Rural King — Attraction in Spring Hill

We've been shopping at this Rural King since it opened, when it became THE first Rural King store in Florida.

We've purchased lots of equine/dog/cat feed and supplies, farm hardware and I even bought my first Hobart Wire Welder there. Even though this store was quite a bit farther away from us than our 'usual' feed stores, we would still make the trip.

I'll get right to the point now about the current situations at this Rural King. There has been a gradual decrease in the quality of the shopping experience over the last few years. THIS started before the pandemic crunch.

The Parking Lot - on busy days, especially the weekend, the parking lot is a nightmare. Especially if you're in a large pickup OR have a trailer in tow. Parking spaces can be hard to get, or hard to access. First, it was the weekend farmer's market at the West end. Then, the rows of farm equipment. Then they added tractors, for a while. And on and on and on.

The Entry Door - currently is out of order. SO, EVERYBODY must use the same EXIT doors to enter and leave. So much for Social Distancing. I see SO many folks walking towards the Entry door, only to read the tiny sign and have to go to the Exit.

3, The Aisles - tall pallets of merchandise are crowded along the full length of the main aisles. Big racks of merchandise crowded around the Check Out lines, making it difficult at times. Like a Walmart the day before Black Friday. In the aisles, there are few places where you can cross over, which I'm sure the Fire Marshal would not be happy about. PLUS, again, so much for Social Distancing when there is oncoming foot traffic.

General disarray - the shelves are a mess in most departments. Product is laying around, on the floor, in the wrong bin or shelf or wrong department. There are trip hazards and dangers lurking everywhere. Two days ago, I had to virtually 'catch' an older gentleman who was trying to squeeze past me and another shopper, only to trip over 3 white buckets sitting on the floor. So much danger. So much confusion. You'd think that stocking and product display would be even easier with the reduced inventory most stores are handling due to the pandemic.

Hit or Miss Help - it seems like I always see employees in a huddle of two or three. When asked for help, most are courteous and glad to help. BUT, I have witnessed on a few occasions where the employee was not helpful or even borderline rude. My last visit I asked an employee if the store had any more of this one hardware item I was trying to buy in bulk. The response? "No. Did you look in the other bins? You might find one misplaced". So much for customer service.

I will close by saying that I intend on staying loyal to Rural King. In a sense, we need them as much as they need us. But I find it difficult to believe that the above mentioned irregularities cannot be addressed and tweaked to instill a much more comfortable AND favorable shopping...

This location is on our agenda about twice a month. There’s typically things in stock here, you just can’t find anywhere. Local type selections on rural style foods is a big bonus however I’ve noticed that they have their own branding hitting the shelves on things like the jar vanilla peaches…. Don’t do that RK - it looks like you’ve stolen someone else’s recipes and created it yourself to make more on the buck. Since the pandemic I’ve noticed the inventory in the store start to dwindle - this isn’t specific to just Rural King but it’s very apparent here over other retailers. They’ve clearly cut the staff back to react to business trends but, I’m not sure that’s worked in your favor other than saving on the bottom line. The store is a wreck from a cleanliness perspective and seeing through empty shelves doesn’t help. What’s more concerning to me is that I’m one of those guys who looks for the sales items, y’all are trying to save money and so are a majority of your customers. Explain this new best practice you guys have of marking up your sale prices? And the sheer laziness behind it is pathetic. Example: summer seasonal is starting to wind out thus all retailers are moving those items from their sales floors. Y’all have decided to cover up the clearance stickers (in some cases) with new prices reflecting higher pricing. If you were lucky to hit the sticker at all. Some items had the lower price sticker not even covered by the higher price sticker. When asking an associate what the price actually was, we were told that management “just raised the prices”. I’ve worked in retail a long time and completely understand price changes but I’d never allow my teams to not remove/replace up charges. It’s bad business and creates dissatisfaction for the customer and disengagement for your store team that are brow beat over the pricing debacle. Not exactly sure what’s going on in this location from a management perspective but someone needs to get things addressed. Everyone can’t keep using the pandemic as an excuse for poor business practices, it’s going to catch up and be hard to rectify. Please send help to this store so our community can continue to enjoy...

I'm in this store today looking at the bee heaves, and I hear this voice coming from the animal feed section saying, "Oh yeah, all of the prices are going up because the democrats are in office." "We can't do anything about it, and the democrats is why prices are going up." I know many people reading this will take the opportunity to agree with what was said because we live in a society where people read to reply and not solve problems.

At that time, I was finished, and I went to walk back to the front of the store, and I heard the voice again saying something in the tune of why prices were going up. Then, out of nowhere, this guy walks across the aisle and leans against the center aisle as I walked by. He looked me in the eyes as I walked past him and said, "Is everything okay?"

I looked back at him and said, "And you work here?" He said, "What's wrong with that." "Because I don't think that that's the kind of conversion you should be having with the customers." And what made it so funny was this old lady turned around and said, "It's true, everywhere, the prices are going up because of the democrats." If you don't find that unintelligent, I don't know what is.

I'm in this store two to three times a week, and never mind what people think about each other from perception, but that old lady is going to tell everyone she knows that the feed man at your store said to her that the prices were going up because of the democrats. Therefore, if I have to be looked at as one of the people for the prices going up when I am a registered Independent, I think the two-party system keeps us apart. Still, you can't tell me that you allow this kind of conversation from your employees regularly because the bee heaves are better made and cost less on Amazon, the 100 lbs. of dog food, and other items as well. But I'm going to miss the popcorn, though. I still have a few things I need to get from your store, but I will limit myself...