Only in the USA

Everyone must have heard about Price Club, Sam's Club, BJs. They are all shoppers paradise and they sell goods in bulk. They all focus on selling what you need in bigger quantities rather than displaying varities of the same thing. You don't see anything less than a gallon in liquids and nothing less than multiples of dozens in solids. What do I mean by this? You want to buy paper towels - pick up a bag that has 48 rolls at the least; you want eggs, comes in pack of 3 dozens; you want OJ, pick up 4 cartons of 64 oz. each.

In addition to what I mentioned above, they have a good customer service. If you are not staisfied with any of the product, you can return it to them - no questions asked except for the few formal questions like 'Is anything wrong with it?' or 'Don't you like this product?'. One might argue that there is nothing different than what other stores around the area do. Well, I do agree but they either need a receipt or returns must be within 30 days of purchase or they charge a restocking fee or they give a store credit, which will make sure that you end up spending those dollars in the same store guarenteed.

But not in these shoppers clubs. I was there the other day standing in line to enquire about my membership while I overheard the conversation between a customer and the service personnel. The customer who was a lady, was trying to return a video camcorder and the CSR person was interrogating her asking for details about the product as she did not have the receipt with her. After a series of back and forth, the lady finally confessed that the video camcorder was purchased six months ago. Hearing all this, I was thinking "there goes her chance of returning that product". To my dismay, the CSR person took the product; in return gave the cash to the lady. I was amazed at what happened.

One could buy a product, use it for six months to a year, take it to the store and return it for a full price back, saying that you are not happy with the product. This can happen only in the USA. Try doing this outside of the U.S. and the store personnel would send you back saying that the deal is final. The stores in the U.S. are big on customer satisfaction and I hope that people don't take advantage of this. The sellers add this cost of customer satisfaction on the product and we as consumers end up paying for it. Somewhere, someone is paying for it and people don't realize, it's us.