I Don't Get Stores Sometimes...

[lacrosse_lady72]

Lol. This mostly funny, partially ridiculous.

If I make a mistake and pick up the wrong kind of beans, I will NEVER think it's the store fault I couldn't read the sale tag. I would either just shrug it off and say I don't want it, or buy it anyway (and this would be when I was going to buy the item anyway and it just happened to be on sale).

When I do buy things with sale tags, I almost always read the tag and make sure I pick up the correct item, especially the correct size. I do this also because sometimes the sale item will still cost more than the same thing of a different size so I look at the tag to get the best deal.

 

[jenrose66]

So I was at Meijer ("superstore" for those who are unfamiliar) today. I had many items on my list, one of them being cans of chili beans. There were many, many, many different brands of chili beans on sale. I selected Busch's brand beans because I "thought" they were on sale for $0.98.

When I got to the register, they rang up $1.19. I told the cashier I was fairly certain they were $0.98. A manager was close by, so the cashier called the man over. I explained the situation, and he said he would check the price. Five minutes later, after he WALKED all the way back to the bean aisle, he told me that ANOTHER brand, right next to the Busch's beans were $0.89, and it was confusing, but that they were $1.19. I told him I didn't want them, bought the rest of my things and left.

I ended up at Walmart where I bought the exact same beans for $0.89.

I just find it ridiculous that Meijer missed out on $1.96 and instead got $0 over $0.42! So much for the old mantra, "The customer is always right"!

I worked at Target for a little bit. If a customer disagreed with a price or an item wasn't ringing up/tag missing etc...we were instructed to ask the customer if they knew the price or just use our best guess if the item was $10 or less. The philosophy was that doing this empowered the cashiers, made the customers happy and kept lines moving.

Also, I agree with a post further down about Wegmans. Their prices are always crystal clear. I find other markets to be so confusing with prices and was also surprised many times at checkout so I just don't shop at those stores anymore. A few cents here and there adds up.

 

[islandmum]

But you were wrong.

so the OP gets the price wrong and then thinks customer service stinks because they didnt offer to reduce the price to the price she thought they were .....

thats why she's the customer and they're in the job.

And the customer is not always right - thinking like that is just more wrong than I can say!

 

[Planogirl]

All of this over $.42? Wow.

In my case, I think that I would have just let it go. I can understand principle but this one is just too low cost.

 

[BRDof3]

But remember, they don't go to parties, and they don't sit down. Now we know why.

 

[OceanAnnie]

I have had an item priced incorrectly before and the store manager gave me the sale price. Granted, it was a larger item but the same policy should hold, IMO. The manager admitted the pricing was confusing, and it would've been good customer service to give the customer the sale price based on that. The pricing shouldn't be confusing at all. It's not about the beans, per se, but customer service.

I know I don't want to shop at a store where the pricing isn't clear.

 

[mjkacmom]

I've done that before and my feeling was embarrassment.

Me too - I find I'm wrong, 9 out of 10 times, and I'm embarressed, especially if I held up a line.

 

[curious3069]

and this is why I always read the sales tag and make sure the upc code on the product is the same as the upc code on the tag. Always.

I would never make an extra trip to save .42 on a can of beans. Heck, I wouldn't make someone walk back to check the price of beans for that and would have given you the evil eye and a heavy sigh if I was in line behind you. You spent more in your time and in gas to prove a point. Why bother?

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

I would never expect a store manager to give me something at the price I "thought" the item was. Yes, even if it was "only" 42 cents, if everyone did that it would cost the store a lot of money.

I do always check the price label on the front edge of the shelf where the sale item is, because not only will it tell the sale price but it will also tell you the name of the product, so then there is no confusion about which brand is on sale.

The customer is NOT always right, but the customer is always the customer.. The most the manager should have done was apologize for the misunderstanding...meaning the OP's misunderstanding.

Why should the manager give a discount because someone can't read a label on the counter?

 

[Wendy31]

This -

The truth is that most people don't want to waste their time, and there are plenty of times when a customer ends up paying more than they should be because they don't want to bother checking if they are right (this is me. The last thing I want to do when I'm at the store with my two kids is wait for somebody to check the price, call for an override, and all that junk. Unless it's dollars difference, I just don't care enough to bother) The commissary makes money on me probably every other time I shop. I swear they hang tags drunk, because they are never right! (and I know how to check, so it's not me being confused) But it's cheaper to begin with anyways, and everyone there moves at a snails pace, so I'm not waiting 15 minutes for .50 off my toothpaste.

And this -

All I know is that I would have been annoyed if I had been behind the OP arguing about .42 and probably would have just gave her a dollar to hurry up and finish checking out!

I hate grocery shopping. Hate it. It's just a hassle from beginning to end...

Anyway, a couple of months ago, I ended up behind an elderly gentlemen who was attempting to buy 4 frozen pizzas at what he thought were a sale price. Unfortunately, those pizzas rang up at full price. He argued that they were supposed to be on sale. So, the bagger helpfully STOPS bagging the rest of his groceries & goes to check, comes back, & tells the man, "Sir, actually another brand is on sale. Not these." The man takes a moment to think about it & then says, "I guess I'll take the ones on sale." So, the bagger goes back to the frozen food section & brings back the pizzas that were on sale.

Then the cashier has to void the first pizzas & then ring up the on-sale pizzas while the bagger has to catch up on bagging the groceries.

Just ugh...

I can sort of understand if it's the store's mistake & the item really does ring up incorrectly. Or, if the difference in what one thought to be the sales price & the actual price are dollars in difference.

But, really, if it's less than $1.00, is it really worth your time AND the time of the people behind you in line?

And I don't see driving to another store to buy the item if it's just cents different. You've just wasted more than that in gas getting to the other store - plus your time.

Again, I hate grocery shopping. If I had the can of beans that I wanted in my hand, there's no way I'm putting it back down over 42 cents so I can get back in my car, drive to another store, & then purchase the same can of beans.

 

[surfergirl602]

This happens a lot at one of the walmarts here. Just a few that pop in my mind...

clearance clothing never rings up with the clearance price. Its usually always the full price. I have to watch it like a hawk.

Produce items. They put .98ea, instead of .98lb. If the sign says each, say on bananas, then I want it for the price listed. Don't tell me its supposed to be by the pound when your sign clearly, right in the middle of the isle, is telling me that the bunches of bananas are by each. (does that make any sense?) There were bags of apples that has a sign that said 1.99ea, but they were rung up by the pound. I had to tell the cashier of the sign above the apples that stated they were by the bag, and she said that they weren't, so I had to have a manager walk over to the apples to see the "ea" sign. Its frustrating when you just want to get in and get out, but think of all the extra money these stores would be making off of us if we didn't catch the errors.

 

[dawson5]

I have had this problem at our Meijers twice now. One that sticks out the most was a pallet of potatoes when you walk in that said 99c. I grabbed two bags, figure I could donate one to the church food bank. I go to check out and they are ringing up $1.79. Cashier says 10lb bags are that price. I go to check the price, pallet is still there, no potatoes and no price tag. The greeter did say that it said .99c, didn't remember if it had a size on it. So where does something like that fit it? That pallet had 10lb bags of potatoes, they would not honor the stated price but when I called they told me I could drive back and get my .70c--gas costs more than my .70c. What we don't know is if the sale tag was on the wrong shelf. What happens if she picked up the beans in front of the tag but stocker put them away wrong (this we had happen with pringles which cost us $2 more than it should have) or someone thought it was funny to move all the sale tags around? Grocery shopping is a chore as it is, especially when you go on a weekend and everyone is out and about. Do you really have the time to go and double check every tag just to make sure someone did their job properly or someone didn't pull a prank at the store?

 

[AKL_Megs]

4 pages on a can of beans? This must be a heck of a fun bunch to sit next to at a party.

This is so crazy that we are still talking about this today!

I probably should have specified that I really didn't WANT them at sale price after I found out I was WRONG! I just didn't want them at all!

I just couldn't believe that for $0.42 he held up the line, walked all the way back to the aisle with the beans, and then came back empty handed! I never asked him to do all of that, he simply said, "I will check the price," and walked away with the beans!

It would have been better customer service if after I told him I thought they were the sale beans, he just gave me the sale price. It would have saved 5 minutes, not annoyed the people behind me (my mom was directly behind me, for those who were worried... ), and had me on my way. Instead, he held my beans hostage for those 5 minutes (at the chance that they WERE on sale, I would have bought them, and I couldn't complete my transaction until he returned), and then came back without the sale beans, which I wanted.

I will never know if the sign WAS an old sign and he just took it down, or if I was really wrong. I CAN read, and the sign underneath the beans on the shelf clearly said "Busch's". But, there may have been NO current beans on sale for all I know.

My point was that he wasted my time and displayed poor customer service.

I didn't want to scam the store.

Oh, and I was headed to Walmart anyways...

 

[kaytieeldr]

I have had an item priced incorrectly before and the store manager gave me the sale price. Granted, it was a larger item but the same policy should hold, IMO. The manager admitted the pricing was confusing,

Respectfully, no.
"the item was priced incorrectly" is entirely different from "the item was not the item that was on sale, the adjacent item was on sale". And the manager didn't admit 'the pricing' was confusing, but that 'it' - implying the signage (exact location, possibly?) was.
In your case, the manager gave you the item at the correct price because he was legally required to do so. Question to ponder: had your item been priced incorrectly with the right price actually being HIGHER, would you have been equally willing to pay the correct price? Or would you have expected to, in that case, pay the marked price?

 

[Jennasis]

This is so crazy that we are still talking about this today!

I probably should have specified that I really didn't WANT them at sale price after I found out I was WRONG! I just didn't want them at all!

I just couldn't believe that for $0.42 he held up the line, walked all the way back to the aisle with the beans, and then came back empty handed! I never asked him to do all of that, he simply said, "I will check the price," and walked away with the beans!

It would have been better customer service if after I told him I thought they were the sale beans, he just gave me the sale price. It would have saved 5 minutes, not annoyed the people behind me (my mom was directly behind me, for those who were worried... ), and had me on my way. Instead, he held my beans hostage for those 5 minutes (at the chance that they WERE on sale, I would have bought them, and I couldn't complete my transaction until he returned), and then came back without the sale beans, which I wanted.

I will never know if the sign WAS an old sign and he just took it down, or if I was really wrong. I CAN read, and the sign underneath the beans on the shelf clearly said "Busch's". But, there may have been NO current beans on sale for all I know.

My point was that he wasted my time and displayed poor customer service.

I didn't want to scam the store.

Oh, and I was headed to Walmart anyways...

 

[OceanAnnie]

Respectfully, no.
"the item was priced incorrectly" is entirely different from "the item was not the item that was on sale, the adjacent item was on sale". And the manager didn't admit 'the pricing' was confusing, but that 'it' - implying the signage (exact location, possibly?) was.
In your case, the manager gave you the item at the correct price because he was legally required to do so. Question to ponder: had your item been priced incorrectly with the right price actually being HIGHER, would you have been equally willing to pay the correct price? Or would you have expected to, in that case, pay the marked price?

You say potato, I say potado, or something like that. Pricing incorrectly could fall under the same umbrella as the pricing was confusing, to me. It may be semantics, we'll never know.

I was glad the manager gave me the price that was listed on the item. He went back and saw that it was priced incorrectly and said he would give it to me for that price. I thought it was a terrific sale! I was a happy camper. I shop for sales so if it had been at a higher price, I probably would've waited for it to go on sale.

 

[wdwfan16]

This is so crazy that we are still talking about this today!

I probably should have specified that I really didn't WANT them at sale price after I found out I was WRONG! I just didn't want them at all!

I just couldn't believe that for $0.42 he held up the line, walked all the way back to the aisle with the beans, and then came back empty handed! I never asked him to do all of that, he simply said, "I will check the price," and walked away with the beans!

It would have been better customer service if after I told him I thought they were the sale beans, he just gave me the sale price. It would have saved 5 minutes, not annoyed the people behind me (my mom was directly behind me, for those who were worried... ), and had me on my way. Instead, he held my beans hostage for those 5 minutes (at the chance that they WERE on sale, I would have bought them, and I couldn't complete my transaction until he returned), and then came back without the sale beans, which I wanted.

I will never know if the sign WAS an old sign and he just took it down, or if I was really wrong. I CAN read, and the sign underneath the beans on the shelf clearly said "Busch's". But, there may have been NO current beans on sale for all I know.

My point was that he wasted my time and displayed poor customer service.

I didn't want to scam the store.

Oh, and I was headed to Walmart anyways...

So every person who "claims" an item is on sale should get the price? That store will not stay in business for very long.

Since it was only 42 cents why did you let him hold up the line. Why not just pay the price?

 

[kaytieeldr]

I just couldn't believe that for $0.42 he held up the line, walked all the way back to the aisle with the beans, and then came back empty handed! I never asked him to do all of that, he simply said, "I will check the price," and walked away with the beans!

Well, respectfully, you questioned the price. With upwards of 10,000 different items in the typical supermarket, and with sale prices changing every week, it's unreasonable to expect any employee to instantly 'know' (i.e. remember) the price of any given item. Checking prices whenever there's a question is standard procedure unless the customer declines. NOT coming back with the sale item - especially given that any person checking a price doesn't actually know how many of the item the customer has - is also standard procedure. No, just because they can see four cans (if they're even visible) doesn't mean that's all the customer chose. So then the employee has to go BACK for however many more of the item the customer was ultimately planning to purchase.

Entirely inefficient.

It would have been better customer service if after I told him I thought they were the sale beans, he just gave me the sale price.

But why? You were even wrong about the sale price. Plus, if you think they should do it for you just on your say-so, it's only fair they do it for everyone - so what's to stop the next person from claiming their $10.99 hair color is on sale for $1.99?

Instead, he held my beans hostage for those 5 minutes

Well, technically they were still the store's beans, given that you hadn't purchased them yet - but if your entire transaction was complete except the beans, you could have paid for everything else and stepped out of the way, then paid for the beans if you chose to buy them once the manager returned and the current customer was through.

 

[Wendy31]

Oh, and I was headed to Walmart anyways...

Oh, well... as long as you were headed there anyway...

Bless your heart, after tackling both the grocery store AND Wal-mart in one day, I hope you stopped somewhere else for a nice treat for yourself too!

Grocery store + Wal-mart = YUCK!!!!!!

 

[Caropooh]

OK, what would people of done in my situation?
Last night I was at Walgreens buying batteries. There was a sign on the Duracell ones saying $5.79, buy one, get one free. I took my 2 packages up to the register and the cashier started ringing them up. He said there was a problem and went over and looked at the battery display. Tells me that it's actually the Walgreens brand that is on sale and is that all right. I told him no, it wasn't all right since the sign was on the Duracell ones. It wasn't my fault the sign had been misplaced. He called the manager who looked and things and told me,'it's in bold writing on the tag that it's the Walgreens brand.' I told him that customers don't always read the small print on the sign. They expect the sign to be on the right merchandise and buy according to that. He seemed rather amazed I would say that. We went back and forth a few times. He ends up saying to me, 'we're giving you the sale price, what more do you want?' They ended up ringing them up at 5.99 for the first pack and .01 for the second pack.
So, would you have accepted the Walgreens brand or insisted the sell you the Duracell brand at the sale price?