My Instinct Was Wrong? Right!

This is LOGIC at it’s best (NOT!) – especially for a company that prides itself on customer service.

SETUP: We were recently in the game to purchase a salt water generator for our above ground pool – we had decided on the Intex brand as it was cheap enough, has a 2 year warranty, and should save us tons of money on pool chemicals. The manufacturer’s website says Walmart was a retailer and so the story begins.

We dive into walmart.com – wow, they do have it – crap, it shows to be an “online only”, “not available in stores” item. But the price is good – I can get it on eBay and save $2 over the walmart.com price. Walmart.com even has this free “ship to store” program that save any freight costs – cool.

We head off to Walmart to get some other stuff for the change to our pool – and hey, look at that, there are 5 of the salt water systems on the shelf – not carried in stores huh – yeah right. But wait – the price here is $40 higher than Walmart.com.

PROBLEM: Well – so now my choices are 1) pay $40 more and get it now, or 2) go home, order it online, wait 7-10 days for them to “ship to store”, come back here and pick it up.

I grab one – take it up to customer service – surely logic will prevail and I can take one home with me at the lower walmart.com price.

I’m standing in line with this box under my arm waiting my turn with the CS rep. I finally get to the counter, whip out my Instinct and access the item online to show the CS rep the cheaper price online and that it says it’s NOT available in stores. She says, yes sir, the only way you can get that price is to order it online – then some mumbo jumbo about how different divisions of Walmart do not compete with each other – WTF does that mean anyway?

SOLUTION: We bought two – one online which will be here in 10 days or so, and one from the store that we brought home over the weekend.

I’m working on getting this thing hooked up to our pool and hope to be enjoying it long before the online purchase arrives at my local store. When it does arrive – we’ll go pick it up at the “ship to store” counter in the back of the store – cart it up to customer service at the front of the store and get a refund on the in store purchase.

So, we get the better price without the wait. Walmart gets lots of extra paperwork.

LOGIC at it’s best.

And for those of you that own or care for pools – not just above ground pools – we found a great forum – these guys have the science of pool chemistry down to a Tee – http://TroubleFreePool.com – lots of great info, a sweet pool chemical calculator – tell it what your levels are, and where you want them to be and how big your pool is, and it will calculate what you need to add to get the chemistry in line. Definitely worth the $30 to be a lifetime supporter – if I had found this site years ago, I would have saved much more than that.