Kohl’s Department Store vs Math

Ah, Kohl’s Department store. You are one of the only department stores in the country that has managed to grow and prosper even through the darkest of this recession. How do you do it?

Is it your friendly staff and customer service?

No, you will never find someone on the floor past the cash register, and the people that are at the register are required to jabber on about Kohl’s cards and cash and savings, yadda yadda yadda, for all eternity.  It is impossible to leave that store without Kohl’s letting you know what a favor they’re doing you by letting you shop there.

Is it about the wonderful brands you carry?

No, no one shops at Kohl’s to look great. You shop at Kohl’s to not look bad. Have you ever said to someone “wow, nice shirt. Did you get that at Kohl’s?” Nope, that’s not a thing. Kohl’s is pretty much Goodwill with a bigger selection, and some of their clothes don’t smell like the previous owner.

Kohl’s has been so successful for the simple reason that they have managed to capitalize on our country’s greatest weakness. Math. They then take that weakness and exploit it using watered down discounts and coupons. Floor sales, mailer coupons/discounts, charge cards discounts, special sale day discounts, scratch off discounts, and more all look deceivingly good.

For example –

Everyone that has ever been to Kohl’s knows that everything they sell is at LEAST twice as expensive as Kohl’s expects you to pay for it. An item they expect to sell for $50 is on the floor for no less than $100, and it’s usually closer to $150 depending on what type of product it is. Items that have more opportunities for discounts (clothes) are usually higher.

Dress pants are a good example. A pair of pants they expect to get $40 for would be at least $120 in store. Doesn’t seem so bad, because it’ll have an immediate sale price of 40% off. That brings it down to $72 already! It’s still high, but that’s OK, because we have a 20% off coupon and when we start our Kohl’s charge we’ll get another 10% off. 70% off of $120 is $84, so we’re getting these pants for $36. They can’t be making that much money on these things!

Wrong. Those discounts most definitely do not work like that. The discounts apply one at a time, so we’re looking at an entirely different number. the first 40% does take it from $120 to to $72, but your second discount of 20% is not as effective. Those sneaky marketing people have now devalued your additional coupons, because instead of your 20% coupon being worth 20% of the $120 ($24), it’s only worth 20% of the $72 ($14.40). Your coupon is only worth 60% of what it seems like it would be worth.

The 10% of the card gets even worse. 10% of the $120 would be 12 bucks, but now you’re getting it off the current value of the $57.60. That’s 5.76 off, which takes that 10% discount and makes it worth less than 5% off your total starting amount.

Your original estimate of $36 for the pants is actually off by $15.84, at 51.84. You’re paying 44% more for those pants than you might have thought. Even if you had three more 10% off coupons for a total of 100% worth of discounts those pants would cost more than the $36 you had in mind.

It gets even worse if you have one of those little coupons Kohl’s mails out every so often for $10 off your next purchase during a select time period. That would bring those pants down from $51.84 to $41.84, making them very close to what you originally expected to pay for them, right?

Nope, that discount gets applied to the original $120 price of the pants, even though Kohl’s at no point ever intended you to buy them for that much. Your ten dollars is subject to all your discounts, so it’s actually worth $4.32. Not exactly as exciting as your original $10. Instead of your $36 – $10 coupon sitting you at $26 you actually are going to be paying 51.84 – 4.32, or 47.52. That’s almost 83% more than you thought.

This is all better than if instead of those pants being 40% off initially, they were 20% off, and then an additional clearance price of 20% off the sale price! If that was the case you’d end up paying about $4 more for those pants.

Long story short, if you do go to Kohl’s just get in line behind an old lady. I guarantee you will watch her get about eight total discounts adding up to somewhere around 200% off of her purchases. If Kohl’s can make money off those people that have all day to take advantage of every coupon that’s ever been offered in all existence, that would mean that if you have a job or a family you have absolutely no hope of avoiding getting sodomized by them.

Right to Bear Arms, Dog Teeth

Am I the only person who sees a comparison between our second amendment and the right to own pit bulls?

Both are basically created to kill things –

Maybe not necessarily kill things in all cases, but the best case scenario for pitbulls is that they were originally bred to hunt down other animals.

Both are frequently taken away after their owners are arrested for something or another –

Ignore the fact that on a episode of Cops pit bulls are to dogs what white, sleaveless undershirts are to clothing. Studies pretty conclusively show that if you love going to jail, odds are good that a pitbull is your dog of choice.

Both are used for killing animals for sport –

Oh Michael Vick, if only you had learned how wonderfully legal it is to just shoot animals yourself.

Both are not to be trusted around kids –

You can feel free to check out those numbers with a quick Google search, but my favorite statistic is that 95% of attacks on kids by pitbulls are unprovoked, which is over twice as high as any other breed.

Both have a vast majority of the population that don’t like them around, and a very vocal minority of the population that are fanatical about how great they are and how integral they are to their lives-

I do love how pit bull owners all say that it’s all how the dog is raised and that their pitbull would do that. I feel like I hear it a lot, as in every time a pit bull attacks or kills something. Remember, 44% of all pit bull attacks are on family members. Even with how many pitbull attacks there are on kids, you never really hear anyone say “well, I should’ve seen that one coming” after it chomps on their daughter’s face.

The big difference between a pit bull and a gun is that the pit bull doesn’t need a person to make it kill someone. Sure, a person can make it a lot better at killing things, but it’s just naturally built to kill things. Do I care if you have one? No, just keep it away from me and everything I love. Kinda like guns, we have concealed carry, so please conceal your dog while I’m around.

Smart Phones, Dumb Folks

As a person who has done troubleshooting for customers in only one type of technical field (cell phones) I really have to wonder if customers are more retarded about cell phones than other electronics because smartphones are relatively new to a lot of people.

This is especially true when it comes to the warrantee replacement issue. If I received a device, it had a problem with let’s say… freezing, and then I got it replaced a half dozen times and it did the same goddamn thing every time I would wonder if it was something I was doing, as opposed to a fatal flaw with every device I have ever used before calling my company to throw a tantrum about how the device is giant dud and claiming I’ve been scammed into buying a device that never works. Like a company with millions of customers would be ok releasing a device and continuing to sell them if every single device of that model had a known issue that caused it to stop working within a month of you having that device.

If you were to get a computer at Best Buy, that computer were to stop working, and Best Buy’s policy was to just give you a replacement computer so they didn’t have to deal with your whining, wouldn’t you assume that after getting a handful of different computers that all had the same issue after a certain amount of time that maybe you should try doing something different? Maybe you would stop loading the same programs immediately onto your computer. Maybe you would check to see if you have enough memory to comfortably run all those programs. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard a customer loudly complain that their phone won’t do something basic like recieve picture messages, and then halfway through the process of trying to fix their phone casually mention “oh yeah, and my phone keeps telling me I have low memory”.

There is a reason why in-store tech support will require you to do a factory reset on your phone before replacing it.  That reason is because after we get your crap off the phone, it usually works after that.  When you complain that it stops working a couple weeks after that, the new issue is whatever the reason is that causes the phone to have an owner that puts all the exact same crap on the phone that wasn’t working before.

And please, the next time you talk to your phone company with your undies all in a bunch over your smart phone not working well, let’s not get an attitude, because odds are better than not that the problem with your phone is either your fault because of what you have on your phone, or your fault because you’re trying to do too much with a smartphone you weren’t willing to pay more than $50 for. When you come to me yelling that your phone doesn’t work and I see that it’s giving you low memory errors, I view your blowing up on me similar to how the person who sold you your car would look at you if you came back to them screaming about how your car now has a flat tire; it’s not my fault and it’s an easy fix if you can take a deep breath and act like a grown up.

AT&T: We Still Have Customers For Some Reason

There’s a lot of debate on what really makes a company successful in today’s busy, competitive market, and sometimes the best way to determine what business strategies work the best is by taking a look at large, continually growing companies and break down how they do things.

Today, let’s look at AT&T.  It’s a huge company with million upon millions of customers, and its cell phone branch has continued to grow in 2012.  This is the area we’ll be focusing on, since really I could give a rat’s ass about what company puts a DVR in my entertainment system, and landlines are for invalids and creatures that get chased by pitchforks if they are caught outside by local villagers.  Here are some of the prestigious awards that helped it reach that level:

#1: Most Expensive Phone Company on Earth:

This isn’t a real category, but I just thought I would give out this award myself to point out what a premium service AT&T is.  Sure, spending 129.99 to get 900 minutes, 5GB of data, and unlimited data FOR A SINGLE LINE seems like a lot if you want to own an AT&T iPhone.  Sure, you can go to Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Metro PCS, etc… and get a family plan for that price, or go to Verizon and get a phone 10 times better and have data speeds and voice quality that make you actually want to use your phone, but why leave the sweet additional perks you get with AT&T?  Allow the rest of the awards to explain.

#2: Worst Website Ever:

Ah, sorry again.  It just felt wrong not to give out this award after trying to navigate their site to find pricing.  Wow, I don’t know if they had someone straight from PC Pro Schools set that thing up, or if they do it on purpose to screw with people trying to get their valuable information, but it works.  I swear, by the time I had added a device and a corresponding plan to my cart I wanted to just buy the goddamn thing since I had invested so much time getting that far.  Thankfully after 15 seconds of inactivity when I went to take a couple shots to dull the mental anguish the website had caused me, the site had timed me out and started me over with an empty shopping cart.

#3: Worst Customer Service in the Wireless Industry

http://news.consumerreports.org/electronics/2011/12/att-rated-lowestagainin-our-annual-satisfaction-survey.html

http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=246:press-release-may-2011&catid=14&Itemid=291

Wow, back to back on the Consumer Reports survey, and pulling in the sled at last after achieving least improved carrier in the ACSI reports!  AT&T, you have proven to me that you are committed to sacrifice whatever it takes to make your plans only slightly more expensive than any other carrier on planet earth.  Sure, your reps are frustrating to deal with, but with the amount of complaints they get regularly do you know how much it would cost to hire representatives with half a brain?  “Complaints about what?”, you ask?  Well how about…

#4: Worst Network Quality out of Any Major Carrier

http://www.bgr.com/2011/08/29/att-network-ranked-worst-among-major-u-s-carriers-by-j-d-power/

Nice work AT&T.  You are bringing home all the awards for the last year!  Let’s not rush to conclusions, maybe JD Power Associates measured on things that aren’t very important.  Let’s see : J.D. Power ranked network performance in 10 key areas for this study: dropped calls; calls not connected; audio issues; failed/late voicemails; lost calls; text transmission failures; late text message notifications; Web connection errors; email connection errors; and slow downloads. Is that stuff important to you?

I mean sure, smartphones are awesome, but if your calls don’t drop won’t you go over your minutes?  If your data works faster than a kilobyte every couple minutes can you imagine the data charges!?  This is AT&T helping you keep costs down!  I mean, not the costs of its restore fees/activation fees/termination fees, as those are the highest in the industry.  Not the monthly costs of their price plans, as those are the highest in the industry.  Some other costs that I can’t think of right now.

#5 Top 3 Most Hated Companies

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/13/10149379-facebook-att-make-list-of-most-hated-companies-in-america

Oh, Wall Street Journal, there you go again, talking about our friends at AT&T like you know something about business.  I’m going to chalk this one up to a fluke, because they’re jealous of AT&T’s massive success while newspapers are fading away into the abyss.

I’ve got some runner up type awards I’d love to see them walk away with, too.

How about its HSPA network for “Biggest Stretch of the Term ‘4G'”?  Good lord, if it wasn’t for WiMax, this one would be a runaway victory, but Sprint keeps AT&T and T-Mobile close.  HSPA is to 4G what fruit is to a dessert.  It’s something you tell people with childlike intelligence to make them think they aren’t getting screwed over.

Maybe “Most Embarrassing Merger Block in Wireless History” for thinking the FCC would ever allow the second and fourth largest carriers to merge together?  I wonder how much they spend on lobbyists to make it even take more than five minutes to come to the decision.  Oh wait, all the INCREDIBLE LIES they told might’ve helped prolong the process.  http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/29/technology/fcc_att_t-mobile/index.htm

So get on over to AT&T, and get yourself a sweet new smartphone.  Maybe then you can go to another wireless company after that to get a WIFI hotspot to run it on.

And So Goes the Life of a Disillusioned 30 Year Old

Before you get deep into this blog, I’m going to use this opportunity to give you fair warning.  I am a sarcastic guy with a bitter edge that will offend you.  Probably more than once.  Hopefully more than once, but if you think I give a damn, well you are mistaken, my friend.  This is my space, and this is how I vent.  After that I’m a bubbling ray of sunshine that no one’s mother wouldn’t love!  Enjoy!