Wednesday, December 27, 2006
It Can't Just Be Me
You know what? I no longer trust stores to tally my items correctly when I purchase something. I'm convinced they display one price and charge another at the register. Only people that are paying attention don't get suckered into this plot. It's happened to me 3 times since Saturday! I went to Toys-R-Us to "check out" the guitars to let Santa know which one to bring my budding Hannah Montana. A full rack of little acoustic jobbies were labeled on-sale for $19.99. I grabbed one that had a star design on it. I needed to pick up one other item for one of my nephews and while looking for that I saw something else that my daughter wanted - a Doodle Doll, which is different than the Doodle Monster, which is different than the Doodle Bear (which she already has) which is different than the Doodle Mat (which she also already has)! It was marked down to $12.99 and I called Mrs. Claus while staring at the sign to make sure it was a smart purchase. It was. So I had 3 items. When I got to the register - the guitar was $29.99. I stopped the girl and told her about the sign. After 10 minutes of looking through the sales paper and talking to the girl at the service desk, I was told the one I picked out was different because it was labeled "Designer Series" and only the plain wood ones were $19.99. Fine. Maybe you want to add that to the sign since they are all toghter....but whatever. I went back and got the brown one because I knew it would end up covered in stickers anyway. The Doodle Doll then scanned at $14.99! I stopped her AGAIN. Another 10 minutes and a manager came over to tell the girl I was right and she changed the price in the regsiter for that item. I asked her how many other people already bought one that day for $14.99 and she blew me off. I think it's planned! Price Switching Is Us! Today I bought a pair of sunglasses to just keep in my wife's car. The pair I have in there have a bad mark on them and I see three of everything....which isn't cool driving at 80 mph! I got to the checkout and was charged $21 something when the price tag was clearly marked $15.50. She said all the other ones were $19.50 which signaled to me she didn't even scan it or look at it. When I see people walking around with 20 items in their carts, I wonder how on Earth they keep track and remember the prices as the person checks them out? I wouldn't be one bit surprised if every person in every store averages a few dollars of "mistake" pricing per visit! Bah Humbug!!!!!
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3 comments:
PLU (Price Look Up) updating at POS (Point of Sale) retail systems during the Holidays is a freaking nightmare.
Stores sell an item one day at one price and another day another price. Worst of all is the "First 4 Hours" discount which sells an item(s) at one price for the first 4 hours and at another price the rest of the day... neither of which may be the regular retail price for the item!
Data communications/updating does not always occur or occur in a timely fashion either.
To make matters worse, store personnel have a devil of a time keeping up with all this demographic/chronologic discounting in the way of signage and product presentation. If you're making $7/hr who really gives a shit anyway?
My guess is that the whole thing is FUBAR and sometimes the customer gets screwed and sometimes the store gets screwed.
Nonetheless, my hat is off to the alert customer who pays attention to those prices in spite of an overwhelming desire to knock a few back at the titty bar instead of Christmas shopping!
Caveat Emptor, Buyer Beware.
Todd you are right, I went to buy Grandson Kyle a Madden 2007 X box game that was on sale for $39, when the kid ran it he said it was $49, so I said it was on sale for $39 and he said only the 360 games were 39.I told him to get the add out and stumble to page 2, nowhere did it specify 360 only and he said he would have to correct the pricing. Do you think that happened??? I ask him y I knew more about his prices than he did. no reaction. have a happy new year
There was just a story about this up here too. One woman takes advantage of a state law that gives the item for free if it's mis-priced, and she take home "hundreds" of dollars worth of free groceries every week. And to dog's point, in addition to the already a pain in the a** system to update pricing electronically, some states REQUIRE a price sticker to be on the item.
And as a self-proclaimed queen of clearance rack shopping, another pet peeve of mine is when you get up to the cash register and they charge you LESS than you expect. I mean, I'm thrilled about saving even more money than I expected to, but hey, I probably ruled out buying a bunch of things that I was interested in paying for!
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