Get Smart about Shopping

Last night I went into the Barnes & Noble DVD section. I know what you're thinking: "What, a savvy shopper like Suzanne looking at DVDs in a bookstore?" I had made the mistake of looking at their online site after they sent me a sale notice, and I had seen that they featured the first season of Get Smart for only $0.50 more than the Amazon.com price. I had also received a 15% off coupon of theirs via email.

This was the plan: to go into the store, see if the price was low enough that by combining it with the coupon it would be cheaper than buying from Amazon sometime in the future, and make my decision from there.

What actually happened was that I made a classic hunter mistake: forgetting the territory. (It isn't just salesmen who gotta know it.) I sped into that DVD section with purpose. I didn't browse. This allowed me to fall victim to the Shopping Ambush, which is when you are trying to hunt and suddenly a salesperson appears. Sometimes this is a mere distraction, sometimes it is a complete diversion from your goal.

Last night, I was taken completely off guard. Behind a display one second, face-to-face with a salesperson who had been cleverly disguised as a cashier the next. Before I knew it, I was telling him what I was looking for, being shown to it, and having my purchase rung up...for $2 more than I had planned to spend. (As my fellow hunters are aware, in the game of shopping, every cent counts.) 

Out of my mistake comes this addendum to the hunter advice I've already given you: when in territory dominated by salespeople, you must appear to be browsing. No matter how many years you have been waiting for a TV show to come on on DVD, no matter how sort of jealous you are of your brother getting it first even though he said he wasn't going to, no matter what, you must look as though you are there for no specific reason. Look as though you're waiting for somebody in another location in the store and are just in this section out of extreme boredom. Look standoffish. Look as though you have no money. When the salesperson approaches you, don't make eye contact for more than 5 seconds as you throw a "Thanks, just looking" over your shoulder. 

I was consoled in this blunder by the knowledge that I have indeed been anticipating the DVD release of this show for years now. Also by the fact that when the salesperson showed me where it was, it turned out to be right by the entrance to the section.

"Walked right past it," I said, then chuckled and added, "Missed it by that much."

The cashier/saleman chuckled politely, but I could tell he was really just plotting his next ambush.