What part of "NONE SOLD TO DEALERS" does this family not understand?

[Estil]

Okay, all of you are familiar with the fact that nearly all stores have a policy of not selling big sales products to dealers, right? Well, guess what? We are so unforunate as to have this huge famly (at least eight or ten people or so; they usually come in one or two at a time) come in and buy up 2-3 shopping carts full of Gatorade, soda, bottled water, or anything else that's very heavily on sale. Does anyone want to guess why?

Very good. The reason they do this is that they resell these items in their chain of local convience stores for much higher markups. Not only does this feed our competition, but it also isn't fair to the honest customers who not only miss out on all the sales items this family cleaned out, but they also clog up the one checklane we have late at night (of course they come near midnight when all the managers are gone and can't catch them).

Now today, the weekday overnight checker did let them go through, but not without reprinting their receipts, highlighting their loyality card number and I wrote a note explaining what they're doing. But do you know what the worst part about all this is? When I tried to confront them about what they were doing and our policy about not selling to vendors/dealers, they LIED to me (and everyone else) about it being for their own use or for a "party". Sure...

Anyhoo, the bottom line is, if they come through my checklane trying this stunt (I'm overnight checker on weekends), they will be politely refused service (they never buy anything else) and I was told that it is in fact my duty by my Asst. CSM and one of the managers to not allow suspected dealers like these to buy up our stuff. All I can say is our GM had better back up their own policy (and they did in fact post a memo about it a few months ago near our time clock) and back up those who need to enforce it.

Anyone else with a similar problem at your store?

[Becks]

Not being a cashier, I haven't actually seen it, but I've heard about a few instances.

I sincerely hope policy is backed up and you don't get in trouble for doing what you're SUPPOSED to do.

[jrh215]

Yeah, happens at our store all the time. They're not too bad about wiping our shelves out; in fact, they really don't buy too much at once because I think they've wisened up and make several trips a day and throughout the week to buy up. Less chances they'll encounter resistance with smaller purchases.

However, at the location I used to work at, it was out of control. Milk would go on sale, and they'd try to purchase two or three cartfulls of gallons of milk all at once. You'd tell them we wouldn't sell them that much, and, yes, they'd pull the whole "we're having a party" line. Having a party? With 15 gallons of milk? Right....

[Dave1982]

There's a guy who periodically comes into my store who pulls crap like this. He's not a true "dealer" but rather an eBayer and private reseller. He used to buy cartloads of pre-paid phones (back when we sold them) and then resell them in the Caribean. He buys F-status goods to resell on eBay. And he's very pushy and greedy. My sales manager hates the man and it apaprently just waiting for an excuse to kick him out.

Recently I found out that he has actually been thrown out of AND BANNED from almost every other Staples in the area. Which amazes me, since the compnay (like so many others) bends over backwards for people who are much worse than him.

[42_42_42]

Every store I've ever been in has a limit on sales items. Like "limit two deals" or whatever. Imagine how many trips they'd have to make then.

[blas]

That sounds SO fishy...

We had a few customers at the gas station that we KNEW (because my ex manager was an avid bar hopper and knew the owners of every bar in town) were buying OUR beer to sell at their bar for much higher prices.

They'd wipe out nearly an entire week's order of beer.

[CancelMyService]

When I worked at the late, lamented CompUSA we would have this older asian man practically licking the windows to get in on Sunday morning (start of the new sales day) so he could load up on all the free-after-rebate doodads we'd advertise so he could resell them to his customers.

His line of thought is as long as he's buying them the store's getting the money, so we didn't have a right to limit the amount he was getting. While that was technically true (the SC's favorite kind of true) there was also the matter of all the "WAAAAAAAAAAH, BAIT AND SWITCH~!" complainers when we'd be out of an advertised item by the end of the first day.

[meme]

I never had that happen when I was a cashier, but when I worked the overnight shift at the convience store, there was a club and a bar nearby who would always come in and try to buy rolls of quarters or dollar bundles. It drove me crazy because that could cause me to run low on change later. I usually refused them unless I had a surplus. Plus, they were hateful about it, and didn't seem to have any concept of pre-planning. There were lots of banks in the area too, they had no other reason to rely on me for their stupid change.

[Petronella]

This is hilarious! I used to have the opposite experience, I worked for the family-owned corner store that bought their sale goods at other retail outlets and resold them. Every week they would carry in box after box of candy, gum, juice, pop, etc, all straight from Costco, then mark them up 150% or so to sell in their filthy little ghetto mart. It just made me shake my head. Costco should have revoked their membership. Who the hell buys a GROSS of Doublemint gum or Mars bars?? They would actually sell the gum out of its original display boxes from Costco, right at the cash register. I made sure NEVER to spend one single cent of my money at my employer's store. I would always let them see me walk in to work carrying a shopping bag from the legitimate supermarket or pharmacy where I'd stopped on my way to work.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Apparently there has been a memo sent down from corporate warning us to be on the lookout for people buying up huge quantities of new release movies; apparently they are being put up for rent in video stores because their supplier changed the contract or something(somebody who works for Blockbuster or Hollywood Video or some such place could shed more light on this).

Otherwise, the manager at a store I worked at was guilty of this "reselling" thing himself. The store had been remodeled and was adding grocery items such as canned and boxed foods, ketchup and other condiments, bread, milk, eggs and ice cream. Rather than train somebody on how to reorder these items when they ran out, he went to grocery stores in town and bought the items from them, and then had somebody stock the shelves with them.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Luckily we didn't have that issue at the bookstore. The problem we did have was the thieves who would swipe bestsellers to sell at the flea markets...

[Sliceanddice]

You didnt have people buys a bunch of books to sale? FUNNY
ive never worked anywhere i would see this but at my favorite book store, the one where i would live if i could, Ive seen people score through books looking for ones in the best condition and buy them for half the price they would sell on amazon or something and sell them for slightly less than amazon instead. hundards of them. I find it amusing. The store isnt losing money because they buy the books for one third sell price used and sell them at half sell price in their store. I just think its amusing because of how they do it too. They always have a sneaky look.

[karma_gypsy]

We actually allow re-sellers to come through at the Pawn Shop I work at. We don't get many, but there are a few. Usually they'll come in (we have these two guys who are regulars, they're very nice guys) who will come in and buy over 100 DVDs or so. We even give them a small discount. That's only because they're really doing us a favor and they take a lot of the crappy movies as well (and duplicates) and it helps clear out our shelves for more movies (which, we have so many right now, there's no room in the display). They don't even complain if a specific movie is scratched or any of that.

[wagegoth]

There's a business Costco very near where I live. They have the same prices as other Costcos, but they carry things the others don't, such as huge boxes of candy, gum, chips, and such, lots of frozen goods that can be resold, and tons of restaurant and janitorial supplies. They don't carry clothing, games or books, the software is limited to business software, and they provide services like imprinted pens and shirts.

BTW, Costco is happy to sell to resellers, I've seen resellers come through regular Costco stores with their wholesale licenses so that they can purchase the goods without sales tax.

[BookstoreEscapee]

You didnt have people buys a bunch of books to sale? FUNNY

Nah, B&N's prices aren't low enough to make it worth their while. Best you can do is 40% on bestsellers with a member card. You can do better at Costco or even Target. A guy I work with got the last Harry Potter at Target for like 11 bucks the day after it was released.