Apr 15, 2011 03:37 PM
28229 Views
(Updated Apr 18, 2011 11:51 AM)
LifeStyle, the Store which appeals to many, but for some time only!
Initially, I used to just love shopping at the Lifestyle Store at Malls, but of late, their quality is deteriorating and their prices are fleecing! Honestly guys, the things u get in Lifestyle, are available in the outside retail market for maybe just half the price or lesser! There surely is a limit to hiking up prices, to make money to pay the Mall Rents !
I was a Lifestyle Store Addict not long ago, I would buy all my outfits from there and used to find the smallest excuses to go down there and spend hours and hours, surrounded by amazingly gorgeous clothes and clothes and purses and shoes and cosmetics………Ooooohhhh!!!!! I don’t think I’ve ever walked out of Lifestyle without a bill crossed 5K !
But recently, I find the clothes of us girls, so damn cheapy like and just ordinary cotton type and the price on it would be that of a gown !!!! Now with the recent ‘kurtis’ fashion going on, this is the store where u’ll get millions of kurtis. But unfortunately half of them look like simple ‘Nighties’.
In the men’s section, the T-shirts are hugely over-priced, something like triple the price for some so ordinary and simple looking stuff. One thing you get good there are Jeans, for both sexes. And purses, again, for both sexes. Huge variety and lovely patterns.
Their cosmetic section hardly sells and u’il be lucky if u don’t get caught by one of those heavily made-up sales-girls, flashing their eye-lashes at you and giving u all the bull talk of what’s so great about their brands, compared to other brands. It’s like war between the salesgirls, with all the cosmetic kiosks so close to each other. If u mistakenly stop at one of their counters, u’ll have the other adjoining salesgirls rushing up to you with a display of the same product u are viewing, in their hands, begging u to leave that counter and some to theirs !! Height of Persuasion, I must admit ! Same goes for the perfume counters, handled by cool looking Dudes !!
The best section at Lifestyle is the Home Section. Here u normally get a wide and beautiful, artistic collection of household articles, wonderfully curved kitchen ware, pretty colors in bedsheets, duvets, spreads, towels and crockery. But as I said before, too heavily priced ! I had recently gone there and saw a nice cleaning plastic broom with a long handle and an accompanying dust picker with the similar long handle. Good to have in ur house, when ur maid does not turn up and u r forced to sweep ur rooms. U don’t have to bend and can pick up the dust with ease. Real Cool Idea ! I asked the price and the salesman said some 500 odd. U won’t believe guys, recently when I was on a visit to Crawford Market (Mumbai’s Fav shopping place!), I saw that same thing, available of 200 odd, and of better plastic quality and brighter shades! Imagine an Above 100% markup !! Appalling !
The kiddies section is real cute, always with lovely collections of clothes and toys. (Sigh !! Wish I was a Kid Again !!) hehe !!
Finish ur shopping and then get ready to face the most gruesome cash counters !!! Firstly, u’ll never find a time, when all their PC’s are working, so u have to sometimes juggle between the queues as per the working of their PCs. It’s damn irritating ! Next when U reach the counter after an endless wait, U find, yourself facing an Un-Interested Confused Cashier. Till today, I’ve had like, 4 to 5 horrible irritating experience of Billing with them. Either they mess up the billing by counting wrong items or they over-swipe your card and then give you a credit note. And then I lose my cool and scream. And the stupid ‘Offers’ that they sell you are full of loopholes and just made to trap you into buying something or buying more of something!!!!
Like the recent offer they had, when I went last, was of ‘Kappa’ T-shirts. Each costing 299/- and if U buy 3, U get it for 699/-, that’s a 180/- benefit. Frankly speaking those same plain colored T-shirts are worth only 100/- in ur small shops! So, coming back to the ‘Kappa Offer’, I bought 6 T-shirts. When I went for billing to those infuriating cash counter staff, I was informed that I can get the 699/- offer ‘Only On the First 3 T-Shirts’ and ‘Not on the Next 3’ !!! I was like zapped. I asked them whether they were interested in making people ‘Buy More’ or ‘Buy Less’. I told them, that if it is such a Ridiculous offer, I wud like to return the ‘other 3 T-shirts’ and buy only 3. The ‘stupid’ salesguy then actually tells me “Fine Ma’am”….and then I lost my cool totally! I just yelled at him and asked them all behind the cash counter “R U Guys Crazy to have such an Idiotic Offer ??, Discount offer on ONLY FIRST 3 T-Shirts and not on the Next 3 T-Shirts ??” I then told them, to cancel all the 6 ‘Kappa’ T-Shirts. This then rang the bell and immediately within the next few minutes, I had all the ‘Floor Managers’, beside me, each looking as confused as the other and all talking on phones asking ‘What to do’. Then they all stand together and whisper somethings and then finally one of the managers comes up to me and with a Huge Smile on his face, informs me that ‘LifeStyle’ has now extended the Offer to all Sets of 3 ‘Kappa’ T-Shirts. And by the time, my bill was made, the salesman who was attending to me, over-swiped my card by 1000/- and then shivering (literally!!!!), called his counter-pal to help out and seeing them all ‘looking as if they wud all faint if I screamed Again’, I decided not to say a word and just wait till they handed me my Credit Note of 1000/- as they always do. But to my surprise, my ‘Yelling’ earlier proved hand, and instead of giving me an irritating ‘credit note’, they gave me 1000/- cash.
I heaved a sigh of relief seeing the cash returned, cause with a credit note, I’d have to come again to LifeStyle to ‘redeem’ it. Another agony!
Walking out with huge 4 bags and a wallet less of 7000/-, I wondered…..Life Style, “Your Style”, they say, but actually 'defile', to the word ‘Style’.
FRIENDS : PLEASE LET THIS BE AN 'EYE-OPENER' TO ALL OF U......PLEASE CHECK UR CREDIT CARD SLIP WITH YOUR BILL BEFORE SIGNING, AT MALLS AND STORES !!!!!!!!!! JAAGORE !!!!!!!!!
