To Whom It May Concern

To the president of Real Canadian Superstore (or whoever on your staff might actually care about customer satisfaction - assuming there is one)

As a fairly new customer of the Superstore I have a few suggestions for you that, if followed, might actually make shopping in your stores be something approaching tolerable. I got these ideas from shopping in supermarkets in other parts of North America, something you might consider doing sometime too so you can see what a supermarket shopping experience is supposed to be like.

First of all, you may not live in Western Canada, or in the Vancouver area, so let me bring you in on a local secret: It Rains A Lot Here. When I arrive at your store with my two children, I usually need to put one of them into a shopping cart so he doesn't run away and get lost in the monstrous maze that is your store. Unfortunately, you don't seem to have clued into the fact that shopping carts that live out in the parking lot in a place where it rains a lot get wet. Every other store I've shopped at has offered at least some carts inside the store which are dry. Here's another nugget of secret information for you: preschoolers don't like to sit on a wet shopping cart seat.

Second, a comment on your practice of placing a "backpack patrol" employee next to the store entrance. It may not have occurred to you that some of us who carry backpacks are not, in fact, shoplifters but actually use them for carrying diapers, wallets and other useful items. I notice plenty of women carrying purses around in your store but apparently they don't have "potential shoplifter" written all over their faces the way us evil backpack owners do. (I'd guess that statistically, women are more likely to have their purses stolen than a backpack, but of course your policy isn't designed around the needs of your customers.) Telling me that I can put my backpack into a "free" storage locker miles away from the checkout lanes doesn't help me much. How am I supposed to pay for my groceries when my wallet is in a backpack which is in a locker five minutes' walk away? I guess I should just carry my wallet around in my hand while I shop. Alas, that would mean I would only have one hand free to take groceries off the shelf and put them into the cart. So fewer profits for you.

Third, a comment on the layout of your store. Now, I totally understand your desire to offer your customers so many choices of food that they spend hours walking around trying to decide, for example, exactly which of fifty brands of breakfast cereal they should get, so that they will pick up lots of other food and spend more money while they're there... but I would like to share yet another secret with you - people who are busy and trying to quickly pick up their weekly groceries in a huge barn of a store like yours, would actually be more likely to return to your store if they knew they'd be able to find what they want.

Fourth, a secret I learned in grade school. There's this nifty invention called a ruler, and it has a cousin called a tape measure. What you do is, you get these things out and measure other things with them. I'd like to suggest a special mathematical ritual for all your store managers. Go into the store. Measure the width of the aisles. Now go out into the rainy parking lot, find a loonie in your pocket if you can, get a cart and measure the width of the cart. Multiply that by two and see if it's smaller than the number you got when measuring the aisle earlier (Hint - it won't be). Or, if that's too complex, get two loonies, and bring two wet carts into the store and see if you can make your two carts fit beside each other, or pass each other, in the aisles of your store. (Hint - the carts won't be able to fit side by side in almost all of the store aisles). For those who successfully complete this skill testing ritual, I'd suggest a bonus exercise - measure the amount of space allowed for customers to line up at your checkout lanes. (Hint - there isn't enough).

So as not to overwhelm you with suggestions, I'll leave you with these first four for now and maybe in a couple of months I'll get back to you with a few more.

Sincerely,

Disgruntled Superstore Shopper