Check Out Your Check-Out

Tonight I stopped by a local men's clothing store to pick up a couple of dress shirts for a business trip I have this week. I had never been to a Jos. A. Bank before, but this location is in a new shopping center that recently opened about two miles from my house, so I thought I'd give them a try rather than drive across town to a mall.

I was pleasantly surprised by the selection of merchandise the store carries, and both of the salespeople who were working in the store were very friendly and took the time to come over and chat with me and my six year old son while we were in the store. So far, so good.

I picked out a couple of shirts and headed for the register. That's when the pleasant shopping experience went south. I expected to be able to just have the clerk ring up the shirts, pay for them, and then be on my way. No such luck. In an exchange far too reminiscent of an attempt to buy batteries at a Radio Shack, the clerk proceeded to ask for and then enter into the terminal my name, phone number, address, email, and even my employer. My employer? Yep, you read correctly...my employer. I've filled out mortgage applications that were less tedious than the Jos. A. Bank checkout process.

I understand wanting to capture some customer information so you can send me your catalogs (which I assume is why they wanted my name & address info), and I know that a lot of retailers use phone numbers as a unique ID during the checkout process to track customer activity. Email marketing is fine (and preferred versus catalogs for a lot of consumers today who are are environmentally conscious). I'm still stumped as to why they wanted my employer's name. When I looked at the salesman like he had three eyes after he asked me that question, he replied with "I'm going to use it to save you 20%", so I obliged. It took three attempts at spelling it for him to find it already in the system...presumably from a co-worker who has already endured this 5-minute checkout. However, once I finally completed the transaction and then got back to the car and looked at the receipt, I saw that the 20% was just the standard sale promotion that was advertised in the window, not anything special for giving him a load of my information.

Retailers: Check out your check-out process. I shouldn't feel like I'm filling out a tax return in order to shop with you. I just want a couple of pinpoint Oxfords, not an application to Oxford. And more than anything, ask my permission to start asking me a bunch of personal questions and tell me why you want it.

Will I go back to Jos. A. Bank in the future? Maybe. The people were nice and the shopping experience was good until checkout. If it turns out that the shirts are just the best I've ever had and wear well over time, I'm sure I'll overlook the pain of trying to pay for them. Otherwise, I'll probably just move along to another store that isn't quite such a pain to deal with. After all, when's the last time you went to Radio Shack for batteries?