A Borders cashier wouldn’t give Allison her copy of Harry Potter without a plastic bag. A mindful environmentalist, Allison refused, even after the cashier stated that the bag would serve as Allison’s proof of purchase. When Allison pointed out the absurdity of using a bag as proof of purchase when she had a receipt, the cashier:
…rolled her eyes and said that if I didn’t want the bag, I could throw it away as soon as I left the store. I exclaimed that that was certainly the least environmentally friendly thing anyone could do, and she just pushed my book, a bag, a poster and my receipt at me and said, “Next.”
Allison’s letter to Borders, and their response, after the jump.
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 23:44:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Allison
Subject: Disappointed in Service at Borders
To: ccare@bordersstores.comI am a longtime Borders customer with a Borders Rewards card who is reconsidering her book-shopping values after an incident this evening. I’m hoping that you can help me understand what happened.
Like millions of people, I pre-ordered “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” earlier this year and planned to pick it up at the Creve Coeur, Mo., location at midnight Saturday, July 21. I obtained a line ticket July 20 and found the activities and atmosphere pleasurable. I was impressed by the staff’s energy and ability to keep everyone happy. That is, until I made it to the cashier’s bar.
As soon as I approached, the cashier began to pull out a plastic Borders shopping bag. I explained that I didn’t need a bag, as I was only purchasing one book. She gave me an odd look and curtly said that everyone needed to have a bag. I responded that that was not environmentally friendly, especially in light of Scholastic boasting 65% certified ancient forest-friendly pulp pages in the American version of the book (Raincoast Books in Canada, however, used 100% recycled paper). The cashier again looked at me askew and said that it was policy and proof of purchase. I said that my receipt should be proof of purchase, especially since the one book I was buying was being held behind the counter and not available elsewhere in the store. She rolled her eyes and said that if I didn’t want the bag, I could throw it away as soon as I left the store. I exclaimed that that was certainly the least environmentally friendly thing anyone could do, and she just pushed my book, a bag, a poster and my receipt at me and said, “Next.”
I find it doubtful that Borders, Inc., had set a policy stating that each person MUST take a plastic bag with them when purchasing books, especially since I had purchased books previously (including during previous “Harry Potter” release events) without taking a bag. I also find it disturbing that this cashier brushed off my concerns with eye rolls and a short tone. I understand that the store was packed, but I was not trying to hold up the line — I simply wanted to buy the book without a plastic bag. There was no one at the door checking for bags or receipts, and most of the customers I saw only had one copy with no use for a bag.
In an age when people are finally beginning to understand the global consequences of their actions, corporations are taking measures to behave in the most environmentally way possible, and consumers are taking small but firm steps to lighten their environmental impact, I find this cashier’s reaction to my baglass request and her brusque attitude in general appalling. I certainly hope that her attitude is not indicative of Borders as a whole, but I would appreciate clarification from your front office within one week. Specifically, I would like to know if taking a useless plastic bag for one item was “policy,” and if it was, why? Why have a policy like that when potentially 12 million American readers may only purchase one book, which would mean potentially 12 million useless plastic bags littering the country?
I also will be sending my concerns to Treehugger.com and Consumerist.com, two massively popular websites that review the behavior of corporations.
For the record, my receipt shows the following information:
Store: 0113; Reg: 05/03; Tran#: 2201; Sale 07/21/2007; Emp: 00158; 07/21/2007 00:42 AMThank you, and I look forward to hearing from your corporate office within one week.
Sincerely,
Allison
Allison received an email from Borders over the weekend:
Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2007 09:16:53 -0500 (CDT)
From: ccare@bordersstores.com
Dear Allison,Thank you for contacting Borders Customer Care and making us aware of your concern. I would like to apologize for your experience at our Creve Coeur store.
I am forwarding your comments to the General Manager for the store and the District Manager for the area. I am sure the GM and DM for this store will be grateful to receive your feedback so that they can rectify the situation.
Again, thank you for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention. If there is anything else we can do for you, please let us know.
Sincerely,
Shelley
Borders Customer Care
http://www.bordersstores.com
The store manager did get in touch with Allison:
This weekend, the store manager (I think his name was Brian), called me. He was super-nice and very apologetic, though I still don’t feel completely satisfied. He said that he appreciated my positive comments on the staff and activities of Harry Potter night and agreed that most everything went well. He said that one of his cashiers approached him before going home, saying that she had a customer who didn’t want a bag, and she (the cashier) didn’t handle it very well. After hearing that and then receiving my email from customer service, he realized that both referenced the same incident. He apologized for his employee’s behavior and said that while corporate had handed down a general mandate that all books be in bags (to speed things along and deter stealing), employees are always free to serve the customer as they see fit. This employee, he said, tried to stay a little too true to the policy and ended up offending me, the customer.Obviously, I was miffed at being forced to take a bag when I clearly stated that I didn’t want one and would be happy to show my receipt as I went out the door that was ten feet away (though no one was stationed there checking bags or receipts). That wasn’t my biggest problem, though. I was more concerned with what was apparently a policy from corporate that all purchases be put into bags, even when customers were only buying one item. He said that on normal (non-Potter) days, employees ask customers if they need a bag (I’ve had this happen) and most customers decline if they only have an item or two. Because of Pottermania, however, the company decided that automatically putting the books into bags would easily show employees that people had purchased the book. I’m still aghast that Borders didn’t take into consideration what an extra 12 million plastic bags could do to the environment and that they thought they needed them in the first place, since, again, no one was checking receipts/bags, and all Potter books were well behind the counter of approximately eight cashiers. I related all of this to the manager, and while he was sympathetic, he couldn’t shed any more light on the subject.
It all just seems careless on Borders’ part, though I’m sure they’re not the only bookstore to do this. I think it’s a bit hypocritical to put canvas bags with the Borders logo up for sale in an effort to reduce plastic bag use among customers (and show off the Borders brand) and still automatically hand out plastic bags for one of the biggest bookselling events in history. This could have been a great opportunity for Borders to lead the bagless way, and it was squandered.
We understand Borders’ desire to keep order on one of the busiest days of the year, but that doesn’t excuse ignoring the wishes of an individual customer wanting to do her part to clean up our environment.
What do you think? Was Borders’ response sufficient? Tell us in the comments.
(Photo: s2art)
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@LatherRinseRepeat: I agree – maybe she just needs some pie.
Anyone who doesn’t think this isn’t a serious issue needs to volunteer to clean up a highway or a beach one day.
This isn’t a minor issue, and I’m kind of shocked at how dismissive some of the commenters are.
I have had to fight with clerks who seemed to insist that a plastic bag was a proof-of-purchase. If I was treated as rudely as Allison was, I would certainly go to the management.
In this case, I think that the management apologized appropriately.
Hypocrite. If she really cared abut JK Rowling and the environment, she would have just given B&N the money and asked that they keep the book and the bag, and email her the receipt to save resources. Books are made of trees, after all. Then, at home, she would jerry rig up a solar cell to her laptop and download the bootleg ebook version on the torrents.
I’m an environmentalist, too. I just don’t get Potter mania.
What’s done is done. What more did she want them to do to redress the situation? They couldn’t go back and retrieve the 12 gazillion bags they handed out. Borders did get to the bottom of the incident, found the person responsible, spoke with her, and explained the situation to the customer. The customer was given a chance to explain her point of view and reasoning.
They did the best they could to address her complaint, and the only possible additional step might come if they face the same situation in the future and deal with it in a more environmentally-friendly way.
So, if potentially 12 million Potter fans (not including Allison) were to buy the book, took the bag and threw it out, then wouldn’t it be easier to determine who to blame, other than big business? So, would the hardcore environmentalist activists be right in burning down Borders, throwing blood on copies of Harry Potter, burning Rowlings in eggigy?
Something to consider.
Mmm, effigy. My mistake
Having worked in retail, I have no trouble believing this actually IS corporate policy.
I worked at Macy’s for years. We were told in no uncertain terms, we were to say no if someone said they didn’t want a bag. The ONLY exception to the rule was if they already had a Macy’s bag and were putting their purchase in there. If it was someone who wanted to wear the item out of the store, the item they took off went into the Macy’s bag, with the tags from the purchase and the receipt stapled to the bag. Period. No exceptions.
When customers would argue, we would tell them the truth. We can be fired if we don’t follow policy. We always gave them the loss prevention line, but let’s face it. You can still steal with a shopping bag from the store. It was all about the advertising.
@Clobberella: You are correct. What do we have here? We have a woman who wants us to believe she has such strongly held values that she is willing to make a complete pest out of herself over a plastic bag…only to tacitly admit that those values are completely trumped by her desire to read a young adult book the very moment it comes out.
So:
Borrow it.
Buy it used.
Check it out of a library.
and
Stop hassling stressed out clerks when you’re obviously full of crap.
She could have waited until a friend finished reading it and read that copy instead of buying her own. It’s not a need.
I work at a Borders Books, and I worked the door on Harry Potter night.
Over half of the customers were leaving without bags, it was at their discretion if they wanted one or not. If this was a corporate mandate it was either not handed down to our store, or else our store decided it was stupid and not to follow it (which stores often do, to be honest).
This particular store and manager deserve to be mocked for making a stupid decision, but I can safely say this was not a company wide issue and I believe the manager blaming it on “corporate” was a low thing for him to do. Now the story is about the entire corporation instead of one store, and he made it that way when he could have said “That was a mistake on her part, I apologize, we talked about it after, it won’t happen again, would you like a $5 coupon?”
We handled the whole “no stealing” idea very simply. No copies of the book actually went out onto the floor until the next day, they had to approach the counter and ask for the ones they wanted and get them from the bookseller there.
It’s a stupid policy on Border’s part. I suppose what she would have liked is for the manager to have admitted it was a stupid policy, perhaps said “gosh, we hadn’t thought of the environmental impact of requiring bags, we’ll try to keep that in mind in the future”. But that didn’t happen. Her real complaint, which was not about the cashier but about the policy the cashier was enforcing, was ignored.
@Felix the Cat: Besides, no book store has a policy of stopping shoplifters. Book stores have no security for shoplifting.
That’s actually not entirely true. Our store DOES have policies in place to stop shoplifters and theft. It’s complicated and mostly on the managers are well versed in it, but that’s why we call a manager when we witness suspicious behavior.
We have a lot of security against shrink, it’s our most talked about problem.
@Quietly: Sounds like our local Borders. Not only are they anal about bags, but one of the managers flat-out refused to check me out without a Reward Card.
I just stared at her in shock because I’m not at all confrontational and she was just being rude for no reason. She asked me if I knew the lady I’d been standing with in line. I said yes and the manager yelled over to my mom for her card.
Please complain to the corporate office about this, and supply a description of the employee who was rude to you. This kind of behavior makes me ill. If they were a manager, please take it straight to the corporate offices in Ann Arbor.
OKay, not to split hairs here, but plastic bags are usually made by recycling old plastic. SOOOO, this person essentially made a stink about nothing, imo.
To add insult to injury, she burned electricity when she fired up her computer to shoot off a complaint email. Which then had to be electronically moved via email to be stored on a server at borders HQ. Another series of emails and paperwork were set into motion to document the event and contact the GM and DM of the store, who then had to use their phone to call up the customer to apologize.
All to save a bag. That could have been recycled or *gasp* reused.
Much ado about nothing, methinks.
Sure, environmentalism sounds like a wonderful cause, but taking it to this extreme doesn’t make anyone join up.
Next time, take the bag. Then recycle it. Or reuse it then recycle it.
You wasted more energy complaining about it and handling the situation. It would have done less damage to the environment to just take the bag and use it for a while.
It reminds me of the time I walked by an environmental rally to have a few people shove some printed materials into my hands, which I promptly tossed out.
I remember looking around at all the paper on the ground and in the trash cans in the area and thinking how silly it was that this sort of hypocritical nonsense occurs every day.
You know what’s even better for the environment? Buying the book from a small, non corporate owned, local used book store. You get the book for cheaper, you’re supporting a small, locally owned business, and you’re recycling. Bam! Problem solved.
I hope she at leasts takes the book into a Used book store when she’s done with it.
@All of the Buy Used/Library Responses: I would dare say that most fans would like to read the book BEFORE they are told what happens by other people.
1) Take the bag, with the book, and leave the store.
2) Put the book in your car.
3) Re-enter the store with the bag, and return it, insisting it be given to someone else.
That would’ve meant one less bag used that day, right?
I agree, though, that if Borders hadn’t adopted such a policy, countless more bags would’ve been saved from usage that day, but.. eh.. what are you gonna do?
(Buran, your method is merely obnoxious. It does nothing to eliminate waste.)
The General Manager of the Borders seems to have indulged in some creative storytelling. I am highly skeptical that a remorseful cashier approached him, at like 3 AM after a Potter-manic night, to discuss a faux pas she committed with a single customer who didn’t even pitch that much of a fit in the store. On the surface, Borders’ response WOULD be appeasing except for my nagging suspicion that it is based on a lie.
@zibby: Since when is politely refusing a bag “getting your skills in a bunch”? Seriously, now, it takes two to tango, and if the clerk had just honored one simple request instead of making a mountain out of a molehill, we wouldn’t be sitting here arguing about this now.
Rule number one of business: “Don’t piss the customer off.” Having worked in customer service myself, I dealt with enough unreasonable, half-insane people as it was; I wouldn’t dare make any trouble for myself by fighting a simple request that costs absolutely nothing tooth and nail.
I once went back to a Borders to exchange a book that turned out to have a section of pages missing. The person at the customer service counter warned me that I should have brought it back in my Official Borders Bag to prove that I hadn’t just picked it up off the shelf and tried to exchange it (an elaborate scam, the point of which still eludes me). Fortunately, she had seen me come in the door and go straight to the service counter, so she was willing to believe that (as my receipt also stated) I’d actually bought the book. Still, I was told several times, quite condescendingly, how foolish it was not to use the proper bag. I did not attempt to remedy the flawed logic therein, because I just wanted the damn book.
@HeartBurnKid: hmmm. I see now that my use of the word “initial” was unfortunate; “Initial” did not refer to the exchange with the clerk, but rather Allison’s entire plastic bag odyssey. This involved arguments – or at least, we may presume, tart exchanges – with clerks, unfulfilling debates with store managers, a trip to Consumerist, and lord knows what else that she was perhaps to embarrassed to mention lest she seem like a crank with too much time on her hands (actually, she does mention more now that I review her email). Thus, silks in bunch.
The “new” problem that made the bag the “initial” problem in my comment was that she would have to wait a week or two to read the book if she wanted to go all the way and save bag AND paper. Which seems like something that should have occurred to somebody that visits a site called treehugger.com.
I’ve had similar experiences with cashiers and the seemingly religious fanatisim they have with pushing as many bags as they can. I had so many logic defying experiences that I made a short 5 minute movies about them and my efforts to shine light on the subject.
[www.youtube.com]
I think people are missing the point a little bit. I personally don’t think it was the bag ITSELF so much as the rudeness of the customer service person.
I use cloth bags when I go places and that is the easiest solution. I don’t do it to be a yuppie or whatever. I do it because the cloth bags can hold a lot, plastic IS recyclable but it’s not as environmentally friendly as cloth, and the cloth bags are reusable.
I have had my fair share of rude customer service people when I say I’d not like a bag or would like to use my own. Things are changing, though! A lot of stores are friendlier about it.
I don’t think the customer was in the wrong. They should have given her a $5 gift certificate along with the apology.
Her just leaving the bag on the counter (which would have been thrown away) defeats the whole purpose of environmentalism and the whole point of not taking bags.
Talk about too much time on your hands. The of time that she used to write that epic email probably wasted more power and put more pollutants in the air than manufacturing the bag did in the first place.
Oh, please, like saying she didn’t need a bag was really holding up anybody. For God’s sake, the whole exchange couldn’t have taken more than 30 seconds. And no amount of pressure on the cashier will excuse her rolling of the eyes. I’ve had this done to me when I expressed concerns, and it’s incredibly rude. I make sure not to visit a place again when that happens. Borders’ bag policy is silly, because it doesn’t really deter stealing (in fact, by that logic,couldn’t you slip a couple of fancy bookmarks and mints in to the bag that much more easily? and a bag is hardly a proof of purchase. The receipt is. As for not needing another bag, I understand that because I have HUNDREDS and you can only do so much to recycle them. But ah, good ol’ Consumerist readers, slamming and accusing someone for taking a stand and making snarky comments like “she must want them to send a check to Al Gore” and “I’m going to go not recycle.” Oh how witty! Haha! What a wonderful community.
Unfortunately, this seems to be a problem at a lot of corporate stores (other than grocery stores). However, Borders did handle the situation fairly well. I think an apology was sufficient, although the cheap idjits could have offered her coupons!