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Nov
16

20 Weird Retail Shops You Never Knew Existed

Category: Interesting Facts, retail lists, Weird, WTF Tags: Cashiers, Interesting, retail stores, weird, weird stores, WTF Leave a Comment

In the retail world, we have pet retailers, wine retailers- and zombie apocalypse retailers? Here are 20 interesting retail shops that you never would have thought existed. But oh, they do.

1. Zombie Apocalypse Store (Las Vegas)

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The Las Vegas-based store sells everything from survival blankets to children’s books to educate the little ones about potential zombie attacks. To them, “zombies” can be a metaphor for many things: earthquakes, terrorists, the Government, or “anything that you think you and your family should prepare yourselves for- or against.” Intense.
Via thetruthaboutguns.com

2. Mr. Throwback (New York)

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Mr. Throwback sells vintage sportswear, sneakers, starter jackets, NBA champion jerseys, snapbacks, toys, and video games that scream nostalgia! Born out of the Hell’s Kitchen flea market in 2011, it has now become so successful that it opened up a store in Manhattan. What makes Mr. Throwback even more awesome? They use Bindo’s POS *wink*
Via mr.throwback.com

3. My Man Cave Store (Myrtle Beach)

A wife’s worst nightmare but a husband’s best friend, this store has all the tools you need to build your man cave. Whether you men mentally escape the real world by chugging beer or by listening to rock or by watching football, this South Carolina-based store has got you covered. Just make sure you treat your wife to the spa after she finds out you’ve bought a giant pool table.
Via mymancave.com

4. The Time Travel Mart (Los Angeles)

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Next time you travel back in time, you might want to buy some time travel sickness pills. Luckily, you can find them at The Time Travel Mart. While you’re there, why not pick up some robot milk or dinosaur eggs? With 2 locations in Los Angeles, this store will definitely be your go-to place the next time you run out of mammoth chunks.
Via timeout.com

5. DapperCadaver (Sun Valley)

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Ever want to buy the props you see in Pirates of the Carribbean or Breaking Bad? Just visit DapperCadaver and you can! Whether you need a sheep’s brain for a psychology teacher or more burnt bones to add to your skeletal collection, this store has it all. If it’s good enough for Lady Gaga or Ke$a (just some of the musicians they work with), it should be good enough for you.
Via bjwinslow.com

6. Wall Drug Store (South Dakota)

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When you’re driving through South Dakota, you’ll have to stop by the Wall Drug. Founded during the depression, the store is not just a drug store, but an experience, says customers: There’s a chapel, a fudge store, southwestern art pieces, postcards, boots, and a huge selection of Christmas cards. And yes, they do fill prescriptions.
Via wikimedia.org

7. NicNacs4Peanuts (Philadelphia)

Just the name of The store instantly grabs your attention. Having named her store after her two daughters, NicNac and Peanuts (yes, they’re nicknames), the storeowner sells eclectic, vintage products that you can’t find anywhere else (see the Marijuana, billions stoned sign up there?). Next time you want a unique gift, you’ll know where to go (if you’re in Philly).
Via facebook.com/nicnac4peanuts

8. Gamblers General Store (Las Vegas)

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Gambling addicts beware! The Gambler’s General Store has over 15,000 gambling products and can manufacture personalized custom chips for you, just like it did for The Soprano’s, Ocean’s 11, and Rush Hour 2. But gambling for them doesn’t just stop with cards, the Gambler’s General Store even has books on horseracing, sports betting, and bingo. Talk about a gambler’s dream come true!
Via southernaristocracy.files.wordpress.com

9. American Science & Surplus (Milwaukee, Chicago, & Geneva)

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This store’s range of eclectic products, many with a scientific or educational edge, is surely for those who are fascinated by discovery and invention- or for those who just love DIY projects. American Science & Surplus, which seems to attract both the young and old, is more than a store, says customers, it’s a total experience. They often end up spending hours in there.
Via gogobot.com

10. San Francisco Sock Market (San Francisco)

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Made for financiers of the fashion world, The Sock Market mirrors “the stock market,” offering “Blue Chip” socks to the well-established businessmen and “Penny Socks” for the kids who have “tremendous growth potential.” The website boasts 3 “sock markets” that you should check out: The San Francisco Sock Market, The Las Vegas Sock Market, and The Los Angeles Sock Market.
Via roadtrippers.com

11. Alternate Reality Comics (Las Vegas)

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The reviews had me sold at Ralph. He’s the owner of the store who has been described as “nothing but nice and helpful.” Another store run by a husband-wife duo, Alternate Reality Comics not only has a wide variety of comics, but plush toys and paintings from local artists. Still, I definitely want to meet Ralph.
Via alternaterealitycomics.com

12. Requiem Oddities (New Orleans)

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If you like surrounding yourself with animal taxidermies and skeletal jewelry, you’ll find yourself spending hours upon hours in Requiem Oddities. Not to mention, this “morbid curiosity shop” has one of the kindest (and coolest!) storeowners you’ll ever meet, according to customers. Ask about her history, they say.
Via tonyromeo

13. Rainbow Feathers Co. (Las Vegas)

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Anyone a fan of feathers? If so, you’ll definitely want to visit Rainbow Feathers in Vegas. They’ve got every single kind of feather you can think of in every single color you can think of…for any kind of purpose you can think of.
Via Clay H. from yelp.com

14. The Freemans Sporting Club

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Functional and long lasting garments are not the only reason why we loveFreemans Sporting Club, or F.S.C., we also love them because they too chant the mantra, “Made Local, Buy Local.” They support what is in the essence of this whole #ShopLocal trend: handmade goods with quality and durability made by skilled artisans. Oh, and they’re also a barber shop. Neat.
Via hypebeast.com

15. Wacko Soap Plant (Los Angeles)

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Don’t let this store’s name fool you. Wacko Soap Plant doesn’t just sell wacky soaps. The LA-based store sells books, ceramics, unique jewelry, and leather jackets worn by people like Elton John and sponsored by fashion brands like Levi Strauss. With inventory of over 2 million items, you’ll probably end up spending a lot of time in this store. It looks like Paris Hilton definitely has.
Via californiafrommylens.com

16. Woolly Mammoth Antiques & Oddities (Chicago)

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Another oddities store, Woolly Mammoth Antiques & Oddities focuses on animal themed-ephemera, taxidermy, medical devices, funeral objects, circus products, and art made by the owners. They even have classes like “How To Skin a Bird” so that you can make your own taxidermy and cool videos like this, showing wacky devices that can cure baldness and arthritis.
Via woollymammothchicago.com

17. Eyes Gallery (Philadelphia)

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The background of the Eyes Gallery is almost as cool as the actual store. Having completed a 3 year stint with the Peace Corps working as Art Advisors to the Ayamara and Inca people of the Andes mountains of Peru, this husband-wife duo opened Eyes Gallery and sells the coolest vintage and folk art you’ll find in town.
Via press.visitphilly.com

18. Farmacia Y Botancia Million Dollar (Los Angeles)

What happens when you want someone to fall in love with you but it just seems impossible? Buy love potion, obviously! You’ll find them at Farmacia Y Botanica Million Dollar, along with bath oil that quells gossip and medallions to protect children.
Via timeout.com

19. Bonanza Gifts

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If you’re going to open the world’s largest gift shop, it should definitely be in Vegas, baby! This store has over 40,000 square feet of shopping, selling virtually any “gift-shop product” you can think of. But as the storeowners themselves say, this ain’t just your daddy’s old t-shirt and postcard store!
Via lasvegas360.com

20. The Thing (New York)

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If you’re obsessed with digging through crates for old records and being overwhelmed with that feeling of nostalgia every time you come across an unexpected oldie, you have to come here. They even have “Diggin’ for Dummies” notes telling you how to dig through crates correctly. The Thing has thousands, maybe millions, of records- some going for only $2.
Via pitchfork.com

Know of other quirky stores to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below!

Sourced from bindopost.com

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Nov
14

By IHWIR Admin

Retail and Wegmans, a Horrible Place to Work

Category: Retail Articles, wegmans Tags: articles, wegmans Leave a Comment

Wegmans- A great place to work, really?

If you are at all like myself, the retail world is something you’ve been in and out of every other year. In and out of partly because you know to take appropriate mental breaks; from the horrible wage, the customers not worth the wage, and the managers that pretend to care about your well-being, but more importantly, because you always hold yourself in that ‘light’ of having the potential to do much more with yourself. Hence, you continue a journey for a ‘great place to work’.

Again, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with working retail if that is what you do for a living, you get into the right position and it’s not so bad, but at the bottom of the chain, you might as well slap a chain on and start singing, because it feels damn near close to slavery.

Wegman’s is considered one of the top 100 companies to work for, really? Their slogan ‘Wegmans, a great place to work’ I have personally experienced their charade, and I don’t have much positive to say about them, but I’m going to say it anyway. They base the very cornerstone of their company on ‘Values’ and god do you ever get sick of hearing them, primarily because no one truly follows them. It’s one thing to preach for a common purpose and goal, and it’s another to try and get another voice in my head, I’m full up on opinions and voices that scream inside, hard enough to get them to quiet down when I want them to.

Wegman’s and its legendary values

If you ever have a manager, who has been demoted by the corporate strands of a company, talk to you about ‘company values’, it is code name for “you have the potential to ruin my ass” Which is what I got from my Produce manager on a near regular basis. This is yet another essence of this being a great place to work. Anytime a full-time position became available I was told how other people had more potential at the given time, and by potential, it means that their heads were buried so far up management’s ass they had a permanent glossy brown color along the ridges of their lips.

Back to these concepts of values, the driven message of the company is to pretty much love thy customer and do everything you can for them, but then, they go the extra mile of essentially saying Wegman’s employee’s come first, because if they don’t feel happy, they can’t provide good customer service.

Oh my, If there was ever a statement that claimed ‘welcome to hell, this is work in retail, be happy knowing your manager makes 70 grand a year, meanwhile, they found hiring me at $9.00 an hour to be a hell of an increase on labor hours for the week’

To further this analysis, I understand, retail operations use employees as they need them based on business needs. It’s a common ratio of supply, demand, estimated goods sold, and estimated man-power needed to run the operation efficiently.

I’m fully aware of the mathematical perception, I also know if you go from feeding an employee 30-35 hours a week, and then drop him down to 12-15 once business slows down a bit, he won’t be very happy with you. Well, this was one of Wegmans mottos; apparently they left it out of the hand-book. Essentially they treated you like a pimp, when things were busy you got used, when business slowed down, you got put on the shelf. Ah, such a great place to work.

Dramatic Virtues

Working within the Wegman’s environment is very much like sitting down with a table of pregnant women, it’s like a slew of problems unleashed by uncontrollable hormones that lead you to having a damn near panic attack. The people who work there that last operate on a level of professionalism that I will label as ‘High School’, on account of the following:

You like gossip
You have no real true care about your own dignity, and you live for drama.

From the moment you walk in the door it’s almost like a game has been set off toward who can be the largest tattle tale. I lost count of the times people had mentioned things I had ‘done’, which led to ‘pure denial’ on my behalf simply as an act of trying to get ‘promoted’.

The people who remained worked with the capabilities of keeping their balls intact, I will refer to both of these people by name, Steve and Vinnie, and it is an ongoing battle.

Vinnie is gunned for on a nearly regular basis on account that he doesn’t kiss ass, the part about it that should be a human resource dream war: Diabetes has claimed over half of Vinnie’s foot, yet the audacity is put forth in my proud produce department to complain that he doesn’t work fast enough.

Have they lost their damn minds? Nope, they have simply been shitheads all along. This is further validated by the fact I know now that Vinnie has been fired.

Yet another example as to why it’s such a ‘great place to work’. As for you Steve, you have been placed in the range of what I call an abused mental patient, because the shit you have to pretend to enjoy upon arriving there is enough to make a grown man cry.

Favoritism- A great place to work with the right blend

The assistant manager of my particular location may have written the concept on being a fake piece of shit. While he took several man hours pretending to be nice, his real goal, as a grown man, was to be buddies with all the young teenage girls of the department, which among discussion with my peers: several found to be creepy, but what was creepier was the fact that we all pegged him to be a homo from the beginning. The way he talks is very similar to taking the male anatomy, taking a very strong rope, tying it to the anatomy, and yanking is hard as you possibly can. The high pitched yelp that is released once this is done is the pitch level of a voice this particular individual had.

When he wasn’t stalking people half his age around the department trying to seem like he was hot shit, he was attempted to be bossy with the other workers, which much to his disadvantage never got him very far. He was very easy to ignore.

Wegmans- A great place to work? I think not

Wegmans has all the common concepts of your basic retail store, the problem is they are generated into a cult like perception point and distributed among the employees. The place is entirely based on kissing ass, which most retail tends to lean that way sadly, but this is a bit above and beyond the ‘natural’ idea of kissing ass. Unless someone has truly experienced it, they wouldn’t understand.

The company itself continues to go to hell on account of carrying value that appeal to pretty much no one, and being run further into the ground by a management staff that couldn’t find their way out of a basement. The room for intellectual growth in the management systems stays in the higher ranks of the company, with good reason. The people you run into in a majority of stores may seem awful nice, but underneath it all, if they are wearing the tag of a manager, they are an ass-kissing moron who is about as enjoyable to talk to as getting a shot at the doctor. Find another place to shop, there are plenty of options.

Sourced from smonaghan119.wordpress.com

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Nov
14

By IHWIR Admin

Black Friday In Canada Means 1 Million People Calling In Sick

Category: Chistmas time, Retail Articles Tags: black friday, canada, sick, working in retail during the holidays Leave a Comment

BLACK FRIDAY

Black Friday and Cyber Monday may be new shopping traditions in Canada, but shoppers are taking to it fast.

So fast, in fact, that some 1 million Canadians will call in sick on either Black Friday or Cyber Monday in order to go shopping, according to a new survey from IPG Mediabrands.

Canadians are also planning to take a total of 4.1 million vacation days around the weekend that coincides with U.S. Thanksgiving. In all, 2.8 million people will be off work on Black Friday, and 1.3 million people will be off work on Cyber Monday, the survey estimates.

That’s bad news for most employers but good news for retailers, who can expect to see $13.4 billion in sales on the two days ($6.8 billion on Black Friday and $6.6 billion on Cyber Monday).

That could actually more than offset the cost of the lost work days. A Conference Board of Canada report looking at 2012 found absenteeism costs Canada’s economy about $16.6 billion, and that’s for an entire year.

Nearly half — 49 per cent — of respondents said they planned to shop on either Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

“Black Friday and Cyber Monday are making Boxing Day less relevant,” Chris Herlihey, vice-president of research at IPG, said in a statement. “And it may feel more like ‘Slack Friday’ to many employers year after year.”

Seventy-five per cent of respondents in the survey agreed Boxing Day is becoming a less relevant holiday shopping event.

Among other things, the survey found 48 per cent of shoppers plan to avoid retailers who have had publicized data breaches (take note, Target and Home Depot) and more than a third of Canadians had already started some part of their holiday shopping by the end of October.

Despite a sinking loonie, cross-border shopping will continue to be a problem for Canadian retailers, the survey found, with 24 per cent of Black Friday shoppers planning to look for deals south of the border.

Canadians are expected to spend $1.6 billion at U.S. retailers on Black Friday, but Cyber Monday, with its online deals, could be the bigger haul. The survey estimates Canadians could spend up to $3.4 billion at U.S. websites that day.

“Canadian retailers must also improve their online shopping platforms or more and more money will be sucked out of the Canadian economy,” said Joseph McConellogue, managing director at Reprise, in a statement.

Sourced from thehuffingtonpost.com

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