I do all of the shopping for Team VP and I do my very best to buy everything I can online. Walking in to a physical store, especially a store I've never been in, can just be too much of a time suck, so shopping online is simply easier. The problem is, when I shop at a new store there is always a learning curve with sizes which translates to the dreaded in store returns and exchanges. An exchange is why Mr. MVP and I ended up at Old Navy on Saturday morning with about 600 other frantic shoppers. It was insane.
Shopping at Old Navy online is quiet and fairly well organized. When we walked into Old Navy we were immediately hit by the music. We get it Old Navy, you play cool, young, hip music. Your neighbors' know what kind of music you are playing, so turn it down it a little so your shoppers can carry on a conversation. Old Navy, the store, is also overwhelmingly crowded - with stuff. There was really no specific organization besides men on the left and women on the right, either. It felt like chaos.
I needed to exchange a cotton patterned button down for a smaller size and try on a cotton hoodie to potentially exchange it for a smaller size. I had checked online first to confirm that both of these items were located in the store before we left. Usually stores have their shirts together and then a common wall of jeans with pants nearby and then a grouping of sweaters and hoodies with shorts and skirts someplace close. Old Navy had everything scattered all the way down the entire store, making it impossible for us to determine where anything was.
We found an employee who was very helpful (the three stars) and went out of his way to find the button down I needed and then told me the store did not carry the hoodie. He told me the website is often incorrect. He did find a similar hoodie, so I could try it on and figure out if I wanted to return the one I bought online and order a different size in store and have it shipped to my house, which was very kind of him.
We went to check out and the line was unreal. There were five young women working at the check out and at any one time there were probably 30 to 40 people standing in line waiting. Team VP waited a total of 15 minutes, but I know there were people standing behind us that probably waited a lot longer. The young woman who waited on us tried, she really did try, but she seemed confused by everything. Finally, the young man who helped us in the back of the store came by and helped her scan and re-configure, so she could get things moving. When it came time for the internet order, she was just plain stumped and her other co-worker at another register took over and helped us out.
We probably will never go back to Old Navy again. I'm not sure if I will ever shop there online again either. It was honestly a chore to find any natural fibers that were not plastered with the Old Navy logo. For children, Old Navy and its lower prices and super bright colors might be ideal, but for grown adults, like Team VP, it just does not work. read more