An Open Letter to Harris Teeter at North Hills East

By Cyndi

Dear Harris Teeter --

You had me at $20 off.

Every time I would start to wander, begin to think that your new North Hills East store was too crowded, imagine that I could save more at Kroger, get annoyed about not being able to find things as you shuffled the shelves around -- somehow you always knew. And every time, those magical $20-off-a-$50-purchase coupons would appear in my mailbox. They worked like a charm.

So given that you seem to have such a keen understanding of your shoppers' minds, how is it possible that you built a two-story store and put the cereal and juice upstairs? And then seemed surprised when people complained? And then spent goodness-knows-how-much money and time remodeling your brand new store to get those items downstairs again? Didn't you know that every mom forced to cram two (or more) children into one of those oversized-yet-still-too-small rocketship carts would have to buy cereal and juice on nearly every trip? And didn't you know that said moms would really hate having to wait in line for the elevator because it's impossible to fit more than three carts at a time?

Or maybe you didn't know there were thousands of local moms you could ask who would have told you that valuable bit of information BEFORE you built the store instead of AFTER?

Well then, allow me to make an introduction. Harris Teeter, meet the blogging moms. We're on Facebook and Twitter and lots and lots of blogs -- and we love to give advice (just ask our children). You don't even have to send us free samples or coupons (although I'm sure we wouldn't say no) -- but you do have to ask. We could have saved you a lot of pain and suffering, but (much like our kids) you had to learn the hard way. We hope you (and our children) will consider consulting us in the future.

Best of luck,

Convertible Girl

P.S. I've only got one $20 coupon left, so please send more. You know, just in case I start to wander again.

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Since taking over the grocery shopping at her house and giving up the online ordering service, Cyndi has developed strong opinions about grocery stores. When she's not shopping or cooking or complaining about both, she can be found at My Convertible Life, where she writes about her two children, one husband and a million other things.

Comments

[Jessica]

Didn't they move the cereal and juice downstairs? I thought last time I was there they were rearranging to accommodate mom shoppers like us!

[Cyndi]

They did -- and they did it because of all the complaints. That was the remodeling I mentioned. Just seems they could have saved a lot of heart-ache by asking first instead of responding after opening a brand-new store.