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Just a story from my early days in Electronics retail:
I worked for a national electronics chain, at the time that the very first of their stores opened in my city. No other national electronics retailer was located anywhere close. We opened the same weekend as five stores in Atlanta and my store (in a mid-sized midwestern city) did more revenue that weekend than any of them. After a year or two plans were made for an expansion/remodel of the original store.
The remodel took months and was about as big as you can imagine. About 10,000 square feet were added to the original building. A temporary wooden wall was constructed in front of the back wall, then the back wall was pulled down so more space could be added. (The back wall was pulled down all at once, while the store was open, without warning; a huge BOOM and clouds of dust everywhere). After the wall came down, small gaps at the top of the temporary wall allowed birds to fly in and out of the store. Once or twice water got in and flooded the store. During all this the store stayed open. At that time, I had moved to another branch so I heard the stories but didn't experience them.
The funniest thing I saw was when I was visiting the store. The actual front entrance had been moved around the corner to a completely different wall. While I sat in my car in the parking lot, I saw several customers park, walk up to the old entrance, past the contractor's van parked in front; ignore the huge sign with "new entrance" and an arrow, and stand dumbfounded in front of the huge tarps covering the old entrance area. Some would actually peek around or under the tarps, as if all the store employees would be standing there waiting to yell "surprise"!
I worked for a national electronics chain, at the time that the very first of their stores opened in my city. No other national electronics retailer was located anywhere close. We opened the same weekend as five stores in Atlanta and my store (in a mid-sized midwestern city) did more revenue that weekend than any of them. After a year or two plans were made for an expansion/remodel of the original store.
The remodel took months and was about as big as you can imagine. About 10,000 square feet were added to the original building. A temporary wooden wall was constructed in front of the back wall, then the back wall was pulled down so more space could be added. (The back wall was pulled down all at once, while the store was open, without warning; a huge BOOM and clouds of dust everywhere). After the wall came down, small gaps at the top of the temporary wall allowed birds to fly in and out of the store. Once or twice water got in and flooded the store. During all this the store stayed open. At that time, I had moved to another branch so I heard the stories but didn't experience them.
The funniest thing I saw was when I was visiting the store. The actual front entrance had been moved around the corner to a completely different wall. While I sat in my car in the parking lot, I saw several customers park, walk up to the old entrance, past the contractor's van parked in front; ignore the huge sign with "new entrance" and an arrow, and stand dumbfounded in front of the huge tarps covering the old entrance area. Some would actually peek around or under the tarps, as if all the store employees would be standing there waiting to yell "surprise"!
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