Jumping the Gun

We did a little shopping on Sunday. Since I’m about to blast them, I’ll tell you it was at a Kohl’s. One advantage to Kohl’s is that they typically have stand alone stores so you don’t need to go to a mall. Another advantage is they open earlier on Sunday than the mall stores so you can finish your trip and still be home in time to watch football.

But the real reason we go there is they keep sending us 30% off coupons and aren’t we all suckers for a deal (even if it isn’t a deal). Plus, I guess I signed up for some customer thing and so they sent me a $5 coupon as a loyalty reward. It was my anniversary and I didn’t even know we were dating. And we had another $10 coupon for reasons that I couldn’t quite figure out. You want to give me money to spend in your store, I’ll see what I can do.

Over the years, Kohl’s appears to have upgraded their selection – mostly in the men’s clothing area. In reality, it is all brands that you would typically find in an outlet mall so maybe these brands decided it was better to send overruns to Kohl’s rather than to an outlet mall. But, since these are BIG NAME brands, the Kohl’s coupons don’t work. Well the free cash ones do but the 30% off did not. I guess these brands had to draw the line somewhere. “OK, we’ll sell things in Kohl’s but we draw the line at using those stupid coupons.”

Which means you are left with a selection of lesser “brands” like the Haggar pants I bought. I need to wear dress pants for dance events and why spend a boatload of money on pants you are just going to sweat in? Or you get the non brands that are only available at Kohl’s and look like the type of thing your parents would buy you for back to school because they were cheap. I mean the type of stuff you’d get laughed at for wearing because it was decidedly not cool.

To be fair, most of the kitchen stuff is fair game for the coupons. Although, most of it is Food Network branded stuff which I’m sure they skimp on the products assuming people will buy the name. We got a nice tea kettle (NOT Food Network) which was the real reason we went there as the last one was not in great shape.

Kohl’s also specializes in home decor stuff. Not the stuff your going to see in Architectural Digest homes but appropriate holiday themed kitchen towels, place mats and other stuff. My wife loves to change stuff up to reflect the current season and the fact that stuff at Kohl’s tends to be cheap and we get a discount makes it easier to justify only using something for a month or so.

And, because I have lots of free time when I’m shopping with her, I looked into the home decor stuff. There was no Halloween stuff to be seen anywhere and the harvest/fall themed stuff was already on deep discount. Instead the shelves were filled with Christmas themed towels and the like. So if you didn’t buy your Halloween stuff before Labor Day, then you are SOL. There wasn’t even any Thanksgiving themed stuff. Its like they just said “f*** it” push the Christmas stuff out there.

I’m reminded of the Charlie Brown cartoon about the Easter Bunny when the gang goes into the store to buy Easter themed stuff and the store already has Christmas stuff out. Makes me wonder when reality will catch up to that cartoon.

I know stores bank heavily on Christmas to save their bacon but isn’t mid September just a wee bit early?