I went to our local JL to get a particular pram system. Major purchase and couldn’t easily get it elsewhere. But in order to buy it, I had to stand in store at a computer terminal and input all my own details to order it for delivery because they had no stock. Which then made me wonder why I bothered going, since I was the one who did all the work (and struggled with their system) and I walked away empty handed for two weeks...
While in store, my EE was caught by various other baby bits, which I would probably have bought if I’d also been able to get the buggy (or at least if a staff member had ‘served’ me and sorted out the damned computer input themselves), but I found the whole things so frustrating, that I didn’t bother.
they've more or less killed off what used to be a great haberdashery department Same here. Used to love restocking my material stores from there, but I’ve had to take my business elsewhere.
On the plus side, my local shops now get much more of my custom.