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May 28, 2007
Not everything online is up-to-date...
I received a flurry of LinkedIn invitations over the weekend. In the process of saying "Yea" or "Nay," I realized I hadn't updated my own LinkedIn profile for at least a year. Goes to show you can't believe everything you see on the Internet, despite the bad habits of many to do so.
Give you another TWO examples of this. Went into two different CompUSA stories, two different states, sought pricing on separate products, and the first (Trained) impulse of the on-floor salespeople is to go to ... the online website to look up pricing.
Neither product was in the online database -- discontinued models that were still on the shelves but not on the website -- so both times the sales droid ended up in a more elaborate search with the text-based (No, I kid you not) local store inventory database linked to the cash registers to dig out a price.
Last week I was shopping for half barrel planters (don't ask). Went to Lowe's website. The local Lowe's didn't have the item I sought in stock, but the web site tells you to call the local store and talk to someone in there to see what is available, since the local store may stock similar items not on Lowe's website.
The moral of this story is, in the words of Ronald Reagan, to "Trust, but Verify" -- and that goes double if you are shopping.
Posted by dmohney at May 28, 2007 09:20 PM