For months now (maybe the better part of a year), I have been trying to convince all my friends to eschew the evil blue and yellow store (for various reasons) and start shopping at Circuit City whenever possible.  Well, after today's experience, maybe I was wrong.  I still hate shopping at Best Buy (for more reasons than I can count), but Circuit City may make it onto my list too if they're not careful.

I wandered in to check and see if they got the new Zelda game for the DS in yet.  Their in-store ad and their mailer both say, "In stores by 2pm."  Keep in mind this is just a Circuit City promise.  This is not a publisher-mandated street date or anything like that.  They just state that their truck will get there sometime morning or early afternoon and they'll have it for you by 2pm.  When I didn't see it, I started looking for someone to help me.  This is where my Circuit City opinion started tracking downward.  This has happened the last several times I've been in the store and frankly, if they don't fix the problem, it's going to turn me away.  There were no employees in sight.  The closest guy was 50 or 60 meters away in the computer department or busy in the garage in Mobile Audio.  There was no one that appeared to be working the games section.

So, I sojourned off to the computer department to find...let's call him Michael.  He was talking to a girl (not an employee), but she did not look at all like she was shopping for anything.  They were standing in the laptop aisle and all the laptops near them were off and/or closed, so I can't imagine she was in the market for one.  After looking my way and seemingly willing to speak with me (a mistake I apparently made by misreading his face which it later became clear was pretty blank most of the time), I asked him about the game.  His answer?  Not, "I'll check."  Not, "No, we haven't gotten it in."  No.  His answer was that he didn't think the truck had come in yet (ok, maybe he really didn't think so) and even if they had it, they couldn't sell it until 2pm.  What?!

Keep in mind what I said earlier about this not being a street-dated item or having any restrictions from the publisher.  Also, it's now about 12:15.  You can't sell it until 2pm?  I told him that was stupid and just got a blank stare and a generic "corporate policy" response.  He didn't even try to check to see if it was really in or not.  Just, "No, we can't sell it."  Maybe I was just cranky from being hungry (ask my wife, she'll tell you you don't want to mess with me when I'm hungry), but I stalked out of the store.  I really didn't want to go somewhere else.  In the end, I shouldn't have because this tale has no happy ending.

Circuit City, if this really is corporate policy, it's stupid.  Do you really want to turn a customer away who takes his lunch break, travels to your store willing to spend money to buy an item and then gets told it can't be sold until 2pm for no reason whatsoever?  If that's not really corporate policy (and it wouldn't take much trying to convince me it's not), then I pity you for having hired Michael.  Please also make sure you staff your stores.  While Best Buy is annoying and overpriced (they recently started charging an average of $3 above MSRP for Xbox360 accessories), you can't walk 10 steps without tripping over a blue-shirted employee.

Mistake #2 was stopping at Wal-Mart on the way back to the office.  My only excuse is that it is literally right on the way and that I've gotten good deals there before (games that were supposed to be $60 and I got them for $50 on launch day).  After walking the half mile through every department to the very back of the store (why is electronics always in the back) and searching a bit for an employee working electronics (is this a normal "electronics store/dept" problem?) the nice girl named Rashunda (I swear!) physically went into the back storeroom to check for me.  Unfortunately, they didn't have it yet and my 10 minute walk in from my car was wasted.  At least I didn't just get a blank stare or some mindless corporate policy line.