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(Photo taken at Amazon's Four-Star store in SOHO)

BY: ShortMeTina

​This is my third attempt and I hope the third time is indeed a charm. 
 
First write up – DELETED
 
Second write up –DELETED
 
They had to go because they were boring. 

So boring that it was painfully difficult re-reading my own writings.  I’ll admit, it’s hard to sound enthused if you’re not enthused about the topic you’re blogging about.

Quite frank, my experience visiting Amazon’s (AMZN) four-star store was blah.

I should also add here; I make no claims -none- that this write-up is any less boring than the first two that didn’t make the cut.

However, for the sake of my sanity, I hope it’s “good enough” to go.  

I started my day early; around 6am to be exact. My goal was to leave my home no later than 8:30am.  The 2 1/2 hours of start time allowed me to start my morning off right.

That meant, using about 20 minutes to meditate -this involves a complete disconnection from my cell phone, all on-line activities and television consumption.
 
If you want a mental picture, it’s really just me lying in bed and allowing my mind to wonder where it chooses to go.

The remaining time was spent tending to administrative tasks for my small business (answering emails, checking stock quotes... ...and, browsing my social media accounts). 

I strapped my backpack on -arguably my home office- and headed to the City.

The honking cars, noise, traffic and chaos are all too familiar.  Being in the City often reminds me of why I don’t visit the City unless it’s necessary.  I’m afraid only folks born or raised in the City will understand this.

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​At any rate, I arrived at Amazon’s four-star store located in SOHO around 11am, maybe it was a little earlier.  I wasn’t fixated on time.  The first thing that caught my attention was the fact that I didn’t have to stand on a line to get in.  This was surprising. 

Considering Amazon is a trillion-dollar company, I expected their new store to come with its share of bells and whistles –that’s what I expected.
But there weren’t any bells and whistles, no fanfare and no lines.  The store had no more than a few handful of people inside.  I’d argue most of the ‘customers’ in the store were either news reporters, bloggers or the press.  We can even throw YouTube-ers in there.  If I had to make a guess, I’d say only a handful of individuals in the store were actual shoppers.

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​Going back to my opening paragraph, the store was both underwhelming and overwhelming. Underwhelming because I was expecting more from a trillion-dollar company.  Overwhelming because the store looked like a garage sale with new products.
 
Imagine gathering together all the stuff that was sold on Amazon.com and stuffing them into a 4x4.  That’s it!  That is Amazon’s four-star store in SOHO.

I can understand my writings may be coming off a bit harsh but it isn’t my intentions. I am just relaying my experience at the store.

In conclusion, I will continue shopping at Amazon.com, however, I am not convinced I will ever go back to their SOHO store.

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I’ll leave you with this. Upon leaving the store, they had a very crafty -and unintimidating -way to get customer feedback.
 
They asked you to rate your experience.
 
You didn’t have to answer a 5-minute survey or a slew of stupid questions.
 
You could rate your experience with a choice of 4 smiley face emojis. 
 
I thought, so simple yet so clever. 
 
I rated my experience and I am sure most customers will as well. 
 
 
Bezos did it again, he remains focused on the customer experience!
 
Take note! ​

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(Amazon's stock chart)