That was easy
A few weeks ago I placed an order with Staples.com. There was a particular “dollar-off” coupon I was hoping to use, but my total before tax was just a few cents shy of the minimum purchase threshold. So I did what all savvy Web-buyers do — I bought a filler item. In this case, a 59-cent eraser.
When my order arrived a few days later, I was chagrined to discover that the eraser was not in the box. It wasn’t as though space was tight in there, because there was certainly room enough for a couple of air cushions to prevent the other items from jostling around too much. I decided that a 59-cent eraser wasn’t worth raising a big stink about, especially seeing how that one little item allowed me to take an additional $40 off my order. Staples has been quite good to me in the past, so I made up my mind to let it slide.
Well, last week Cassia received a phone call from our local Staples. They had my eraser, and wondered why I hadn’t come by to pick it up. Cassia explained to them that I had already been there to retrieve my Web order, and it wasn’t among the contents.
The store really, really wanted me to come get it, because corporate wouldn’t allow them to return the item. Something you should know about Staples is they use UPS to ship all of their dot-com orders, and shipping was free for me because my order was over $50. So they really stood to lose money here, even more so than the money they lost rushing my 59-cent eraser from their warehouse to my local store.
Here’s the eraser:
Here’s the box it came in:
For reference, the eraser is 2-3/4″ long, 3/4″ wide and 1/4″ tall. The box it came in is 13″ long, 8-3/4″ wide and 5″ tall.
Note to Staples: to survive the economic downturn, doing things like spending $5 to ship a 59-cent eraser isn’t a sustainable business strategy.
That makes sense like mailing an invoice for $0.00.
— Mom
now this is even funnier than the irs humor one.