Not directly related to touring, but still bike related and along similar lines....
I emailed a large bike shop in Boston twice in the last 3 days (on the assumption my first email was lost) about the availability of a bike in a particular size, with no response. While I do know that I could use the phone to call directly, why have a web presence with integrated email for queries if you aren't going to actually use it? And it's not like these winter months are the busy season for bike shops either..... is it that hard to hit the "reply" button?
Anyway, I'm moving on to another bike shop that deals in the bike brand I want, and I'll only go back to this place if I have to based on availability. I am contemplating finding the owner of the shop and emailing

about this -I wonder if they know this is happening (I know if I was the owner of a shop, I'd want to know!). Then again, I really don't feel like taking any (of my) time to inform an owner -I guess if they are interested, they should find out about it themselves or at least train their employees properly.
It just seems such a ridiculous way to lose a sale to me. Course, they could get back to me in the next couple of days, we'll see.