The oddest thing a customer wanted to buy

[Whyme]

I'm just curious if anyone has ever had a customer try to buy something that either isn't for sale or say maybe just a part of the item being sold.

I had a customer that walked up to my register with one stick of butter. I said "Where's the package?". Well he didn't want the whole package, he just wanted the one stick. So he opened up the package (there are four sticks of butter in a package in this case), took out the one he needed and came to the register. I suppose I should be happy he didn't steal it, but no way I could sell one stick of butter. Management was called. Customer also didn't want to pay the entire price of the package just for one stick. Thankfully management stuck to their guns and told the guy you buy the whole package of butter or none. It even said "not for individual sale" on the one stick of butter. Of course we were being the unreasonable ones .

[poofy_puff]

I remember being able to do that at convenience stores, but that was many years ago, and I never tried it at a regular food store.

[Lingering Grin]

Why buy only one stick?

The whole package only costs like $2, plus one stick is gonna last what? 1 or 2 meals? Hell, you need half a stick just to make mac & cheese!

[flyinghi]

Back when when I was operating my own convinience store, a lady walked in and demanded to know where I had bought the large clock we had hung up on the wall. I told her that I had no idea since it was there when I bought the store. She then offored to buy it from me

This one is a bit odd...

One gentleman walked into the store patiently waited until there weren't any customers and asked me if I would be willing to sell the store sign with the name on it ( like wtf??) apperently he loved the name we had for our store and wanted to use it for the business he was strting up back home.

[Sylvia727]

About a year ago, my local grocery store pasted up a sign that said, "Due to health concerns, we can no longer sell single sticks of butter. Boxes of butter must be sold unopened. Please consider freezing excess butter until needed" or something to that effect. I got to chatting with a worker there and asked her about the sign. She told me that the senior citizens (there was a retirement center down the road that shuttled them to the grocery store on Thursdays) often just bought one stick of butter for their toast or whatever. I chalked it up as an amusing incident and continued on my merry way.

Recently, I mentioned this story to a friend of mine. She got righteously indignant and tried to convince me that it was illegal to refuse to sell individual sticks of butter. After I finally managed to drill into her that the Health Department had forbidden this practice, she changed her tune and declared that it was against corporate policy.

[SuperB]

We sell individual sticks but we're catering to campers, climbers and weekend cabin owners. The only rule is they can't take the box and leave sticks because I need for everyone to see the box and it's date. Same with eggs, if they want to cut a carton in half the half they leave has to be the end with the date on it.

[Plaidman]

Yeah, we sell single sticks of butter all the time. We make alot more money doing that too.

As for the oddest thing a customer tried to buy from me.

A couch. He swore to god that we use to have furnature for sale. He wanted the couch that was 399.99.

After much brain cell lost, I finally managed to convience him that ... we USE to be a furnture store, but decided to be a Plaid Pantry. (... I hate to say it, but it was the only thing the guy would buy). I was thinking after words maybe it was some sorta camera show or boiling points. But the guy came in alot before and bought soda. And he came in afterwards and bought more soda. I never brought the couch thing up.

(I work at a convience store for those who don't know).

[South Texan]

She told me that the senior citizens (there was a retirement center down the road that shuttled them to the grocery store on Thursdays) often just bought one stick of butter for their toast or whatever.

Up until she no longer was physically able to shop on her own, my grandmother thought nothing of breaking up butter cubes, cartons of eggs, or other packages to buy only one of the items within. She never understood why she was told each time she tried it that this was no longer allowed. It was the way she had shopped all through the 20's, 30's, 40's 50's, 60's, 70's and the early 80's. That she had been denied the practice for some fifteen years did not deter her from thinking it was ok to do. It was engrained into her that that was the way things should be. UPC codes really fouled things up for her.

Recently, I mentioned this story to a friend of mine. She got righteously indignant and tried to convince me that it was illegal to refuse to sell individual sticks of butter.

My mother has a friend who proclaims that same thing to this day and will try to open packages of individually wrapped items (like small bags of chips in six packs) and buy them separately. She claims it is "The LAW" that she is allowed to do this and tried to get the Texas Attorney General to enforce "The LAW". She still is angry that some attorney in the Attorney General’s office told her that the stores had the right to offer the items in whatever clusters they wanted and it was her choice whether or not to buy them as offered.

[dizzy_starshine]

Our disability door bell XD!!

We're a listed building so can't install a ramp at the front of the Pharmacy. However being a Pharmacy we have many people who can't walk very well. The solution was to have a large square sigh that is a sensor at the door. When they touch it a chime goes off inside and we know to go out to the person and help them. This happened about a year ago but we still laugh about it.

A lady was looking into the window area of the store but not at the shelves of stock at the actual window. I went over to ask her if i could help and this followed

Me: Can I help you at all?
Her: Yes this bell here I'll take it
Me: ...I'm sorry?
Her: This bell. I'll buy it. My mother is disabled and this will be wonderful for her
Me: i'm sorry ma'am but it's our disability alarm. It's how we know someone needs assistence but can't get into the store. It's not for sale
Her: ok well phone where you got it from and get me one.

She wasn't going to accept it was a store fitting and i ended up making a lot of people at our head office laugh when I phoned various departments trying to see if a customer could buy one.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I had a guy and his wife motion at a table and ask us what the price was for it. Turned out the table he was referring to was one of our fixtures for candles, silk flowers and other home decorating items.

We also had somebody call us looking for black Mason Dots candy (I believe they were called "crows").

Everybody: What's so unusual about that

Answer: My store is in east central Wisconsin. The caller was from Mankato, MN. It seems Crows were her favorite kind of candy but they were being discontinued, so she was calling all of our stores in Minnesota and Wisconsin trying to scrounge up as much of the candy as possible.

[CanadaGirl]

At my work we have these cards that are kind of 3D or "popup" cards. Several of them are open and placed on displayers so people can see what they look like. One lady wanted to buy one of the cards. Not one of the ones in the pocket all nicely folded and in it's plastic wrapper. She wanted the display. I had to tell her several times that it was on display and if she wanted to buy it, there were several cards in the pocket below it that she could take and purchase, as the display doesn't even have a barcode on it. Some people...

[Sylvia727]

Up until she no longer was physically able to shop on her own, my grandmother thought nothing of breaking up butter cubes, cartons of eggs, or other packages to buy only one of the items within. She never understood why she was told each time she tried it that this was no longer allowed. It was the way she had shopped all through the 20's, 30's, 40's 50's, 60's, 70's and the early 80's. That she had been denied the practice for some fifteen years did not deter her from thinking it was ok to do. It was engrained into her that that was the way things should be. UPC codes really fouled things up for her.

This is exactly the reasoning that many of the retirement center residents used. To them, it just didn't make sense to buy more than they needed, and they'd done it this way for so long they couldn't look at it any other way. The grocery store accomodated them as long it could.

I went back to this store about a month afterward, and while the checkout lines are usually clogged with senior citizens about 2 pm on Thursdays, the lines weren't moving...because one little old lady had bought a $2 box of butter and, in the middle of her transaction, opened it up, distributed the other three sticks to three other seniors, and collected her 50 cents each. The whole process took about five minutes, but the cashier was inhumanly patient. This is one of the reasons I love this grocery store: the staff really tries to do a good job, and everyone there treats the seniors kindly and patiently.

[ArcticChicken]

I had a woman through my line who insisted she was allowed to buy half a carton of eggs. I'm just glad I called the manager as soon as I saw that she'd torn one of our dozen carton in half. "But you're supposed to be able to tear them in half, that's why they have perforations." (They don't, they're just dented in the middle) "But you don't sell 1/2-dozen cartons" (Actually, we do) "Well, the guy in dairy said you don't" (We may have run out, but we sell them) "Well, I've torn it in half, what are you going to do now? Huh?"
When my manager told her that it was due to health department regulations, she demanded the number and exact text of said regulation, how old it was, etc.
I think it took 10-15 minutes to convince her that it was not going to happen.

[chainedbarista]

chicken tacos...

[Whyme]

Why buy only one stick?

The whole package only costs like $2, plus one stick is gonna last what? 1 or 2 meals? Hell, you need half a stick just to make mac & cheese!

According to him he just needed one. Plus, do we really want to know why he wanted only one stick ? Customers private lives are none of my business.

She told me that the senior citizens (there was a retirement center down the road that shuttled them to the grocery store on Thursdays) often just bought one stick of butter for their toast or whatever. I chalked it up as an amusing incident and continued on my merry way.

The guy in my post was a senior citizen! Is it a senior thing to only want one stick at a time

Edited to say after reading the rest of the posts, I guess it is a senior thing. This is the first time I had come across it. All the grocery stores around here are big chains except for the health food stores, I don't think any of them sell single sticks of butter.