Ever notice how sometimes when you go shopping for one thing, you end up bringing home four or five other things? How many times have you heard, “I only came in for…” at the check-out? Stanford University did some studies about how shopping can lead to more shopping. It seems that buying that fateful first item sets you on a shopping track that can end with you spending far more…
North America’s only enduring bout with deflation was in the Great Depression of the 1930s, a lost decade of economic hardship, high unemployment and falling prices. While there’s no immediate worry that we’re headed there, the debate has heated up as Europe copes with deep recession and a banking system on the brink. Even the U.S. is struggling after four years of weak growth. Deflation is a prolonged period of…
More Canadians plan cross-border shopping over the holiday season, according to a survey released Friday by the Bank of Montreal. The Bank’s survey found 18 per cent of those polled plan to shop in the United States this season, up five percentage points from last year. The peak American retail season begins on Nov. 25 or Black Friday, the day following American Thanksgiving. It gets its name from the fact…
Customers often run into pricing errors when buying items online — and when they say they want the original price, they get nowhere. This happened to Tad Klupsas, who’s legally blind, so he filed a complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Commission against Future Shop. His story interested me enough to write about it earlier this month…
Ten years ago, I did a series of columns on Future Shop’s unfriendly customer service policies. They had a 15-day return period and a 15 per cent restocking fee if you bought computers or accessories, camcorders or large-screen TV sets and returned them within the 15-day return period. Future Shop soon revamped its policies, extending the return period to 30 days and socking the restocking fee. The Canadian-owned was trying…