We don’t line up for concert tickets anymore, so why do we have to line up (like animals!) for compost bins and rain barrels?
After hearing a bit of griping about how the City quickly ran out of bins and barrels at its annual sale on the weekend, I wonder why they can’t do these sales online instead. Allow people to pre-order and pre-pay, give them an online receipt, and get them to show the receipt and some ID when they pick up their purchases. It’s easier for your supplier, as it knows in advance exactly how much inventory it requires. And it’s easier for customers, who don’t have to worry about lining up at 7 am or waiting while people write cheques. You could set this system up in PayPal in about 5 minutes, although I assume the City has a more sophisticated online purchasing system it could use.
As for those people who might not have internet access or a credit card, designate one central location where first-come, first-served cash and cheque sales will be made.
There you go, 45 seconds of thought and you get an improved customer experience at no additional cost. Now if only each of our 15 Councillors could come up with one idea a day/week/year to do the same, imagine how much easier it would be to deal with the City.
Filed under: winnipeg blog | Tagged: City of Winnipeg
Key word there Froggie is “Thought”. I hope that common sense isn’t lost in the folds of Winnipeg Councillors . But, items like this keep me a septic.
I was thinking the same thing about the low flow toilet rebate the province ran a few months back. why on earth did they limit this rebate to a one day, free-for-all clusterf*ck? Budgetary restrictions – only so much rebate $$$ to go around?
Neither program seems like it would be very difficult or cost intensive to operate on a year round basis.
@TG – True. And even if it is a budgetary issue, it’s a lot less hassle for people to get the “sold out” message online rather than hear it after they’ve hauled themselves out of bed and stood in line for a few hours.
Ironically, I did manage to get a new dual/low flow toilet… unfortunately, much like City Hall, it has been unable to keep up with my demands! Too many floaters… not enough thinkers.
PayPal is pretty sophisticated… I’ve always liked it. If it’s good enough for the NBC online store to handle orders, I’m sure the City could adapt it.
They were giving away rain cheques for the barrels, but ya .. the line up was kind of crazy. With the pre-purchase, the line up would go faster but you would still have a crazy one-day event on your hands so that locations don’t have to be staffed multiple days.
A good solution (in my little brain) would be for the city to find a retail partner to sell these things so people could pick them up anytime. It would bring traffic to their stores and benefit everybody. You work out the details. I’m the idea guy.
I’ll pretend that I didn’t read Arse’s comment…
according to my co-worker…”not everyone has the access to a pc”…”not everyone is online”, “not everyone has a credit card”…. the excuses all come out when I propose more on-line stuff.
Yeah, that’s true – not everyone has access to a pc.
On the other hand, the desperately poor, the illiterate, the homeless, the technophobes and the totally oblivious are probably out of the market for city-sold compost bins and rain barrels for the time being.
economy PCs cost very little today.. and there is always financing available.
sales of the bins dont have to be limited to online sales, those who want to stand in line can and should be able to..
The city announced today they’re extending the sale prices. You can’t quite order online, but they are allowing orders by phone or email this time around. More information here,
or straight from the horse’s mouth.
I agree that this idea but disagree with the comment “if each of our city councillors could come up with such an idea”. This is not the job of city council but of city administration. City council’s job is to decide that it is good policy to subsidize rain barrels. The specifics of how they get to the public is the job of city admin. The fact that this line has been constantly blurred over the last forever, is a big part of the problem at city hall.
Why should WE have to pay to get our trash composted?
Sounds just another stupid carbon tax to me.
In a future time, humans will go back to farming somewhat, and then we can just compost back into our own fields.
That makes more sense.
Perhaps the first plank in the City Mosquito Control Program could be to stop selling rain barrels. GO STANDING WATER!