with my husband and the fat little rabbit. We went way overboard, as we do every Christmas. The plan every year is for Santa to bring 3 gifts, plus stocking stuffers, and then a few gifts from Mom and Dad. We stuck to the 3 from Santa pretty well, but the Mom and Dad gifts, well, that's another story. They just make too many cute toys these days, and then add in some books and dvds, and suddenly we've got too much again.
My present this year is new running shoes. My old shoes are more than a year old, and even though I didn't run much while pregnant, my husband and I took a mile long walk every day during lunch, and I wore them to do errands and stuff, so they are pretty shot. The last time I went shopping for running shoes I was very frustrated by the lack of in-stock women's shoes in wide widths. I have bony, wide feet. New Balance was the only store that had what I wanted in stock. I like New Balance, so that's what I went with. Today, the closest New Balance store was out of our way, but there was a RunOn! store on the way home, so we stopped there. The helpful salesperson measured my feet, and suggested that I just try men's shoes. I did, and yay! they fit! Now I just have to act surprised when I open them Christmas morning.
I also learned that the store hosts a social run on Wednesday nights. I inquired about the pace that they run, and was told they take all levels. I am really slow though. I'll go this week and see how it goes.
When we got home from shopping, I went for my run that I put off this morning. I decided since I downloaded a running app that tells me my distance every 5 minutes, I'd just run through the neighborhood without a plan. That may not have been the best of ideas. I ran up to one of the major roads through the city, but when I got to halfway on my planned distance, there wasn't a good road to cut back through towards my house. I didn't want to just turn around, because I find that too boring for words, so I kept on. In the end it added only around a half mile more than I was planning. i think I'll stick to at least roughly mapping out a route before I run next time.
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Christmas Shopping Disappointment
We're buying a house. It has a lot of potential, but right now is very beige. The walls? Beige. The carpet? Beige. For a little variety the countertops are off-white. This must change. We like color, and we don't much like carpeting. Carpeting in the dining room, when we have three small kids, seems like a particularly bad idea. The house is also huge. Like three times bigger than our first home. But helpfully, due to the move from Boston to Dallas, not three times as expensive! As with most housing purchases, we will be bleeding money for the next little bit. Especially to get rid of the beige. Oh, and to get furniture. And fix the myriad of tiny things the inspector mentioned we just might possibly want to fix, but aren't huge problems. And so we are trying to have a less expensive Christmas.
As our fat little rabbit will be only three months old, we figured we could get away with getting her mostly clothes as gifts -- she needs them anyway, and she really will not know the difference. So cyber Monday rolls around, and I have a 35% off coupon for gap.com, along with free shipping. We really like Gap's baby clothes, so I log on and start filling up my virtual shopping cart. I also had coupons for gymboree.com and carters.com, so I looked there as well. As I shopped at all three stores, my orders at Gymboree and Carter's would occasionally update, as items sold out. My loss, as I was taking my sweet little time making up my mind what I wanted. I finally had the three carts filled with what I wanted, and decided to go with the cart at gap.com. I finished my order, and made a mental note to watch for the package. That night, I showed my husband the order, and was particularly excited about a super cute lilac cardigan, with a matching onesie. My husband humors my desire to dress our little girl in purple; he prefers the pinks.
Around 3 a.m. this morning, I was nursing the fat little rabbit, and playing on my iPad. I checked my e-mail, and noted an e-mail from gap.com regarding my order. "We're sorry, but while processing your order, we found that the item(s) below are no longer available. Your Order Total has been adjusted to reflect any changes." it said. The items? The onesie and cardigan I was most excited about. But wait a minute. Gap is just now processing my order? A week after I placed it? And it just now "found" that the items are no longer available? Does Gap not have an inventory control system? I have visions in my head of a huge warehouse, and frantic holiday hire employees walking around with order forms. They walk to the spot on the shelf where the lilac cardigans are kept, and oh no! they are gone! Surely that's not how it works.
The real kicker is in the adjustment to my order total. I had a $20 rewards coupon I earned from previous purchases with my Banana Republic card. The way Gap handles the coupon when you buy multiple items is to allocate the discount across all of the items. So when gap.com credited my account for the two items it was unable to sell me, it credited back only the price minus the allocated portion of the rewards coupon. But it wasn't my fault that Gap can't keep track of its inventory. I didn't decide to return the items; Gap refuses to sell them to me. In the end, I didn't get to use around $4.50 of my rewards coupon, because Gap made a mistake.
Gap does feel sorry though. To make it up to me, they've offered a 10% discount code. What? The 35% off discount is no longer valid, and I've lost $4.50 from my rewards coupon, but I can have 10% off a future order? Is that really supposed to make me feel better? Credit the $4.50 to the original order, so I can use the whole $20 rewards certificate, honor a 35% discount for two like items so I can replace the items you agreed to sell me but now cannot, and I'll feel as if I'm at least back in the same position I was last Monday. At that point, throwing in a 10% oops-we-messed-up discount is a nice thing to do. As it stands, I think your customer service is crappy.
As our fat little rabbit will be only three months old, we figured we could get away with getting her mostly clothes as gifts -- she needs them anyway, and she really will not know the difference. So cyber Monday rolls around, and I have a 35% off coupon for gap.com, along with free shipping. We really like Gap's baby clothes, so I log on and start filling up my virtual shopping cart. I also had coupons for gymboree.com and carters.com, so I looked there as well. As I shopped at all three stores, my orders at Gymboree and Carter's would occasionally update, as items sold out. My loss, as I was taking my sweet little time making up my mind what I wanted. I finally had the three carts filled with what I wanted, and decided to go with the cart at gap.com. I finished my order, and made a mental note to watch for the package. That night, I showed my husband the order, and was particularly excited about a super cute lilac cardigan, with a matching onesie. My husband humors my desire to dress our little girl in purple; he prefers the pinks.
Around 3 a.m. this morning, I was nursing the fat little rabbit, and playing on my iPad. I checked my e-mail, and noted an e-mail from gap.com regarding my order. "We're sorry, but while processing your order, we found that the item(s) below are no longer available. Your Order Total has been adjusted to reflect any changes." it said. The items? The onesie and cardigan I was most excited about. But wait a minute. Gap is just now processing my order? A week after I placed it? And it just now "found" that the items are no longer available? Does Gap not have an inventory control system? I have visions in my head of a huge warehouse, and frantic holiday hire employees walking around with order forms. They walk to the spot on the shelf where the lilac cardigans are kept, and oh no! they are gone! Surely that's not how it works.
The real kicker is in the adjustment to my order total. I had a $20 rewards coupon I earned from previous purchases with my Banana Republic card. The way Gap handles the coupon when you buy multiple items is to allocate the discount across all of the items. So when gap.com credited my account for the two items it was unable to sell me, it credited back only the price minus the allocated portion of the rewards coupon. But it wasn't my fault that Gap can't keep track of its inventory. I didn't decide to return the items; Gap refuses to sell them to me. In the end, I didn't get to use around $4.50 of my rewards coupon, because Gap made a mistake.
Gap does feel sorry though. To make it up to me, they've offered a 10% discount code. What? The 35% off discount is no longer valid, and I've lost $4.50 from my rewards coupon, but I can have 10% off a future order? Is that really supposed to make me feel better? Credit the $4.50 to the original order, so I can use the whole $20 rewards certificate, honor a 35% discount for two like items so I can replace the items you agreed to sell me but now cannot, and I'll feel as if I'm at least back in the same position I was last Monday. At that point, throwing in a 10% oops-we-messed-up discount is a nice thing to do. As it stands, I think your customer service is crappy.
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