SYMSsational Bargain Clothing Shopping Experience

When was the last time you felt warm and fuzzy while bargain hunting?

SYMS at 42 Trinity Place in New York densely packs in a huge selection mens, womens, and children’s clothing in well organized racks at fantastic prices. On some items they have those timed mark downs you just don’t see often, that I first experienced at Filene’s many years ago.

Why the Warm Fuzzies?

• 100% of the staff was friendly. Perhaps this is because they’re called “in-store educators.”

• Every so often on the P.A. system, the owners make a warm announcement such as:  “The best customer is an educated customer!”  It made me feel good to be there. This slogan appears on the bags as well.

  After learning they have stores in several states, I’m almost embarrassed that I’d asked an “educator” if  the owners were making those announcements live, as if it were a mom and pop store. Oops. But good for them.

• They also provide tips as you shop such as: “Did you know the price tags are color coded by size?” That idea right there is great. If others stores do this, I’m not aware of it.

On their website you can fill out a survey about your in-store experience and they encourage you to give additional feedback. Of course the bottomline is they paid off: I found great things at excellent prices.

In comparison, we found our old haunt, Century 21, a crazy crowded madhouse with mostly ephemeral  fashions.

Both stores – as with most retailers – have a long way to go in dressing room lighting. But for now I’ll call that the saving grace for limiting my purchases.

Does Your Bank Make You Happy?

Umpqua Bank is well known for its delightful customer experience.

And I tell everyone about my first visit to the bank. Smack dab in the middle of the room sat a kiosk with a plate of cookies, an Internet terminal, coffee, and headphones for listening to music while you hang out.

On a recent visit I was surprised to find myself smiling at the ingenuity of a giant sign behind the tellers: Welcome to the World’s Greatest Bank!

Why hide your pride and commitment behind corporate speak ? They get it.

A Real World Comparison of Netflix and Blockbuster

When my friend wanted to start getting movies from a rental service, after Hollywood Video closed, I gave him the hard sell on : recommendations, a huge selection, you don’t have to leave home.

At that time Blockbuster was coming out with its enhanced online service that I thought would give Netflix a run for its money.

He picked Blockbuster for the ability to drop into the store to get a video impulsively. He also said he didn’t know at any time what he’d be in the mood for so being able to go to a store worked better.

The system was pretty confusing with rules about what you could have out from a store, which was different from what you got by mail, as well as a coupon system thrown into the mix. (Just see the Help for an idea of how much there is to “learn” about how it works.) Whenever we went to the store, they’d often be out of the featured movies and their selection of older movies was pretty slim.

Then one day I visited, and when we found he had no good movies on hand, he decided to try out Netflix because of their new service where you can instantly watch over 7000 movies on your PC without any downloads etc.

While we found a movie to watch, he complained about the slim selection. The viewing quality was amazing. I’d expected over wireless there would be slowdowns and skips but it nearly equaled DVD quality.

But for $8.99 / month for unlimited 1 at a time rentals and unlimited online movie watching – who can complain? (One movie at the theater is at least $10 these days.)

Now days later he’s canceled Blockbuster and raves about the instant movie watching. Although he says he may switch back if Blockbuster improves it’s process and selection. Or if Netflix buys the Blockbuster locations

Winner: ! Their technology investments have paid off big time.

Is being able to pick up movies from a store important to you?

Finally – A Starbucks That’s the Perfect Third Space

Tucked among lofts, warehouses, and art schools in the south of Market meets east of Mission part of San Francisco at Mariposa and Bryant is a large Starbucks swathed with leather and velvet seating, brick floors, purple posts and exposed ducts, and Pottery Barn like bathroom stalls – which as a whole makes me feel like I’m in a cool cafe in Portland or Seattle.

This is a good thing.

As a new T-mobile Hotspot convert (I held out as long as possible from paying for wireless) I anticipate spending much time working at Starbucks.

I have no idea how many of these long heavy red-curtained Starbucks dot the landscape but I sure which I could search by these attributes on their site as I truly feel “at home” here. It’s the perfect place to curl up with a book, as many do.

Library musty smell – now at your local laptop

I couldn’t help chuckle at the news that “Electronic books with musty book smell launched” – letting readers of ebooks place a musty book scratch and sniff sticker on their laptops for that comforting smell.

What next, cookies baking for surfing real estate sites; scratch and sniff sweat for ESPN and well, I’ll leave the rest to my imagination.

It is quite a funny idea.

Crime stats, license plates – all at your fingertips. Just why is this Oakland house so cheap? Find out…

Some of the best web apps I’ve seen come out of our government, mining their databases.

I’m pretty sure this is an old application, but just how useful is the Oakland Police Dept’s CrimeView Communty Incident database? Well, go to Craigslist and find a house. Then check out the crime stats here: <strikethrough>http://gismaps.oaklandnet.com/crimewatch/</strikethrough>
(Update: Instead look at Crimespotting. If there was ever a killer Web 2.0 app this is it! http://oakland.crimespotting.org)

You zoom out and can’t even see the city map there are so many icons pinpointing everything from thefts to assault and prostitution.

The Megan’s Law database is more horrifying but equally useful, to find out who’s living in an area you may be thinking of purchasing in.

http://meganslaw.ca.gov/

Then, the classic, my fave, the California DMV’s license plate personalization app:

www.dmv.ca.gov/online/elp/elp.htm

Real time visuals of what your plate would look like with something like: brn2blg