Amy’s Hallmark Shop

I stopped in here to try and find a specific beanie baby today around 12:15. Needed it for an awards ceremony for some interns going back to school. Although the store didn’t have any, the nice young lady with dark hair and glasses pointed me to two other stores in the mall that would probably have it. You just dont see that much anymore. Thanks!

Hallmark stores haven’t changed much, if at all, in the last 40 years. Unless you look very closely, once you step into a Hallmark store you won’t know if it’s 2014 or 1974. Chances are if you found what you needed at a Hallmark store 20 years ago, you’ll find a similar item today: traditional greeting cards, some stationery, recipe organizers, Christmas ornaments, gifty /​knick-​knacky items that lean heavily on cutesy. And there’s very little to distinguish one store from another. If consistency is what you’re after, Hallmark has it perfected in product and presentation.
That brings us to the service. These are not the fastest sales folks in the the West. These are not your modern multi-​taskers. They are polite once they engage you, but they may not quickly engage you. They seem easily spooked. You will wait … even it it’s the slowest retail Tuesday on record. No worries though. You can play «Time in a Bottle» in your head and pretend it’s 1974.

So as Hallmark stores go, this one is kind of run of the mill. Clean enough and the usual assortment of cards, stationery, stuffed critters and so on. One thing it also has, which is what the 3 is for, is rather odd employees. I was looking at blank books and one of the employees was, at least by my standards, kind of in my face and hover-​y — not sure if he was annoyed with me for messing up his section but I was very careful to put stuff back after I looked at things. When I went to pay, I looked around a bit as there were a lot of people standing around in front of the registers and I couldn’t tell if they were in line or just talking to each other. A woman said «Can I help you?» in a kind of rude tone and I said that I was just trying to figure out if those other people were in line or not. She made a comment about them just standing around and then handed me over to the kid whose section I was ruining a few moments earlier. It just felt not polite, I guess, and it wasn’t out of sensitivity on my part. Anyway, I may go back if I need to but overall it was just kind of odd.

This Hallmark is in the Yorktown mall which is indoors. It’s a nice clean place. The staff is friendly and they are well stocked in cards and items.
I’m on their mailing list so I get birthday discounts and holiday deals of my next shopping trip. I use my hallmark rewards card here so I can get cash back in the mail for my next shopping trip. It does get busy because it’s in the mall. It’s convenient for shoppers who need to get a card for their gifts that they may have purchased in the mall.
They have a friendly staff, which is nice.
I have a closer one by my house so I only come here if I’m getting something else in the mall.

This store is wonderful. Not only were the staff members helpful and polite they do everything they can to help you out. The ladies who work in the card sections really know what card to recommend for those strange requests. Their other gifts are very pretty as well. I would definitely recommend to anyone to go to this store. I’ve been to other hallmark stores where the associates don’t give you the time of day and don’t bother to take the time to find out exactly what you are looking for even when you aren’t sure yourself.

When I walked in, the associate behind the desk was on the phone and didn’t bother to look up or ackowledge people walkin in and out. After getting off the phone she made no attempt to see if myself or anyone else on the floor needed any assistance. After selecting a card I went to the counter. A woman was up there and asked if there was some Mickey Mouse figurine in stock and after checking offered to call other stores nearby. After waiting for 5 minutes while the associate was making phone calls, the woman said she could take care of the line that had formed behind me. The associate said, «oh» and actually turned her back on us and continued making phone calls trying to find this stupid figurine. After 5 more minutes she managed to locate one and ended her conversation with the woman. Then she moved at a glacial pace ringing me up. I’ve worked in retail and learned how to multitask very early on and it was all I could do to not pass on those pearls of wisdom. Although she was very polite, I couldn’t help being annoyed at how slow she was and her audacity of ignoring every other customer in line.