A Technical Review of Baby Registries
Posted on September 10, 2008
I feel like ever other article I write mentions the fact that I’m expecting my first baby, but this time it really is relevant, I promise! You see, over the past couple of weekends, my wife and I have been bouncing from store to store trying to get registered for lots of baby stuff and i became aware of some serious mistakes.
I figured that in today’s tech age, registering would be an easy task. I was right for the most part, but in one case technology totally got in the way. In another, it was totally the store’s fault.
Babies R Us Registry
Babies R Us has the whole registry thing down to a science. To my (pleasant) surprise, it was a painless as it could be. They had a registry desk at the front of the store with comfy chairs. After sitting down and filling out some paper work, we we’re giving a scan gun and sent into the wonderful world of baby stuff.
I have to say, it was almost fun. We browsed the store at our leisure with our Baby Bargains book in hand. As we came upon something we needed, we scanned the item’s barcode. If we wanted more than one, we just had to scan it again. The scan gun was also helpful in that if we scanned an item that was low in inventory, it would alert us and we could choose to keep or discard the item. It was quite handy.
We toured the store for about an hour before returning the scan gun. The lady who helped us create our account, added all the items we had scanned, printed them out, and also generated a list of common things that most people get that were missing from our list. And, best of all, all of this would be immediately accessible on the web for us to manage and others to use as a gift buying guide. 5 our of 5 stars, in my opinion.
Registering at Target
With one major registry behind us, we decided to be extra productive and register at Target. Unfortunately, our experience with Target (at least initially) was quite the opposite of Babies R Us.
We had seen the clumsy registry stations located at the front of the store, so that’s where we went first. We created a new baby registry, entered in all of our information with the awkward little keyboard, and then discovered that Target’s entire registry system was “down.” On labor day weekend. It was quite inconvenient, but we tried not to let it slow us down. We’d decided to just print off our information to verify that something worked and be on our way. That’s when we discovered that the printer in our registry station didn’t work either. Needless to say that we left feeling quite frustrated.
We went back to the store the next day to see if their scanning system was back up. We were told that it was still down and probably wouldn’t be back up until after Labor Day. So, we left again with our confidence in Target continuing to fall.
Later that week, I’m glad to report that Target finally got their act together. Their scanning system was back up and we managed to register for several things. All of the items we registered for showed up online, so at least once things were fixed, we had the same capabilities that Babies R Us made available to us.
Walmart Baby Registry
Last, and absolutely the least was good ‘ole Walmart. We have two of the “super” Walmarts in our town and, of course, both are always super crowded. After the typical half mile hike from our car, we make our way to the customer service desk to inquire where we can create our baby registry. We’re told to go to the jewelry counter, which I thought was kind of odd. So, we walk over to the jewelry counter and see their computer station.
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There was no personnel around except for a clown-faced teen chatting with her friend across the counter. We ask her where we can get a scan gun, and she replies, “the scanner is out.” I ask, “there’s only one?” She replied again, “yeah, the scanner is out.” I still can’t believe that a huge store like Walmart, a huge store that we have more than one of in our town, doesn’t have more than one scan gun for their registries.
From the look of her, I didn’t expect much else so I didn’t let her attitude bother me. Instead, we went back to the registry station to print out the few things we had previously added online. This is when we discovered that only 3 of the 20 or so items we added online were actually available in the store, in spite of the fact that the item was listed as available. Absolutely frustrated, we decided to leave and come back later when the one scanner wasn’t in use.
Other thoughts
I know this is sounding more like a rant than anything. I suppose I should try to tie this into a tech article, so here it goes.
One of the biggest benefits of technology is how it can tie many things together and offer one simple solution for many separate tasks. Granted, technology can’t weed out all of the bitchy teens in the world (though, I hear someone’s working on that), but it can make something like registering for baby products quite easy. We’re just manipulating databases here, people.
So, what kind of changes would I like to see? Well, as far as Babies R Us is concerned, they’ve pretty much nailed it. Sign up is a breeze, more than one scanner, and I can add or subtract anything to our list online. If, by chance, one of the items we wanted wasn’t in stock or was running low in the inventory, we were instantly notified.
We probably just caught Target on a bad day, but the way their entire registry system was down for several days just doesn’t speak well of their infrastructure and the people managing it. I remind you, this wasn’t at just one store, it was an issue across all Target stores. Once that issue was resolved, they were able to offer us an available scanner (and the employees were quite nice as well).
Walmart, the biggest store mentioned here, was the worst and has the most to work on. While their system seemed to be in working order, 85% of the things we registered for weren’t available in our “super” store… and we’re talking really simple things here, folks: diapers, bottles, burping clothes.
I imagine that when most people set up their registry, one of the items of information they provide is their address. So, why wouldn’t the registry system be designed in a way so that only items that are offered in nearby stores are available? I suppose this might hurt Walmart in some small way; it could keep people from just adding lots of stuff and buying everything online. However, I’m willing to bet that the kind of people who drop $150 at Walmart every week probably don’t do much shopping online. They want to go to the store, print their daughter’s registry, and begin shopping. So, to compromise, how about two lists: one list of things that are available in nearby stores and another of everything else Walmart offers online. There, was that so hard? Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s invest in just a couple more scanners. :)
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These are some great places to look at for your baby registry. I have found some great offers and amazing coupons!
I found this article after a Google search on baby registry review because I’m trying to decide whether to register at Target or Burlington Coat Factory’s Baby Depot. I’d like to weigh in on the other side of registry occasions, uying stuff off of them. I can’t say much to Babies R US. I think I bought stuff off a registry from there 5+ years ago, but I’m not sure and I don’t recall the experience. I’ve bought off Target registries frequently, both for baby and wedding registries, and they are wonderful. Walmart not so much.
The Target registries print off a ton of pages, but that seems to be true no matter where you register, instead of on line per item every place you go seems to think each item needs to take up like 10 lines and most of it is white space. The Target registries are sorted by department and within department by price. (On baby registries this effectively means they are just sorted by price since baby stuff is a department.) The prices are the only thing in that column which makes it really easy to go through and see what is in your price range and concentrate on that part and put the other pages away. The other really great thing Target does is for every item on the registry (unless it’s not available in the store) it lists the aisle number. All the aisle numbers at Target (at least my local one) have a letter that seems to be a department identifier followed by a number. This makes it incredibly easy to find whatever item you decide on. Even if you are having difficulty you can be pretty sure you are looking in the right place.
On to Walmart, a couple months ago my church had a baby shower for a lady that goes there (they do for all the ladies who attend who are having their first), and this particular lady was one I knew in High School, so I really wanted to go. She was registered at Target and Walmart, and I wasn’t feeling well, and Walmart is closer to my house so I decided to go there. Big mistake. I got to Walmart and I wasn’t sure where their registry kiosks were, but decided to try near the service desk since many stores have them there. Sure enough there they were, I sat down, found the registry no problem, told it to print, sat there while it processed and processed and processed, I tried moving the mouse to see if it had locked up and it hadn’t. I also tried clicking so things. Then suddenly I was back at the initial screen. (It was either asking if I wanted to Find or create a registry or If I was interested in a wedding or baby registry. I don’t quite recall which one was first.) I did it again thinking it had just been some glitch. Same results. I checked around carefully, since sometimes those kiosks do a good job hiding where the paper comes out. No luck. I tried it once last time thinking maybe I was messing something up hitting stuff and being impatient. I didn’t touch anything from the time I hit print. Same results. No error message, just back to that initial screen.
Then I went to the service desk. They told me that perhaps the printer was broken and to use the one back by layaway. She also said if that didn’t work that they had a printer at the electronics counter and could print it for me. I walked back to layaway and found their kiosk had a sign on it (that given the looks of the tape had been there awhile) saying that the printer was out of order and to use the one at the front of the store or go to the electronics desk.
I went to the electronics desk and the lady there pulls up Walmart’s website and prints it for me, but tells me that customers are really supposed to print it off the website before they come to the store.
Of the ~15 pages that printed 1 is a cover page that basically parrots back the information I entered to pull up the registry and has a Walmart logo and a Walmart baby registry logo etc on it. The final page is equally useless. The items are sorted by price, but over half the pages are of items for which no price is given. I didn’t investigate, but I suspect those items were not available in the store. It would have been nice if it had said that, or otherwise explained why over half the items on the list had no prices. There were 1-2 items that were in the range I wanted to spend, but all of them had been purchased. (Normally I’d blame the person who made the list, but with no prices listed for over half the items, and the prices I did have seemed to do a good job of covering a wide range I suspect suspect there were more, but I just didn’t have prices for them.) Luckily I was picking something up from my mom too, so I pooled what I was spending and what she had given me to spend and found something close.
Then I found the next irritation. Walmart does not in any way indicate where the items are to be found. I searched the whole baby department carefully and could not find the item, could not find an empty spot where it appeared they were sold out. SO I picked the next closest item (more expensive unfortunately) and I was able to find that. I bought that and got the H*** out of there.
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I live in Miami and a co-worker registered for her new baby at Walmart. It was the WORST baby registry experience EVER. At customer service no staff member initially knew where the computer to print out the registry was. Finally, some one showed up and sent me to the electronics department. Three different staff IN the electronics department didn’t know they had a registry, much less that the computer to print out the registry was right under their noses. Finally, an hour later, with print out in hand, I went to the baby department. NOT ONE ITEM ON THE REGISTRY listed as “available in store” was there. I should have gone elsewhere and definately will next time. Prospective parents, do your friends a favor and SKIP the WALMART registry. There are so many better choices out there.