It has been an excruciating week this - hot and humid beyond all imagination. We had a romantic idea of the European summer - sunny days, short clothes, et al. This isn't quite the stuff of our dreams. We spent day one and the following night in denial but soon realized what we had to do - buy a fan - and it seemed simple enough really - get to the nearest technology/appliances shop and hand over the moolah to the person behind the check out desk. Alles Gute?
Nope, Nein. Living in a Utopia, were we? This is what really transpired:
We enter the shop and stare at the menu of items floor by floor. Where does the damn thing fit? There is no such category as household appliances. You could have computer + office (check - no fan there); household + kitchen + lighting (nope); small appliances (no luck again)... well we had to find it if it was there, right? It was in "Bathroom and Health products".. Eh?
After spending 10 minutes figuring out which section the fan was to be sorted into, we learn that it is out of stock. No table fan, pedestal fan, no USB fan, not even those tiny battery operated ones. New stocks to be available in 2-3 days. Bookings are not accepted.
We went to three other shops, fortunately decided to just ask the man behind the counter as we entered the shop. Got the same reply everywhere!
We felt like fools, really. And were almost getting looked at like fools too. As if we had woken up so late it was already too late. "What did you expect to hear?" kind of expressions on the faces of salesmen.
Uh oh!
We came home disappointing, the frightening prospect of another hot and sultry night ahead of us. Decided to check on amazon and learnt that fans are called "Ventilators" in German. Well, that explains a lot somehow! Amazon to the rescue it is, then!
This is one of the most advanced nations in the world - surely they don't need lessons on how to seek a steaming hot business opportunity, pun intended? Back in India, I remember we bought ACs not once but twice in April, when temperatures start to soar and most people would choose to invest in an AC. April is also the month when you will see the maximum number of models of ACs in the market, the best stocks and mostly reliable customer service. Both our ACs were up and running in a matter of hours after we decided to buy them. Oh how I miss that opportunism!
My sister summed it up in the best words possible - if fans were so direly needed, they would by now have been sold on traffic lights if we had been in India!
Nope, Nein. Living in a Utopia, were we? This is what really transpired:
We enter the shop and stare at the menu of items floor by floor. Where does the damn thing fit? There is no such category as household appliances. You could have computer + office (check - no fan there); household + kitchen + lighting (nope); small appliances (no luck again)... well we had to find it if it was there, right? It was in "Bathroom and Health products".. Eh?
After spending 10 minutes figuring out which section the fan was to be sorted into, we learn that it is out of stock. No table fan, pedestal fan, no USB fan, not even those tiny battery operated ones. New stocks to be available in 2-3 days. Bookings are not accepted.
We went to three other shops, fortunately decided to just ask the man behind the counter as we entered the shop. Got the same reply everywhere!
We felt like fools, really. And were almost getting looked at like fools too. As if we had woken up so late it was already too late. "What did you expect to hear?" kind of expressions on the faces of salesmen.
Uh oh!
We came home disappointing, the frightening prospect of another hot and sultry night ahead of us. Decided to check on amazon and learnt that fans are called "Ventilators" in German. Well, that explains a lot somehow! Amazon to the rescue it is, then!
This is one of the most advanced nations in the world - surely they don't need lessons on how to seek a steaming hot business opportunity, pun intended? Back in India, I remember we bought ACs not once but twice in April, when temperatures start to soar and most people would choose to invest in an AC. April is also the month when you will see the maximum number of models of ACs in the market, the best stocks and mostly reliable customer service. Both our ACs were up and running in a matter of hours after we decided to buy them. Oh how I miss that opportunism!
My sister summed it up in the best words possible - if fans were so direly needed, they would by now have been sold on traffic lights if we had been in India!
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