Bone Picking, Vol. 1

Dear Giant Store That I Would Love to Avoid But I Can’t Because Even with Obsessively Matching Coupons with Weekly Sales I Cannot Beat Your Prices:

Don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing. I knew it when I saw it in the store, but you had me over a barrel. That box of diapers used to have 92 in it, and now it has 82. For the same price. Raw deal.

I honestly don’t think I’d be as upset if you’d just raised the price a little bit instead. You didn’t have to change your manufacturing and packaging so drastically. Besides, your customers, myself included, are not stupid. We can see what’s going on. We’ve been dealing with it for months. We’re not blind to the economic tsunami – believe me, if we’re shopping with you, we know every dollar counts. That’s why we depend on you. And why we (or I rather, I shouldn’t speak for the entire consumer base, but I just got all empowered all of the sudden) feel betrayed when you try to pull a bit of a fast one. Don’t do it. It cheapens you. And your prices should be the only thing cheap about you.

While I’m at it, please go back to stocking your store brand no salt vegetables. I’m not interested in paying double for the name brand stuff and ensuring you greater profit when you have shelf space right there available. You can also quit with the label redesigns that look industrial, lazy, and boring. Your old labels were just fine. Now the shelf just looks like one uniform row of blah.

Step it up, Big Box. We expect more of you.