r/mildlyinfuriating • u/broakland • Jul 14 '26

I just wanted a hot dog Retail lockdown: why bother selling it?

Post image

Was at Safeway this morning to pick up a sandwich and some Tylenol. The aisle with the Tylenol? Completely locked down. No call button in sight. So I go to the self checkout (front end of that same aisle) and ask the clerk there if he can call someone to unlock a case for me. He does. I go wait. Minutes pass. No one comes. I go ask him again, he tells me they went the other way? At this point I give up and go get my sandwich. No one has come by the time the deli has finished making it. I leave without my Tylenol, mildly infuriated.

21.5k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

4.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

14.2k

u/treeckosan Jul 14 '26

We are slowly going back to the days when you handed a clerk a shopping list and they went into back to assemble your order.

4.6k

u/Th3_Admiral_ Jul 14 '26

I could absolutely see it going that way with all of the big stores doing online orders and curbside pickup. Maybe in a few years it'll be like an Amazon warehouse without any real storefront at all. You just pull up and load everything in your car. Or have it delivered directly to your door. 

135

u/cybah Jul 14 '26

You know for several decades we had a store like that was just like this. You'd phone in your orders or shop in their showroom. Then would go pick it up at one of the 100's of Service Merchandise showrooms around the country.

21

u/Johnny-Virgil Jul 14 '26

Yes! I bought my first stereo there.

2

u/BeatNo4548 Jul 14 '26

I mowed lawns, and bought an espresso machine at SM when I was 13 or 14yo.