The flip side of online sales

Just as more and more commerce moves to the interwebs, a corollary (or result) is that local stores carry less and less merchandise.

I just spent 3-1/2 hours visiting seven stores looking for a particular type of broom to clean my roof. No luck. Sears does not carry any brooms anymore, and Home Depot doesn't have the kind I want. I am forced by circumstance to order online, and wait a week for delivery.

Too bad. I really wanted to clean my roof.

Ain't it the truth. We used to have four hardware stores in town. Now, there is one. Home Fucking Depot.

And furthermore.....

I can't be the only person in the world who has to clean pine needles off a roof.

I can't be the only person in the world who has a metal roof, which is too dangerous to try to walk on, so I have to clean my roof from a ladder.

So.... do you think ANYBODY sells a broom with a right-angle handle?  One where the broom-part mounts at right-angles to the handle-part?  

Nobody has one, or has even heard of one.  WHY THE FUCK NOT.

I'm forced to cobble together something half-assed from a paint roller handle, an extension pole, some wooden parts I make myself and a mess of screws.

Incidentally.... I've been building similar gadgets for years, for cleaning my gutters.  Same story there.  NOBODY MAKES ONE.


[Edit: Okay, I just ordered this from Amazon. Looks promising -- after I cut it down and change the angle.]

Amazon has several brooms like you describe. Those assholes! Pissing all over a perfectly good rant!

Yeah, online sales. My roof needs cleaning today. Nobody local has anything comparable.

I think that problem will only continue to worsen.

But I'm sure you could cobble something together in about fifteen minutes.
(Varied cobbling skills are required of British car mechanics. You wouldn't believe...)

_Howard wrote:

I think that problem will only continue to worsen.

In that case maybe I should consider moving to the wilderness. If I have to order everything in there's no advantage to being near stores.

I didn't even have to move to the wilderness. Less than ten minutes off the freeway (but still in the city limits) and I can't get cable tv or pizza delivery.

If I'm relying on online ordering, I'll at least need FTTX.

Yesterday, I had something that needed to be printed out right away (ten pages) and my black ink cartridge has been showing very low for some time. Our daughter was coming over so she stopped at the local Staples store. When she asked for the black ink cartridge - she gave them the part number - the sales guy told her that they only carried the four-cartridge set (my printer takes five cartridges) and that she would have to order the black cartridge on line. I can understand them not carrying the Photo Magenta cartridge separately, but they certainly should carry the black one, which typically gets replaced separately very often.

Do the people managing these stores not realize that they are damaging themselves by not providing service?

I'm assuming your question is rhetorical.