Of cards and DVDs

One of our local grocery store chains, plagued by low sales and lower customer satisfaction, got serious about fixing up their act. "People" were brought in at the corporate level, people who could help determine what the chain could do to regain its place in the grocery store industry. After much debating and surveying and more debating, they finally decided to give the shoppers what they wanted in a grocery store: videos.

I personally would have chosen, say, fresher produce, or maybe even politer employees, but this is because I am a customer, not a savvy marketing person who knows what customers really look for in a great grocery store.

On the other hand, I do know what I look for at Hallmark stores, and at the risk of sounding like a traditionalist, I traditionally go to Hallmark for: greeting cards. Traditionally, this was an easy task: You went into the store, you had your choice of a gazillion or so cards for every possible occasion (From our Philodendron to Your Crysanthemum on Hanukkah; In Sympathy on the Shrinking of Your Hair Follicles), and the only trouble you had was deciding whether this particular card occasion was a $4.95 occasion, or a bargain 99-cent one.

It is getting harder these days, though, to find any cards at Hallmark. What used to be known as Hallmark Cards and Gifts is now Hallmark Gifts (and an Occasional Card). Random sightings of cards in a Hallmark store have occasionally been reported, but by the time you have waded through the t-shirts, purses, raccoon figurines, scratch-and-sniff stickers featuring geese, a great variety of teddy bears, etc., etc., any locating of an actual greeting card occurs totally by accident.

This actually works in the favor of some men who may have a difficult time remembering to buy a card for the love of their life. Now they can claim: "I went to Hallmark, but they were out of cards. Any cards." Don't think they are making this up; this is absolutely true.

And now, thanks to those savvy grocery store marketing people, when men are dispatched to the grocery store, they also have a new excuse for why they forgot the milk: They got lost in the DVD section.