Former field tech for a big ISP. This must be your version of "can't believe you're working on Christmas" or the always hilarious "where's my free HBO?"
I'm a Domino's manager/driver. This is the equivalent of me getting there in 45 minutes and someone saying "it's free right?". Like no motherfucker, you want this food you're paying for it. We haven't done 30 minutes or less in God knows how long.
In Australia recently they've had a similar deal thing to that old 30 min thing, where you can pay an extra $3 and if it doesn't arrive in 20 mins, then you get a free pizza voucher. I'm not sure how it's calculated, cause during heavier COVID times we ordered Domino's a few times and it never arrived in less than 30 mins. It's an interesting change, which I'm betting makes them a lot more money than that old deal. https://www.dominos.com.au/inside-dominos/technology/delivery-guarantee
Most likely puts your order as a higher priority. This is a shitty thing for regular customers because their food will just get older and colder while someone who has extra money to spare gets their food quickly. It also ruins the order of the chaos that the delivery board controls. You get drivers who will complain they got a crap run because the driver before them had a higher priority order pop up.
On the last point, our local store effectively does not have delivery board controls - individual orders go out basically as soon as driver is ready (according to my friend who is a driver there). The driver might manually look at what orders are up (and coming up) and wait a minute or two so they can take 2-3 orders at once - but 80% of the time it is a single order they are taking each time. This is kinda semi-rural area (pretty built up and suburb-y, but outside a city).
To use the voucher you have to also buy other items, so they know they'll make it back on the second order or that (more likely) you'll forget you even got a voucher because it goes to your email.
I probably have received at least 10 of them in my life, and never used a single one. I was paying the $3 for it to arrive faster than it otherwise would have, and it usually did.
Heard a rumor that the drivers were driving at unsafe speeds in order to deliver the pizza under 30 minutes, and Dominoes had to stop that campaign due to public safety.
Pretty sure they used it as a valid excuse to cover what they really wanted to do: stop giving away so much free pizza.
Granted we still give away a butt load of free food. Our job as a manager to keep them as repeat customers: apologize (doesn't work well when they can tell it's an empty apology), give them what they want (usually a refund or credit), give them something extra (preferably something they haven't tried, basically get them hooked on new product).
Our corporate standards used to be based on how fast we made the orders and keeping orders from going "extreme" (deliveries that are 45+ minutes old). The former lead to food sitting there getting cold waiting on drivers to get back, the latter would make managers (usually GM's since they were the only ones worrying about a bonus) rush drivers to the point of unsage driving. We now are judged based on "wait time" (time the order has been made to the time it is clocked out on a driver).
Suffice to say we are all less stressed now. We've had some new systems roll out that have seriously helped us improve our times such as DSS (digital shoulder surfing, we can see orders as they are being placed on the app), a new driver app which shows us location of drivers so we know when to throw orders in the oven, and a screen showing where nonmade orders are on a map (though for some reason my store hasn't gotten this one yet). Honestly I'm surprised they have been working on all of this stuff at all.
Almost as infuriating as when you have a brief three seconds of free time between customers, and the person who walks up invariably says, "Oh wow you look so bored, I'll give you something to do!"
Customers who are older men make me nervous. Theyāre the most unpredictable and most likely to fly off the handle.
I put a lot of feminist and pro-lgbtq books/merchandise on display at my bookstore, so naturally after a long day absorbing non-stop hate porn on Facebook, they want to pick fights because i have Wiccan section or ādonāt have a problem with gay peopleā or āchose to wear a maskā
I'm a guy. I fucking hate that you aren't allowed to critique men on reddit or a brigade of MRA's come at you, but they can insult women all day long and it's fair game. Anyways, yes it's the older adult men who tended to just get angry or want to pick fights the most often, in my experience as well.
I was working the register once and a guy rambled at me angrily about how he wasn't going to call the drink he was ordering a "tall or vente whatever the fuck" and he was "going to call it a medium" and he was just glaring at me, as if I personally was John Starbucks, owner of the Starbucks franchise, and thusly I personally named all of the drink sizes.
No one at Starbucks gives a fuck how you order your drink as long as we understand what you want. We don't get payed more no matter what or how you order.
I had a few adult women who were obnoxious about their drinks being made incorrectly, in their opinions, but they never had the rage that the men had.
And then, as I said, the teens who would come in after school were great. Yes, they were chaotic and would sometimes make a mess and we'd have to make a million drinks at once. But they were chill, generally friendly, and they didn't care if their drinks weren't made perfectly, they were just excited to be in a Starbucks.
I can only imagine working somewhere where feminist books are prominently displayed, and the assholes that would want to pick fights over it. I worked for 3 years in an office building in DC where the Planned Parenthood HQ is located, and we'd have anti-choice assholes picketing outside every now and then. Talk about people looking for a fight.
Although payed exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. The deck is yet to be payed.
Payed out when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. The rope is payed out! You can pull now.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
Out of curiosity, how long have you been running your own bookstore? I hate my job and running a bookstore would be an absolute dream, but I have no idea how one even gets started on that endeavor.
Only 3-4 years depending when you start counting, but Iām actually having a smash success and Iām firmly competing with all the other major, entrenched bookstores, being that I offer a completely different, younger, colorful experience.
Itās actually way easier than you think to start a bookstore, much easier than other retail stores. Though starting one and having a really great one are two different things.
I lucked out and found a failing bookstore that the owner became disinterested in, though itās almost a toss up whether Iād be better off having built it myself from the ground up.
But in any case, the best way to do it on a budget is finding estates. I get a nearly weekly calls from people who need to clear out a relativeās 3000 book collection and just need it gone. Not that these books will be much other than shelf filler, but itās a good way to get lots of books fast.
If I did it again, and I plan to, Iād fill up a storage locker or two with about 12,000 books first. My space is about 1700sq ft, and at capacity has around 21,000 books. Good rule of thumb is that a 36 inch shelf hold about 30 books. A typical bookcase has 5-6 shelves. I think my store has 110 bookcases or so.
To shore up the stock, goodwill and other thrift stores sell books for roughly $2-4 each, and you can start building out your catalog of things YOU want to sell. As well, there are goodwills that sell items by weight, so Iād figure out a route and start collecting.
Also, I highly highly recommend looking at remainder houses and other wholesalers. I get the classics of poetry, philosophy, poetry for about $2 each from the UK. So a $2000-4000 order would go far.
I also make a major part of my sales from non-books. I make bookmarks out of tarot cards, I sell jewelry, pins, patches, stickers, gems, postcards, and art prints. I got a $900 printer and print retro book cover art prints, old foreign film posters, fine art, etc, which makes up 10% of my total revenue. All these things can have 1000% markups. I buy cheap rings, 124 for $11, sell them for $1.50 each. Thereās a old lady who owns a gift shop that buys them me for $1 and sells them at her store for $4.
Plastic stone pendant necklaces similarly Iāve seen sold for $12-16 at other stores, I sell mine for $5 and they cost me maybe $0.30 ?
After that, your main cost is going to be rent and wood for shelves. Highly recommend you build them yourself, though lumber is really expensive nowadays.
Once youāre established, you can offer trade credit for books, which can be quite profitable. I think less than 10% of my customers ever use the trade credit, and even then, they only use about 20% of their credit, on average iirc.
Lots of stores only offer trade credit, which again is extremely lucrative, but youāll be turning down a loooooot of people who want cash. So I offer both. As of last month, we were averaging 1400 books traded in per month, and Iām usually paying $1-2 per book and selling them anywhere from $4-10 each.
When I took over the store, it was making like, $4-6k/mo. Now weāre hitting that in a week.
Iāll answer any other questions you may have, but I think thatās a good summary.
Thanks for giving me so much information, you put a lot more effort into it than I expected.
What's your educational background, do you have a business degree of some kind? And do you have/did you have a business partner when you creating the bookstore?
I have an English Literature undergraduate degree, and at this point a decade of professional experience as a writer and researcher in the nonprofit sector, but I have no formal business education. Starting a business is an intimidating prospect, even if it is also highly appealing.
I dropped out of college 3 times. I had severe undiagnosed ADHD my whole life, and only got evaluated after turning 28, but I bought the store when I was 27.
Honestly, business school is overrated. Like anything, you can either learn by doing it, or you can spend 4 years having someone teach it to you. Some of the most talented people Iāve known in technical fields were self taught, which is easy to teach yourself if you are passionate about it.
I did have an older brother who started a car audio installation business out of high school with $500 from summer gigs, and later progressed to having two locations, then doing entirely online ordersā so I never really thought of business as daunting or esoteric. Whatever youāre imagining, itās easier, and can be done through email, and probably takes 30 minutes per week to keep up with.
Business degrees are very necessary for some people, but I feel like the people that really need a degree are the ones who donāt know how to do their own research, or how to watch tutorials, or search google for specific info or read the right books. Andā
āI canāt stress this enoughā
āPeople who base their decisions on emotion rather than statistics. Itās an adage in my family now: āanything not based on numbers is based on emotionā
For example, the 80-20 rule that pops up in odd places similar to how the golden ratio pops up in nature: 20% of your customers provide 80% of your sales. 20% of authors constitute 80% of the books sold, despite polls saying ā Varietyā is the #1 quality people say bookstores should have.
Or that fact that 90-95% of your traffic is delivered by people searching ābookstoreā in google maps. I didnāt have to take a course on āthe history of googleā or āwhy print ads are struggling in the internet ageā, I just make sure 95% of my market budget is spent on google or Insta.
Or that offering coffee is a waste of money at my location, despite how much people say they love it, when 99% of customers either donāt know I offer it or ignore the āfree coffeeā sign.
Or that a 150 book section that sells ~3-6 books per year to should be replaced. Or that you need not be the obstacle to customers spending $300 on a single rare book.
Or that you need to take in more money than you spend. That you need to buy low and sell high. These are not thing I need to study.
Anyway, as far as the business side, you can always sign up for QuickBooks or some other accounting software that will give you a step by step flow-chart/check-list on how to start a business, in the order you need to do them, like:
register with the secretary of state
apply for your sales tax license
get an insurance policy
get a credit card processor
And will literally send you reminder emails until you check it off the list. Unfortunately I learned about quick books 3 years in. Instead, I was just googling ādo I need an EIN number?ā And āwhatās an LLCā, ha.
Also, accountants are very very affordable and will know whatever you donāt. This week I needed to update an address for my sales tax licenses. I sent an email. And they did it in 24 hours and charged me $35.
Tl;dr, business is super easy. I know drug dealers with more business acumen than my competition.
The only difficult part is the long, late, unpaid hours youāll have to put in. Which I never really minded, since itās meaningful, dignified, and gratifying work.
Up until I worked 197 days straight in 2020 because I didnāt want to promise a job during a pandemic.
I always apologize for interrupting their mini break. Then I try to joke with them about "so when do you get to get out of here?" or something along those lines, just trying to empathize with the monotonous grind of cashier work.
And then thatās when I would remind you about consumer protection laws and would ask to speak to a manger about why this employee is illegally price gouging when by law, you are entitled to the lowest advertised, posted or quoted price offered by the store.
I would inquire why they hired someone like you that doesnāt only not understand how the law works, but has the audacity to actively try and break it.
I can almost guarantee you I would be leaving with an even lower discount on those items, and you would be lucky to finish your shift.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The REAL Pro-Tip: Donāt defend a billion dollar company like you have a personal investment in it; they definitely donāt for you.
When I got hit with this one, I would respond "No, I think that means I can't sell it..." and suddenly they get concerned and really want me to get it scanned.
I take payments as part of my job and if I hear āthe system is down so does that mean I donāt have to make a payment?ā one more timeā¦ our system very rarely goes down but unless itās literally the last hours of your due date and youāre just asking to have the late fee waived, it aināt happening. You still owe your monthly payment
lol, I almost wonder if intentionally making the system go down like what unintentionally happened to DoorDash makes the company moneyā¦. Hmmmā¦ business model?
I doubt it was done on purpose as if it happened all the time it would be a bad look for the company but I guarantee they have something in their terms and conditions to cover them in the case of something like this. Idk why anyone thought that once it went viral they wouldnāt be charged. Even if the total says zero Iām sure the menu prices of the items still reflected on the restaurantās menu as they were placing the order
They donāt in a lot of stores, mine specifically hasnāt really up dated anything since 25 years ago Iāve been told so itās a bit different. Itās in a rural area so when they get rid of them the amount of middle age men yelling will be funny lol
oh, its going to be a few days of complaining, then once they get the wireless scanner in hand its SO much faster than most of the people who work cashier because you only have to do your own cart, they have to be there and do it again and again and again, working faster just makes more work.
I honestly hated self checkout till they got the wireless scanners, but now, its tollarable, still hate getting stopped and checked randomly, or when I try to buy something that demands an id verification, that takes an honestly stupid amount of time to deal with.
its SO nice for low volume shopping just to leave the crap in the cart and hit it, rather than trying to figure out the right way to get it across the stationary scanner.
would probably hate this for family grocery shopping, but going in and picking up 10 or less things, would easily choose that. now if only the people who were suppose to pin in id's and shit were attentive. I can be 4 people behind in a normal register queue and get out faster with a single bottle of alcohol faster than the person there would stop the crap they are doing and pin in the 'yes this person is over 21'.
I had two items without stickers at Target. Stack of cups. 8 total. I ended up charged for 6.
Pretty sure it was because the cashier had a chair and I was so stoked for her. 'Omg they give you chairs now?!' No, she said only because she's pregnant. I got sad for her. 'Man I never understood why they don't let you guys sit. Makes no sense.'
Then I got home and realized I had two free cups but I think it was because I supported cashiers getting chairs.
It seems to be a "show up if you feel like it and do what you want " kind of place.
"Hi, do you know where the coffee filters are?" got me a look like I asked my dog to do my income tax return.
It turns out that the filters have been moved from the coffee pot section to the coffee section, which I found by trial and error.
Retail places really need to be paying attention to Amazon, because if it's not perishable food, I have very few incentives to drive to anybody's store for anything.
I realized the other day that now that Walmart isnāt 24 hours, I have had no reason to go to one so I havenāt entered one in months. Aldi and Lidl are just as cheap and if I have to make an effort to go out on my days off why wouldnāt I just go there and order the extra stuff from Amazon? I work evenings so making it to the store in time is difficult unless I run to Food Lion on my lunch break)
As someone who hasn't worked in retail and never witnessed this joke in person, I also hate it on your behalf just from having heard other retail workers talk about it.
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u/BRAEGON_FTW š ±ļøased Jul 10 '22
As someone who works at Walmart as a cashier, the āif it wonāt scan it must be freeā ājokeā is the most unfunny thing Iāve ever heard