is it gonna go my way?

It doesn't take much effort to find a bad opinion of any company online.  There's always someone willing to dish about their negative experience in a public format.  Yelp seems to be a good place for these types of reviews.  And as I’ve said in the past, those opinions are worth looking at but also worth the consideration that one bad review does not a bad company make. 

(And we all know that people won't/don't/can't be bothered to give good reviews), so.

Having said that, and in the same breathe, it's pretty safe to say that as a company you can probably do 'OK' when servicing the bulk of the public, but it takes some special talent to blow it when it comes to people who are marginalized by special needs.  And I will come back to this point.  I promise.

But first let's talk about a growing trend in the lack of car ownership, in which we also need to talk about intercity mass transit - and when I say talk, but I mean bemoan the lack of decent options.  You can rent a car, or do car share, but that can be pricey and if you're heading out of town to stay with a friend you have to deal with parking.  Also forget getting either a car or a deal during the holidays, my experience is that the 'deal' is you get the pay extra for those dates.  You can use some sort of mass transit, such as VIA; which is expensive and have a laughable schedule unless you are going to Montreal or Toronto; GO, which is great during the week but forget the weekends; and lastly Greyhound (and I'm going to lump other bus lines in here) the final bastion of low cost mass transit and they know it.

Here's the deal.  Greyhound is as non-customer centric as you can get.  They're in the business of selling you a ticket and running a bus from point A to B.  It's up to you to figure out how to buy the ticket, how to get on the correct bus, make certain your luggage and you get on and off the bus and if there's an issue, you're just going to have to suck it up.  Having said that it costs me about $20 to go back and forth to Kitchener on a given weekend and generally, the price is the same no matter what - assuming you buy it ahead of time and pay a little extra for the convenience of printing your own ticket.

We've all seen the news.  Megabus (who is not Greyhound) runs into bridge, into another bridge, starts on fire. Mentally unstable man (on Greyhound) had a psychotic break and it's really, really bad. But the article that caught my eye was the one about a girl, confined to a wheelchair, essentially dumped in a snow bank on a cold day, for no reason that made sense, and in response, Greyhound states "We pride ourselves on stellar customer service and a stellar travel experience."

As a long time customer of Greyhound's my only response to that is 'whathPHFFF".  And I’m not just talking about this particular individual, who really got the short end of the stick on this one.  I’m talking in general. See and then after they decided that maybe they could do better than ‘stellar’.

I'll soften this rant a little by stating that, for the most part, I’ve never taken issue with the drivers' themselves.  I use this service on average about 10 times a year and have for the bulk of my adult life, so I’m eventually gonna run into a dufas or two.  But as a company the service is laughable.

During the December ice storm that hit Ontario, I got up on a day I was planning to travel to a birthday party for my niece.  Airlines, trains, TTC and even CAA were filing news posts, twitter and updates to their own websites.  Greyhound 'cannot foresee delays by weather'.

While the TTC updates by the second, Greyhound has little to say.

So what do we do?  Take the train - which I would love to but at twice the price and a schedule that returns me to Toronto after 11 p.m. on a Sunday night (from Kitchener) this is not an option. So we stick with the reliable and annoying Greyhound until another low cost option presents itself.  In the meantime I'll continue to rile Greyhound on Twitter if only to amuse myself and feel some sort of satisfaction that I said something.  And since we all seem to be voting about something this year, why not talk about intercity transport options.  We're a big country but in places we're not. Like southern Ontario, where a few hours between cities should allow options for travel that are reliable, affordable and decent.

I mean, have you ever tried to pee on one of those things?

because canada

A friend tipped me off to Ipsy, which I’ve just joined, a fun service, that for $10 a month sends you a bag of goodies, make-up and skin care to try.  In spite of a bit of, in my opinion, misguided marketing efforts not the least of which is calling their customers ‘ipsters’ as a play on ‘hipsters’ and personally makes me go ‘ick’, I think it’s a great little service.  However, because ‘Canada’, that’s a $15 monthly fee instead.

Recently, IRL I had to send a customer a price list and as he was located in the US I had to explain that the prices would be higher as ours was a Canadian price list.  He was genuinely taken aback.  I told him to flip over a book sometime and see that generally, things just cost more in Canada - and really for no discernible reason.  Although the government is currently seeking price equality at a national level.

I’ve been grappling with how to write about the subject of online stores and their related service fees and today I realized that in all honesty the reason is probably because Canada.

I’ll preface this by saying I have not e-shopped in the US and have no personal experience with their shipping policies, but since many things ‘Canadian’ are still American, I can generally see that there are pretty liberal, at least in comparison, shipping and return policies with most US to US e-shopping.  Then again I could be totally wrong.

But here in Canada, I have some experience.  Generally most stores have a decent minimum order, or periods of no cost shipping in order to entice customers to order.  The good ones also provide amazing return policies.  So here’s the disconnect for me - if I’m not getting better prices on your web site, and I have to pay for my own shipping there and back, what’s the incentive for me to shop online?

I am a lot of years removed from my retail days but I doubt the goal of repeat business and multi-unit transactions has changed that much.  So it follows if I walk into your store, I am assuming that the cost of that store, staffing it and marketing it are part of the price of the items.  If you’re an e-tailer, you don’t incur all those costs, I should be getting a better deal to reflect that, or at the very least, have my shipping covered.  Or if a physical store who also e-tails, basically, I’m not only paying for your stores but also for you to pack that parcel; the one that I paid for?!  And that I find confusing.

Yes I know there are costs associated with running a web store.  But you can’t tell me they are near as high as a physical location.  And to that end, with your added reach to markets beyond your geography, you should have an uptick in sales to further compensate. 

Let’s take my favourite retailer of late, well e-tailer to me.  Located only in la belle provence, Simons (I’ll give them a little shout out), a suggestion for another friend, offers decent low cost knit times, which I personally pretty much live in.  Orders over $50 are shipped for free, and they seem to have frequent no limit shipping promotions.  Orders arrive nicely wrapped in a branded box, folded, not in plastic bags, and your invoice in an envelope.  But the kicker, no questions asked returns.  Just go back to your account, tick the items you want to return, print the return label and take the box to the post office and your money returned upon receipt, which they acknowledge via e-mail.  Easy.  Peasy.  So if I’m uncertain of a size, I just order two and away I go, returning the one that doesn’t fit.  I’ve never set foot in their store – although I probably will if I’m near one now, and I order from them frequently.  Bonus points for showing both the back and front of an item and including the garment composition.

Conversely one of my favourite stores at the mall, Ricki’s, which is also not so conveniently located near me, doesn’t do it quite so well.  Shipping offers of under $5 are common, usually either $2 or $4 regardless of the dollar value of the order, but the kicker is, you can return anything to the store, but via mail you have to cover the return fees.  And that bothers me.  And I can’t use my store issued gift card credit online.  They do a good job of images and views, but composition isn’t listed, so for someone like me who likes a bit of spandex in her tee’s, I have to guess a lot. 

I could go on, but I won’t.  I will say that there’s a perfect set of features out there for garment sites.  Unfortunately I’ve never run into it all on one site.  So if you’re a retailer, and you’re reading this here’s what we need.   Multiple views of the item; front and back.  And a shot of the item in each colour, not some crappy colour swatch.  On a dummy form is great, or if the manufacturer gives you a product shot that’s great too.  I clearly like to know the composition of the item.  A ‘runs large or small’ indicator is a nice to have but not a deal breaker.  But if there’s one thing I could insist every site has it would be a size filter.  A multi select size filter – so that when I’m looking at items I can filter for my sizes only and not get all excited about something that is only left in XS.  And if I could, and I know it’s in vain, a ship to Canada landed price.  Although to be honest, I’ve been burned enough by landing fees to avoid shopping in the US or outside my country anymore.

So we’re not changing the world here, just my little corner of it.  And while I have some reservations about this Ipsy thing – like do they amp up the first couple of bags to hook you, or does it last.  In the mean time; lookie what I got!

March 2014 Ipsy Bag

your algorithm thinks i'm fat

If you're a Loblaw’s fan you've probably been participating in the new points program aimed at getting Loblaw’s and affiliates a massive amount of information about how you shop and eat.  And if you marry that with a PC MasterCard about how you do just about everything consumable. 

However that's not quite how they positioned it. Something about targeted offers, bonus points and meal and recipe suggestions all FOR YOU. The pay off though, points for free food make it worthwhile. Let's face it everything you do is being tracked anyway so why not get a perk or two.

I'm loyal to Loblaw’s for a lot of reasons - which we've discussed here before.  Among which is proximity to my home and a wide selection of mostly ready to eat things that I can eat without feeling like everything I ingest is takeout.  PC Blue has been a godsend in that at least one thing isn't totally horrible. (Read that fine print. That list is an 'or' list as in whole grain or low fat or low salt)

I know expecting a computer model to interpret complex human decision making processes is, in a word, inane. But I think your algorithm just told me I'm fat.

For the longest time I got recipes(!) - first poor assumption - for things I don't eat or do eat but never at home.  I like barbecued chicken but I don't own a barbecue and for some reason someone always leaves me a bottle of barbecue sauce which since I rarely use eventually gets tossed.

I got that recipe 4 times.

The soup recipe came in a heat wave in July.  I think I can safely say no one wanted soup.

The single steak I bought over the summer when a friend and I rented a cottage and I paid for groceries has resulted in many offers for beef and pork despite having never again purchasing any other red meat.  So the chicken bacon salad suggestion ain't gonna do it either. 

Finally, one day, perhaps after I bought all the ingredients for Turkey Bean chili did I get a winner.

So what can I surmise?  Well at a first blush. Loblaw’s your system needs some tuning.  And some work. Why can't I easily opt out of offers every week so the system can more quickly 'learn' my habits?  That is when I can even get to the site which 75% of the time is off line minutes after you send your weekly e-blast.

And finally why does someone with no cat keep getting offers for cat food?

on a more serious note

I had a little panic attack at Yorkdale mall today.  In the throes of being overheated and tired of trying to find my way out of my least favourite mall, I talked to someone who was empathetic to my plight, and offered a joke about the parking lot being even worse than the mall.  For a moment I was completely confused – all I could think was why would I have to deal with the parking lot.  And then I remembered.  I was in the suburbs and as a non-car owner; I was the odd woman out.

A few springs ago I became aware that a lot of people where trying to hit me with their cars.  At first I thought I was being a bit paranoid, until my other pedestrian friends noted the same thing.  

There was no real rhyme or reason to the attempts.  The spring seemed to be the worst, but not exclusively. Right hand turns seemed to be an issue, but crossing in a crosswalk, or at a light didn't seem to stop the issue.  Rolling stops, and playing chicken with me was also a situation I didn’t want to be involved with. Think about it, you’re in a 2 ton vehicle, and I’m wearing my coat.  People - drivers, were trying to hit me with their cars.

At the start of 2014, I found evidence the supported my suspicions.  And an editorial that I agree with; where is the demand, the absolute urgency, for some sort of revelatory response to the fact that in 2013 pedestrian fatalities outnumbered murders in Toronto.  There were 63 traffic related fatalities in 2013, a year where the murder rate hit the mid 50’s, most of these incidents in the last 6 months of the year.  This is people being killed by cars when walking, on their bikes or motorcycles and includes victims of car accidents.  But by and large the most are pedestrians, hit at wide, signaled, suburban cross walks, by cars.  And more than half of them seniors. 

What does this mean?  Well first off that I was right.

Secondly it means that all of us, pedestrians, drivers, people who figure out how to time lights and how to make traffic flow need to take a good long look at how we move everyone in this city.  That all modes of transport; and feet are a mode; are given consideration in planning but also in our day to day.  As city dwellers continue to eschew driving in record numbers, choosing instead to live and work in cores and only rent or car share when needed, we need to encourage drivers to pay more attention as they may soon be outnumbered.

This is a not something we can legislate away.  This is a course of action that must occur at a grassroots level.  We all have to pay more attention to what we do.  But if I can, as a pedestrian, instill this one thing in drivers and before I go off on a tangent to say that I personally feel all vehicular misdemeanors should be tackled by forcing drivers to use the TTC for 90 days and learn how easy they really have it – if you’re in your car – you’re going to get there faster.  So give us pedestrians a break.

If you’re really keen on the deets… http://torontoist.com/2014/01/torontos-bad-year-for-traffic-fatalities/