daughtersrus
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2002
I just read that there was an error at Meijer last Saturday. All purchases, including gas (if paid for in the store and not at the pump) were getting a 50% off discount.
I wasn't one of the lucky ones but I thought that maybe some of my Dis friends were.
Here's copy of the article that was in The Chicago Tribune.
Error gives Meijer's customers extra 50 pct off almost everything
Associated Press
Published May 23, 2007, 1:49 PM CDT
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Some shoppers at a big Midwest retail chain received an unexpected discount on their purchases because of a mistake that briefly knocked half off the price of nearly every item sold.
The accidental discount at all of the 179 stores in the Meijer chain, including its 13 outlets in Illinois, was even given to customers who paid for their fuel purchases inside Meijer gas stations, although not those who paid at the pump.
It happened on purchases made Saturday between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. CDT, after an "input error" was made at Meijer Inc. headquarters in Grand Rapids, said company spokeswoman Stacie Behler. The company sells groceries and general merchandise at large superstores in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio.
A 50 percent discount intended for a style of oriental rug ended up being accidentally applied to nearly everything sold by the retailer, she said.
"We became aware of it pretty quickly," Behler told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Wednesday. "We had lots of folks working on the problem, and within the hour it was fixed."
The family-owned company does not release financial data, but with annual revenues estimated at $13.2 billion by Supermarket News, that translates to an average of more than $1.5 million in sales per hour. Cut that in half and those 60 minutes conceivably could have cost Meijer about $750,000 in sales revenue.
Some customers who noticed the error when they got home with their purchases called the stores where they had bought the items and offered to make amends, but Meijer officials wrote off the losses.
"It was our error, and there's nothing that we would require or expect back from our customers," Behler said.
She had not heard of a similar mistake happening before at the company.
"We have a solid system with lots of great people working very hard," Behler said. "This error actually gives us an opportunity to look back at the system and improve it."
I wasn't one of the lucky ones but I thought that maybe some of my Dis friends were.
Here's copy of the article that was in The Chicago Tribune.
Error gives Meijer's customers extra 50 pct off almost everything
Associated Press
Published May 23, 2007, 1:49 PM CDT
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Some shoppers at a big Midwest retail chain received an unexpected discount on their purchases because of a mistake that briefly knocked half off the price of nearly every item sold.
The accidental discount at all of the 179 stores in the Meijer chain, including its 13 outlets in Illinois, was even given to customers who paid for their fuel purchases inside Meijer gas stations, although not those who paid at the pump.
It happened on purchases made Saturday between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. CDT, after an "input error" was made at Meijer Inc. headquarters in Grand Rapids, said company spokeswoman Stacie Behler. The company sells groceries and general merchandise at large superstores in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio.
A 50 percent discount intended for a style of oriental rug ended up being accidentally applied to nearly everything sold by the retailer, she said.
"We became aware of it pretty quickly," Behler told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Wednesday. "We had lots of folks working on the problem, and within the hour it was fixed."
The family-owned company does not release financial data, but with annual revenues estimated at $13.2 billion by Supermarket News, that translates to an average of more than $1.5 million in sales per hour. Cut that in half and those 60 minutes conceivably could have cost Meijer about $750,000 in sales revenue.
Some customers who noticed the error when they got home with their purchases called the stores where they had bought the items and offered to make amends, but Meijer officials wrote off the losses.
"It was our error, and there's nothing that we would require or expect back from our customers," Behler said.
She had not heard of a similar mistake happening before at the company.
"We have a solid system with lots of great people working very hard," Behler said. "This error actually gives us an opportunity to look back at the system and improve it."
