Today's Altimussing
Jun. 5th, 2009 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailbheAltimus is a camping and outdoorsy stuff shop in town. It's independent, and we've shopped there since they removed the trendy surfer clothes from the window and put camping kit there instead, which was about when they renamed from Silver Trek, sometime when Linnea was a baby.
They ordered me a rucksack with an adult carrying capacity and fully-adjustable back, so that it fit my short back - ladies' rucksacks are too long for me. Over the last four years they have entered into all my problem-solving when I have complicated travel to do with two children and no car, sometimes with SPD. They fitted me for hiking sandals while I was pregnant and I'm still wearing them now - they must be over three years old and still comfy and supportive. The hiking boots with orthopaedic inserts they sold worked wonders on my hips.
So a couple of weeks ago we started looking for things to help with the week-in-Wales camping. One of the things we asked them to get was a backpackers' table, a small folding table about 10-15cm high which folds down into a little pack and weighs under a kilo. They didn't get it, and because they promised they would, I didn't buy it elsewhere before other places ran out of stock too.
So I went back today to collect the solar charger and to swap a cheap torch for a maglite (at no extra cost, because they couldn't supply spare bulbs to fit the cheap torch they sold me the other day) and said that because I'd been waiting for them to get the table in I'd missed my chance ot buy it elsewhere, and what could they suggest to help a two-year-old not spill her breakfast cereal all over the inside of the tent when it's too wet to eat outside?
They went down to the basement and came up with a 6" high clear perspex shelf on four little legs. It's lightweight, it packs flat, and Emer can use it for a table.
No charge.
THAT is the sort of thing that gets you customer loyalty. I'm only sorry we're going to be away for their big tent show, 10-14 June.
They ordered me a rucksack with an adult carrying capacity and fully-adjustable back, so that it fit my short back - ladies' rucksacks are too long for me. Over the last four years they have entered into all my problem-solving when I have complicated travel to do with two children and no car, sometimes with SPD. They fitted me for hiking sandals while I was pregnant and I'm still wearing them now - they must be over three years old and still comfy and supportive. The hiking boots with orthopaedic inserts they sold worked wonders on my hips.
So a couple of weeks ago we started looking for things to help with the week-in-Wales camping. One of the things we asked them to get was a backpackers' table, a small folding table about 10-15cm high which folds down into a little pack and weighs under a kilo. They didn't get it, and because they promised they would, I didn't buy it elsewhere before other places ran out of stock too.
So I went back today to collect the solar charger and to swap a cheap torch for a maglite (at no extra cost, because they couldn't supply spare bulbs to fit the cheap torch they sold me the other day) and said that because I'd been waiting for them to get the table in I'd missed my chance ot buy it elsewhere, and what could they suggest to help a two-year-old not spill her breakfast cereal all over the inside of the tent when it's too wet to eat outside?
They went down to the basement and came up with a 6" high clear perspex shelf on four little legs. It's lightweight, it packs flat, and Emer can use it for a table.
No charge.
THAT is the sort of thing that gets you customer loyalty. I'm only sorry we're going to be away for their big tent show, 10-14 June.
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Date: 2009-06-06 10:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-06-05 10:21 pm (UTC)Likewise, I sent OldBloke off to the butcher's today with instructions to "buy something nice". He came back with a leg of lamb and the news that Jimmy will happily make some gluten-free "not plain pork sausages" and freeze them in batches so when OB goes in again there'll always be some available.
And this is why it's worth using your local suppliers!