Buying food at the store vs. online ~ One Woman's Experience

[Georgia]

That's too bad you had such a bad experience there. I do know that they employ a lot of young kids. I have never had a problem with them but I certainly wouldn't look to them for advice on food. Weber is definitely the place to go for good advice.

So, totally off topic.... but I'll share my crazy Saturday morning shopping story from a couple months ago. I went into this pet store to buy dog food. I knew what I wanted so I was in and out pretty fast. The kid stowed my bag of food in my trunk. I thanked him and went to get in my car and someone had thrown a condom through my cracked window onto my seat. I was like WTH! I called my husband and he thought it was hysterical. He was like I bet there's a bunch of kids hiding out somewhere just laughing their a$$e$ off at you! Needless to say, I wasn't amused. I wasn't going to touch the stupid thing so I went back into the pet store. The manager was at the register and I told him what happened. He came out to my car and removed the nasty surprise. He even sprayed my seat with disinfectant even though we didn't think it was used. The manager is always so nice to me now. When he sees me, it probably gives him a silent chuckle at my distress over the condom. I always keep my windows up in that parking lot now!

[3ChocMom]

I don't know whether it's illegal to sell dog food past an expiration date, but I know most stores won't. My rescue used to get expired food donated by PetCo. A few years ago, they decided to stop donating it and now just throw it out! They would rather trash it than donate it, which is a shame. I don't know if that was a legal thing, or if there was some other reason for it. I also know a few months ago, I had a foster dog that was very thin and I was feeding her Royal Canin Puppy Mousse to try to fatten her up. I found 4 boxes of it at Petsmart, but 2 were expired. Since it was canned, I wasn't comfortable feeding it when it was expired and I notified the manager. He immediately pulled it from the shelf. Again, not sure if that's a legal thing or just a store policy.

[fidgetyknees]

I feel guilty about buying from chewie but it is saving me a lot of money .... or it will when I start scheduling the auto reorder of the food. A good friend of mine started a store not to far from my house that sells all the very good brands of dog food, but it gets expensive feeding 2 big dogs high end food and when I get a 3rd end of next year it is just going to get more expensive .... yipe hopefully getting a baby black boy out of Canada. It will be the first time I will have to fly to fetch a puppy.

The big store workers I don't think care about the customers too much, they are mainly there just for the paycheck. Try the more specialized small dog food stores, I bet the attitude would be better, I just refuse to go into those big pey stores, call me a snob.

[barry581]

It's a sad fact that most retail brick and mortar stores suck. Over the past few years I've really had to dial back my expectations regarding customer service. I shop mostly online, but I do try and deal with local businesses when I can.

[Sue]

The major problem is you went to a so-called Big Box store. They hire the lowest common denominator of worker, pay them minimum wage, which is way too low, and don't care.

I go to one of two stores for my dog food. One is a pet food boutique, and the other is a hardware store which has a HUGE selection of dog, cat, horse and bird stuff. Oh yeah, birds and rabbits too. I get great service at both, and particularly at the pet food boutique, and the prices are actually better than online.

[CraftHer]

The little devil on my shoulder would have told me to "accidentally" rip open the biggest bag of (probably expired) dog food and track it all over the floor. The angel on my other shoulder would have (probably) stopped me. There's no reason to be rude.