A Technical Review of Baby Registries

I feel like ever other article I write mentions the fact that I’m expecting my first baby, but this time it really is relevant, I promise! You see, over the past couple of weekends, my wife and I have been bouncing from store to store trying to get registered for lots of baby stuff and i became aware of some serious mistakes.

I figured that in today’s tech age, registering would be an easy task. I was right for the most part, but in one case technology totally got in the way. In another, it was totally the store’s fault.

Babies R Us Registry

Babies R Us has the whole registry thing down to a science. To my (pleasant) surprise, it was a painless as it could be. They had a registry desk at the front of the store with comfy chairs. After sitting down and filling out some paper work, we we’re giving a scan gun and sent into the wonderful world of baby stuff.

I have to say, it was almost fun. We browsed the store at our leisure with our Baby Bargains book in hand. As we came upon something we needed, we scanned the item’s barcode. If we wanted more than one, we just had to scan it again. The scan gun was also helpful in that if we scanned an item that was low in inventory, it would alert us and we could choose to keep or discard the item. It was quite handy.

We toured the store for about an hour before returning the scan gun. The lady who helped us create our account, added all the items we had scanned, printed them out, and also generated a list of common things that most people get that were missing from our list. And, best of all, all of this would be immediately accessible on the web for us to manage and others to use as a gift buying guide. 5 our of 5 stars, in my opinion.

Registering at Target

With one major registry behind us, we decided to be extra productive and register at Target. Unfortunately, our experience with Target (at least initially) was quite the opposite of Babies R Us.

We had seen the clumsy registry stations located at the front of the store, so that’s where we went first. We created a new baby registry, entered in all of our information with the awkward little keyboard, and then discovered that Target’s entire registry system was “down.” On labor day weekend. It was quite inconvenient, but we tried not to let it slow us down. We’d decided to just print off our information to verify that something worked and be on our way. That’s when we discovered that the printer in our registry station didn’t work either. Needless to say that we left feeling quite frustrated.

We went back to the store the next day to see if their scanning system was back up. We were told that it was still down and probably wouldn’t be back up until after Labor Day. So, we left again with our confidence in Target continuing to fall.

Later that week, I’m glad to report that Target finally got their act together. Their scanning system was back up and we managed to register for several things. All of the items we registered for showed up online, so at least once things were fixed, we had the same capabilities that Babies R Us made available to us.

Walmart Baby Registry

Last, and absolutely the least was good ‘ole Walmart. We have two of the “super” Walmarts in our town and, of course, both are always super crowded. After the typical half mile hike from our car, we make our way to the customer service desk to inquire where we can create our baby registry. We’re told to go to the jewelry counter, which I thought was kind of odd. So, we walk over to the jewelry counter and see their computer station.

There was no personnel around except for a clown-faced teen chatting with her friend across the counter. We ask her where we can get a scan gun, and she replies, “the scanner is out.” I ask, “there’s only one?” She replied again, “yeah, the scanner is out.” I still can’t believe that a huge store like Walmart, a huge store that we have more than one of in our town, doesn’t have more than one scan gun for their registries.

From the look of her, I didn’t expect much else so I didn’t let her attitude bother me. Instead, we went back to the registry station to print out the few things we had previously added online. This is when we discovered that only 3 of the 20 or so items we added online were actually available in the store, in spite of the fact that the item was listed as available. Absolutely frustrated, we decided to leave and come back later when the one scanner wasn’t in use.

Other thoughts
I know this is sounding more like a rant than anything. I suppose I should try to tie this into a tech article, so here it goes.

One of the biggest benefits of technology is how it can tie many things together and offer one simple solution for many separate tasks. Granted, technology can’t weed out all of the bitchy teens in the world (though, I hear someone’s working on that), but it can make something like registering for baby products quite easy. We’re just manipulating databases here, people.

So, what kind of changes would I like to see? Well, as far as Babies R Us is concerned, they’ve pretty much nailed it. Sign up is a breeze, more than one scanner, and I can add or subtract anything to our list online. If, by chance, one of the items we wanted wasn’t in stock or was running low in the inventory, we were instantly notified.

We probably just caught Target on a bad day, but the way their entire registry system was down for several days just doesn’t speak well of their infrastructure and the people managing it. I remind you, this wasn’t at just one store, it was an issue across all Target stores. Once that issue was resolved, they were able to offer us an available scanner (and the employees were quite nice as well).

Walmart, the biggest store mentioned here, was the worst and has the most to work on. While their system seemed to be in working order, 85% of the things we registered for weren’t available in our “super” store… and we’re talking really simple things here, folks: diapers, bottles, burping clothes.

I imagine that when most people set up their registry, one of the items of information they provide is their address. So, why wouldn’t the registry system be designed in a way so that only items that are offered in nearby stores are available? I suppose this might hurt Walmart in some small way; it could keep people from just adding lots of stuff and buying everything online. However, I’m willing to bet that the kind of people who drop $150 at Walmart every week probably don’t do much shopping online. They want to go to the store, print their daughter’s registry, and begin shopping. So, to compromise, how about two lists: one list of things that are available in nearby stores and another of everything else Walmart offers online. There, was that so hard? Oh, and while we’re at it, let’s invest in just a couple more scanners. :)