Zellers vs. Walmart and a diaper debacle

I shop at Walmart. I don't care about the arguments about the mean corporation that's shutting all the smaller stores down. I don't buy into the arguments that Walmart buys products made by child labour. I shop there because they have a good selection, decent prices and it's orderly.

Zellers is a nightmare in comparison. I hate that I can't support a Canadian chain but going into a Zellers just drives me mental. Every time I walk in, the place looks like a dump. It seems poorly lit, the layout of the store is confusing and it's obvious that they don't have enough floor staff to keep it looking good and the floor staff that is there obviously don't care about it either.

Yesterday I was on a quest, a mission...ok, I needed some night time diapers. Corwin with his heavy wetting at night is wearing Huggies Overnights with great success. The only place I have been buying the diapers were at Zellers (which was found on a whim the first time while I was out shopping) in the next town over (Ajax for those of you who are familiar with the GTA). We were down to our last 2 diapers and I went to our local Zellers in Pickering to pick some up. This Zellers, even amongst Zellers has to be, by far the worst I've ever seen. Product is always haphazardly strewn about and never looking organized. It looks like a discount warehouse bargain bin. Items are always in the wrong place with the wrong price and sometimes packaging is laying there torn open.

The diaper section was a disaster. When I'm at Walmart, the diapers are always on the shelves, organized in the proper order of brand, line and sizing - facing out properly and neatly. At Zellers, diapers were all over the place, packages thrown about. There was a woman there with a relatively young baby in a stroller. Suddenly, the woman rips open a package of Huggies and takes a diaper out. Gasp.... what the hell was she doing? She appeared to look at the caricature (Huggies has licensing on Disney characters and Pampers for Sesame Street) on the front of the diaper and then put the diaper back. She tossed the bag to the side and started looking at a different pack. Had she opened yet another package to look at a diaper I would have said something but I don't think she did. I still had great issue with this though. Who thinks that this type of behaviour is acceptable? That package of diapers won't be sold now. I certainly wouldn't buy a package of diapers that had been previously opened. I'm sure this woman probably wouldn't either so I don't understand why she would have done so. I can not for the life of me imagine why she needed to see the diaper like that and I'm usually one who can sympathize with others. Just unacceptable. I'm sure stuff like this happens at Walmart too... it's a discount store and I understand that many of the people who shop there do so because they are very price conscious. However, I've never seen such a blatant act of vandalism in front of a stranger before. I should have reported her but I just wanted to get out of there because well, the whole purpose of being in the section in the first place was to get Corwin diapers and they didn't have any. Well, at least I couldn't find them in the heap of diapers messily displayed.

I left, went to the Shoppers Drug Mart (it's in the same mall) and found the brand but they only had sizes 4 and 5. FARK! I drove to Loblaws, just a block over thinking that they always have a good selection of diapers. No luck there either -not even the Overnights line. I drove to Price Chopper on my way home and still came out empty handed. I went into another Shoppers Drug Mart - again only sizes 4 and 5!!!!! ARGHHHHHHH!

Luckily, my BFF and I had plans last night and she lives right next to the Zellers where I originally bought the diapers. I quickly called in a favour to pick me up two packs before heading over. She shuddered at the idea of having to go into Zellers, as she's not fond of them either but came out with 2 packs.

Ironically - this store only had size 3.......