I Needed to Check the Department for an Item

[purplecat41877]

Today, an item didn't ring up but the price was on it. I wasn't sure which department the item fell under so I asked one of the customer service employees and she told me. The customer after the one I had complained about how long I was taking even though it was probably a minute or less and that I had the slowest express line. I quickly rang the current customer's order and then the customer that complained about the slow express line.

[scroob]

it really bugs me too when sc's complain about things that you either can't control or are in no way responsible for

[Enigma]

Oh man, that annoys the crap out of me too! Things happen that we have to deal with, I'm sorry I don't live on your magical planet where everything is unicorns and rainbows. I hope you just gave him a deadpan stare and moved on.

[Auto]

I agree she was annoying.

But there are times when I don't want to wait while employees figure out what the problem is and fix it. Especially when the item is marked with the right price. Ring me up and let me pay so I can leave. Then worry about the barcode issues.

[Ree]

Ring me up and let me pay so I can leave. Then worry about the barcode issues.

On a computerized system that tracks inventory, what would you suggest they use as a SKU to ring the item in?
Most systems don't allow anything except a recognized UPC or SKU or some other type of code.
If the barcode doesn't scan, they have to find out what to use as a code.

It's fine to say the price is there, so ring it in, then fix the problem later, but it's not really that simple.

[Max]

On a computerized system that tracks inventory, what would you suggest they use as a SKU to ring the item in?
Most systems don't allow anything except a recognized UPC or SKU or some other type of code.
If the barcode doesn't scan, they have to find out what to use as a code.

It's fine to say the price is there, so ring it in, then fix the problem later, but it's not really that simple.

I really miss working in a store that allows using dummy codes; you could ring things up and then fix inventory after the customer left. Where I work now, you can't. I'm mortified when I can't ring something in. I've had customers leave because they had to wait. They were douches, but I still wish I could have saved the sales.

[nomorecarts]

I agree she was annoying.

But there are times when I don't want to wait while employees figure out what the problem is and fix it. Especially when the item is marked with the right price. Ring me up and let me pay so I can leave. Then worry about the barcode issues.

if they work for the same company as me the computer beeps item not found, then asks for the department, and you can't skip that, you put in the department, you put in the description, you put in the price, in that order, no shortcuts

[jerkface11]

One night I was at walmart getting groceries. There were two people in front of me a woman buying quite a bit of hair care crap and some guy with a case of beer. The womans hairspray wouldn't scan so the poor checkout girl who looked like she had just turned 16 calls someone over to help. It took them about 5 minutes to get the hairspray scanned. The whole time the guy with the beer is bitching and whining about it with me trying to calm him down. Then the girl scans his beer and since she isn't 21 she has to get the same person over to help her again which takes a couple minutes. The guy is still bitching at both of them when he pays and walks away. So I then get to try and calm the poor girl down she was almost in tears. Comforting my employees after shit like that is bad enough doing it for someone elses must earn me some karma points or something.

[Applerod]

I have to admit that--when I have a line and it's clearly going to take some time to get a price check--I tend to manually enter my best low-ball guess (our grocery store is relatively small so the departments are fairly intuitive). Today for example some lady was buying frozen food and neither the bar code nor the UPC were providing anything beyond the unnecessarily loud alarm sound that comes out of our registers when the item doesn't have a price, so I just entered $3.99 like I knew what I was doing. Seeing as how I'll ring up more than $10,000 during a shift I didn't feel too bad about being off by maybe 2 dollars.
-On the other hand, I also got the same problem today with a bottle of wine that had an incorrect bar code and no price tag and I decided it was worth $10.99 when in retrospect it could have been worth up to $25-$30. But what do you do when:
A) You have no bagger (our baggers usually do the price checking)
B) No managers are present and/or available
C) There are people waiting in line
..?

[Ironclad Alibi]

-On the other hand, I also got the same problem today with a bottle of wine that had an incorrect bar code and no price tag and I decided it was worth $10.99 when in retrospect it could have been worth up to $25-$30.

I might have to pop over there and pick up a couple of bottles of that wine.

[Nashida]

I really miss working in a store that allows using dummy codes; you could ring things up and then fix inventory after the customer left. Where I work now, you can't. I'm mortified when I can't ring something in. I've had customers leave because they had to wait. They were douches, but I still wish I could have saved the sales.

I miss that luxury as well. At the pool store, if it doesn't have a sticker on it with the number to type in, I'm screwed. Some items I can scan, but 99.9% of them will ring up wrong (or not at all). I can do a look-up on the computer, but I have to have a description, like "1.5 HP VER MOTOR" or something.

Oh, and even if a customer tells me "It's $9.99" it doesn't matter; I can't just punch the price in.

[simplyanother]

I seriously hate the "it's 3.99" people. I really really understand that it IS 3.99. But I need the freakin barcode.

Then you get the help on the floor that doesn't want to go get the number for you "just scan department whatever and put in 3.99".