Ok, I admit it- it seems new-fangled and impersonal to create a baby registry online.
Here’s why I am BEGGING you to do it anyway.
A lovely friend of mine recently had a beautiful baby shower. And of course, she registered for the things she wanted and needed for the baby.
I arrived at the store where she registered and went to the registration booth thing where you put in the gift recipients pertinent information (I hope for your sake they have a unique name or live in a very small town).
The program failed to work. So I asked the registry specialist to help me, and she did- she printed the list for me. All 17 pages. As I walked away, the kiosk thing suddenly kicked into gear and also printed out the list. (Sigh. Bye, bye trees.)
The faded black/white/slightly burred item descriptions are vague. The baby needed some kind of sheet. Great. Sheets. That’s easy. On the page was even a handy-dandy guide that said what aisle number said item was shelved. Beautiful. I went across the store. I looked in the aisle. Nothing. Nothing remotely like the item listed. So I did the logical thing and went to the next aisle. There was an empty hole where said item used to be.
So I looked for a different item on the list. It was a toy. Good. Toys are easy to spot. So I looked at the aisle guide. Went directly there. Nope. Not there.
I decided to go for some baby feeding items. I could see the shelf they were on in the store. The descriptions printed on that sheet were so confusing and had tiny item numbers (ok, I am 45, so you know where this is going) I had no idea what to get.
I’d been in the store 35 minutes (the entire amount of time I had allotted to run in, pick, pay and wrap the gift). I went back to the registry expert. Showed her the list. Asked her about the toy. “Oh, all of THOSE are on that end cap.” (Three aisles away from the one on the handy-dandy 17 page registry).
Then, I picked out the blessed toy! But I also wanted to go with something practical- some nursing items. I can’t even keep on sharing …..just know it went down similar to the sheets.
Finally, I went to check out, paid and went to their self-wrapping station. This was subpar. Now, I have been in stores that offer self-wrapping stations that have lovely paper, good tape, decent scissors, cute ribbon, and even branded gift cards. Not so on this fateful day. It was a dirty wrapping table with icky scissors, no ribbon, no cards, and cheepy branded paper. Blech.
As I wrapped my gifts (1.75 hours into this affair now) I told myself: Never again. I will not forget this. I WILL buy all future baby gifts off amazon registries or I am giving a card with money. I mean it.
The big box stores have forgotten there is an easy way to buy a gift, a pleasant way to bless your friend, and this is not it. Tramping all over a sorta dirty store with a useless list and out of stock items was frustrating.
Clearly there are benefits to the shoppers of an online registry. But what about benefits to the mom-to-be?
10% completion discount; 15% completion discount for Amazon Mom members.
* FREE 90-day returns on Baby Store purchases.
* It’s universal – add items to an Amazon Baby Registry from any site.
*20% off diaper subscriptions
*FREE Parenting E-book
*25% off Select baby apparel
