Or Not............

I thought I would take a minute to tell you about my experience at Hastings today. Wanted to see if anyone else has had the same.

I was visiting family in another state today. while I was there I decided to visit the local Hastings as my hometown doesn't have one. I shopped the comic section, made my selections and headed to the checkouts. I picked up several of the Hastings Variants of Walking Dead, Deadpool, Uncanny X-Men, and Savage Wolverine. Mainly had 3 copies of each except the Walking Dead which they had about 30 copies so I grabbed 15, yes hoping to sell them for a little profit to cover my expanses on the ones I wanted to keep. Nothing wrong with that ... right?

As the cashier starts to ring up my comics I notice the Walking Deads were ringing up $4.99 with a cover price of $2.99. Let me insert here that I am not ignorant of the fact that Hastings variants do cost more, as some of the titles I had in my hand were bagged and boarded with a sticker retail price on them for more than cover price. However the WD's, the Uncanny X-Men, and Secret Avengers were not bagged with a sticker to state the increased retail. After the 4th or 5th copy of WD I asked the cashier about the price difference. She said she was not sure and had to ask the Manager. After returning from talking to him she stated that they were indeed $4.99 and the store had a limit of 1 copy per title per customer. This did not set well with me because there was no signs stating a limit in the comic section. I told the cashier this and she apparently did not hear me or was not caring because she proceded to ring up the 1 copy of each. I then called into question the price difference on the comics, which she replied with a shoulder shrug. Now I am really not liking my trip to Hastings. With regards to high blood pressure I calmly asked to speak with the manager myself about the whole situation.

After 5 more minutes of waiting for him to show up I finally got my chance to voice my concerns. His reasoning for not selling me the WD's for the $2.99 which they were clearly displayed at was because he had run out of bags and boards and was waiting on his delivery. Which is not my problem. This is like going to a car dealership and seeing the sticker price and saying OK I want to purchase this one and going back to sign papers and the salesman telling you the price is $5000 more because he run out of paper to print a new window sticker.

While trying to reason with the manager I guess his attention span was at and end because he told me he was refusing to sell me any comics. Apparently the new face of retail is to turn away someone wanting to spend money on products you are trying to sell. Not really amazed at this because while in town I visited 2 other LCS and had the worst customer service, well maybe lack of service.

Anyone else have this type of treatment at their Hastings or LCS? In my opinion the next downward spiral of the comic industry will not be caused by the comic creators but by the Poor service at the retail end. I will not visit the Hastings or the 2 LCS again. If this is happening around the country it will turn people off of comics.

Thanks,

Tracy

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