Carrefour

I received this by email this morning, and posted it in here for you.

I kinda agree with their parking rule. It would look funny pushing a cart through the mall! Not a very nice sight! But the problem is that they should have announced that or showed it in signs or even let some of their people tell the shoppers about the parking issue. People have the right to know about all this before making their purchases!

I know that the Avenues parking area have designated places for carts.. and when I saw that I knew it was for Carrefour. I think they just dont want people to walk around the mall with carts, unload and leave the carts all over the parking lot!! It would look hideous!

Like in Souk Sharq (Sharq Mall), you never see customers strolling around with Sultan Center carts! Right?

-Ansam
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Sir,

I foolishly visited the new Carrefour Hypermarket on Friday and was confronted with a titan of a problem. After I bought my groceries, I was told that it is forbidden to put my groceries in a shopping cart and take them to my car that was parked in Area C. Carrefour only opened on Tuesday — but how could they open without informing customers that all of the bags of food that they purchase must be hand carried out of the Mall entry and not transported in the cart that one pushes around their store?

When shoppers park their cars in the Avenues Mall parking areas and go inside to shop at the Mall’s merchants and end their shopping at the grocery store, those same shoppers are told that they are forbidden to push their groceries back to their cars past the same Mall shops they just visited on their way to buy groceries. To successfully take one’s groceries out ina cart, one must park only in a special area under Carrefour. If this sounds absurd and confusing, it is because this is absurd and confusing. What Carrefour has failed to announce is that Carrefour shoppers are not allowed to take their carts of groceries through the Mall. Once one has purchased their food items at Carrefour no one is allowed to take the cart into theMall to shop at any other store, to look into any shop window or to sit in the food court. The cart of groceries can only do down to the parking area under Carrefour.

How does one find this special Carrefour parking? I was there and I looked. I did not see any markings or directions into this special Carrefour parking. Carrefour published a two-page ad showing the locationof their store but not the location of their special parking. If one knows to park in this special area, then shopping carts can only go up or down from the store. Carrefour shoppers must keep their filled carts inside Carrefour and not take them into the Mall. After being forbidden to take my cart of groceries to my car, I was shown this special parking where I could take the shopping cart — but no one could show me how to get the cart back to my car in Parking Area C. When shoppers go from shop to shop in the Avenues and then end up at Carrefour to buy their groceries – the customers are told, “Customers at the Avenues are forbidden to push their grocery carts past the Mall stores that they have just visited on their way to buy groceries.” I received this message from a Maraffie security agent, Anwar Hussein, who was standing at Carrefour’s Mall entry and forbidding customers fromtaking their carts of groceries to their cars in parking areas all around the Mall. This same message was confirmed by the management at Carrefour. But, no one bothered to post this ridiculous announcement forcustomers to read.

It would have been wiser to tell customers entering Carrefour’s Mall entry that their purchases must be hand carried into the Mall. Maraffie Security personnel are not proactive in announcing this prohibition to shoppers as they enter the Carrefour. To ascertain this unwritten rule, one would have to be a mind reader and mind readers are not permitted in Kuwait. Because I am not a mind reader, I am curiousas to where this special information has been posted for customers? I have shopped at Carrefour in other countries and I have never encountered such a lack of planning and lack of customer information. This lack of planning in Kuwait has created a titanic problem for Carrefour –but Carrefour needs to remember that no one wanted to be a repeat customer on the Titanic. Because this was my first visit – why should I ever return to Carrefour, or to any merchant in the Avenues Mall, when they show such a rude disregard for their customers?

Wouldn’t it be easier to build a big wall to separate Carrefour from the rest of the Mall shops? The wall would effectively let any customer or family who pushes a cart of groceries, that they are forbidden to pass by or spend money at other Mall merchants as long as they are pushing that forbidden cart. Avenues Mall is there to enforce rules which discourage customers from spending and to limit their access and freedom of movement.

After this epic ordeal, I finally got my purchases into my car in Area C without the help of a shopping cart. Before I could leave, a nice Kuwaiti couple parked next to me asked how to get to Carrefour? I told them how to go through the Mall and how to find the store. Then I told them – Mushkeela Kabeer –because my same experience was about to be repeated. One must stop and think, “Is there something wrong with the customers who can’t read minds or is there something wrong with Mall managers who can’t plan?”

JB