We get these Bed Bath & Beyond coupons in the mail roughly once a week. Perhaps you’ve seen them?

Anyway, I’ve never once used one, mostly because I don’t even know where one is around here.

So a few weeks ago I was looking at one of these coupons and it dawned on me: They obviously have my address; why can’t they just print the address of the nearest BBB on the coupon? Instead they have a “visit our website to locate your nearest store”, which, for lazy Americans like myself, is way too much to ask.

So I wrote them an email suggesting, among other things, that they change their mailouts:

Hi, BB&B  –

Two things:

1) I get your 20% coupons in the mail pretty regularly, though I don’t think I’ve ever once used one. I realized this week why: You have my address, obviously, yet you insist that I call or visit your website in order to determine the nearest store to me. If you could just print the address of that store ON THE COUPON, I might keep it in my car or something and drop by the location while I’m out and about.

2) Your website’s sitemap is worse than useless. I don’t know if you only have it there for bots or something, but in trying to figure out how to contact you, the sitemap was obviously of zero help to me.

Keep on truckin!

Today I got another Bed Bath & Beyond mailer and lo! it has the address of the nearest store on it.  Perhaps it was not just me giving them some common sense advice, but it still felt like amazing turnaround for an off-the-cuff suggestion.

If only my government was this responsive to common sense suggestions!