Tag: shopping

Good Service

Inspired by a tweet from Gordon this is a quick post to highlight some good customer service…well I thought it was good. Before I crack on, here’s the tweet – makes me chuckle every time I see it.

Towards the tail end of last year I needed my badminton racket restrung. I decided to try PWP which had opened a branch in Glasgow and was impressed with string options, friendly service and quick turn around. However on it’s first usage the strings broke and the racket developed a crack at the top of the frame. I couldn’t be sure that a crack wasn’t there before and had been worsened by having it restrung or that PWP were to blame. On returning to the store we had a very honest talk about the problem (which was refreshing – no pointing of fingers and trying to get rid of me). Even though I hadn’t bought the racket from them, PWP agreed to send it to Yonex and ask then to investigate for flaws or what was to blame.

Roll forward a couple of months and the feedback from Yonex was that I caused the damage. Bugger. I didn’t really expect the result to be anything else so it was time for a new racket…and a return trip to PWP despite the restring question marks as I really felt they dealt with me honestly. I sized up the rackets on the shelf and was quite taken with a couple of Yonex models, both priced at £139.

I probably should have checked for prices online but I wanted instant gratification. Imagine my surprise when the staff member I was dealing with told me that the 8000 model shown above was reduced to £89.99, they just hadn’t had time to update the labels on the racket. Instant sale. He didn’t have to tell me that as I was already thinking of buying at the higher price. Can you imagine a car dealer or your typical Comet/PC World guy telling you it’s cheaper than the ticket price online. Usually you have to ask, badger and complain until the price comes down.

So not only was I impressed with PWP’s honesty but at all times the staff have been friendly and knowledgable. So if your looking for anything badminton, squash or tennis related in Glasgow I heartily recommend PWP whose shop is in Partick on Dumbarton Road (replacing the suncenter that was there before – like Partick needs more tanning salons). There’s even a 14 day return so if the racket doesn’t suit my style of play I can return it. Fantastic.

Roundup

Busy weekend that was mainly indoors due to the quite lovely weather outside. Give me cold and dry any day over this wet and windy nonsense. It did get off to a great start when four parcels arrived Friday/Saturday. While not quite as good as the instant gratification of buying form a shop the fact I’d saved some cash with these purchases made it all seem a little sweeter.

First parcels were the rest of my hill walking gear. That’s me pretty well set now for the first walk 2 weeks today, a 6 mile jaunt to break everything in. The following weekend is a 12 mile walk which will be slightly more challenging. I can’t wait! Really looking forward to getting out and about. To help I’ve also picked up a couple of books including a cracking little pocket book of 40 walks close to Glasgow.

A new piece of tech was also in one of the parcels – a Bamboo Fun graphics tablet. One of my work colleagues has used one for years and I’d always been tempted. Seeing Shakeel use one over Christmas convinced me of their value. I’ve been using it today to process my London Eye photo’s in Lightroom and it is so much easier, offering far more precision than the mouse. While not essential I’m really pleased with the purchase.

Windows 7

More tech geekery – I’ve switched back to Windows 7. Can’t believe how much improvement over Vista and XP this is. So much so I…..nah – I won’t be switching back 😉 But I was impressed with it once I had it installed using Parallels 4. Quick to boot and shutdown compared to XP never mind Vista. It also looks pretty sweet. Not done to much more with it but will probably remove my XP virtual machine and use this instead.

Apart from that I started a nice new project for work that hopefully won’t take too long to finish off and I’ve caught up with the Screenwipe review of the year which was class. 24’s back tomorrow, Battlestar next week, Lost at the end of the month and FX is showing The Wire from Feb 23rd which if you haven’t caught yet should be added to your diary. Unmissable.

Oh, almost forgot. Tried Spotify today. Very impressive. Reminds me of Pandora before it stopped working in the UK.

And finally, I think. Macworld. Kind of quiet but iPhoto and iMovie 09 look to be very good upgrades so I’ll probably be upgrading at the end of the month. DRM free iTunes is good but it’s been a long time coming so doesn’t seem such a big deal. Even the Macbook Pro was fairly tame except for the non replacable battery. If that option plus the matte screen was available for the 15inch Macbook Pro I’d really consider upgrading. Thankfully it’s not!

Hard Yards

Yesterday was the first round of Christmas shopping. Jenny & Rasool were visiting so to the shops we went. Ouch – feet still sore from the 8 hours of shopping that we did. The main point is that we were pretty successful so only another couple of small trips are required.

I know folk think I’m mad doing real life shopping when Amazon can make it so much easier but it is so impersonal to order Christmas gifts that way. I hate to think of presents arriving at the house like that when I can easily pop into town and make an effort to buy them – makes it feel more like a gift. Also allows you to browse and see things you just wouldn’t see online.

Online I tend to go to certain sites, search for specific items – I find it hard to just browse. Shopping in the real world….things catch my eye, idea’s pop into my head, apple cake tastes really nice. Today was also another task that I HATE doing. Wrapping presents. It’s such a pointless exercise but we all still do it. Better watch – ghost of Christmas past will be visiting if I keep this up.

Shattered

Made the most of the holiday weekend and I can safely say that I’m glad to be going back to work tomorrow. The clear-out on Saturday was followed by lot’s of flat pack building. Also cleaned out the rest of the garage and organised what’s left – for the first time since we moved in the garage is looking tidy…for a garage.

The rest of the furniture is all built and in place but it’ll take a few days of tidying to get back to normal. One thing I do regret is I forgot to order a lock and key for a set of office drawers I bought. I foolishly went into Ikea today for it – never again on a bank holiday. The place was mobbed and you could see three types of consumer

  • Browsers – they walk at a snails pace (now called the ‘Ikea Shuffle) and seem to stop and point at all the room displays whether they are buying anything or not.
  • ‘The Lost’ – trying in vain to make their way through the maze is not easy but on a busy day, with people wanting to take short cuts they had no chance
  • Irish – the place was teeming with them. Day trips from Ireland to the Glasgow Ikea are VERY popular

    • Never mind – a lesson has been learnt.

    It’s Christmas time…

    and the shops are bloody mobbed. Did some more gift buying yesterday – the queue in HMV was 20-30 folk long…and that was at 10AM. Madness. Internet buying is far more sensible at this time of year. I see the music channels are now starting to drop in festive videos – there’s still 4 weeks before Christmas! Well, 3 weeks and 6 days.

    Scrooge signing out…

    Maplin

    Just what is it with this store? Was in there three times in 24 hours on Friday/Saturday and each time they managed to succeed in pissing me off. Firstly, on Friday, after driving 1.5 miles in an hour I got to the store and filled out a card – looking for a soldering iron and some lead free solder. Queue up and find that they’ve none in stock. What – no soldering irons I said. It was then the return of the Spanish Inquisition.

    The geek behind the counter (obviously a spark) asked we what kind of soldering I was doing. Electronics I replied, just ever so slightly annoyed with his tone.

    Yes, but what kind of electronics. Eh?? Twat? I replied with ‘soldering motherboard’ which got the response ‘nothing in stock for that’. What about the lead-free solder. Nothing. Twat. So a wasted journey but at least we knew Maplin didn’t have what we required.

    The second visit was on Saturday lunchtime looking for solder braid. And what do we find on the shelf – tons of lead-free solder and the soldering iron we were after. Buggers! Especially as we had bought solder and an iron from B&Q. Agghhhhh!!!

    The third visit hacked me off because I was issued with a free anorak for being a frequent visitor. I hate Maplin. A shop for ubergeeks.