Price Match Woe

[Rubystars]

This afternoon a woman came up with a whole bunch of cans of green beans, she wanted to price match them with HEB, which is selling them at 25 cents each. She had about 12 cans, but there's a limit of 4 of each kind at HEB, which means, she could only get 4 cans of green beans at that price. I told her I was going to go ask the manager if they would let her get more and I went and asked him and he said no, that we were going to enforce the limit. He also said to call him if I needed backup (Great manager!).

I went and found the ad and showed her how it said a limit of 4 and she started screeching: "I spend hundreds of dollars in this store!" (You and a couple hundred other people or more) "You say you price match, but you don't!" (We were giving her the same deal she could have gotten at the other store) and "You know I wouldn't be so angry if Wal-Mart's stock wasn't doing so well right now!" (ROFL, sure). She was also angry because I wouldn't let her get around the rule by breaking it up into different orders.

I told her she could come back and get four more tomorrow, she said she was going to come back later that night to another cashier and get them. So I made sure I went around to all the cashiers and CSMs and let them know her description and what she was going to try to do and told them not to let her have it. The salaried manager agreed with me.

I wish I could find out if she tried to come back and get it tonight.

One thing we did do a favor for her for is that the CSM had come over to back me up because she heard her screeching and the CSM pointed out to me that the woman was getting No salt added green beans and the ad was for regular green beans. I said we should let her slide on that one since it cost the same and she was already that upset, and the CSM agreed with me on that one.

So basically we were giving her a deal that she couldn't have gotten at HEB, and this was the thanks we got!

[HALFHUMANHALFZOMBIE]

[QUOTE=
"You say you price match, but you don't!"
[/QUOTE]

Uh.. it's not called a price match if the quantity says that's how much she can buy.
And another thing is that she wanted to be so inconsiderate and hold people up in the line-up by paying for them seperately!

[Kara]

I hate price matching. I didn't see much of it at Kroger, but people would always bring Best Buy ads in to Circuit City and want us to honor prices for brands or products we didn't even carry. Then, of course, they wanted that price on the high-end version of a similar product we did carry.

Customer: So why don't you give me their price on your TV.
Me: Because first off, we don't even carry that brand. Secondly, that's a 20 inch TV, and this is a Sony flat screen 42 inch HDTV.
Customer: You're going to make me take my business to Best Buy!
Me: Okay, smell you later.

The thing that totally floored me was when McDonald's started offering the Best Buy Bucks in the Monopoly thing. We would get at least a dozen people a day asking if we took those. At Circuit City.

Since it became such an every day happening, the manager finally decided to go ahead and accept them. What was a couple of dollars off something to steal business from Best Buy? It was probably one of the only intelligent decisions she ever made.

[HALFHUMANHALFZOMBIE]

Since it became such an every day happening, the manager finally decided to go ahead and accept them. What was a couple of dollars off something to steal business from Best Buy? It was probably one of the only intelligent decisions she ever made.

Unreal. Accepting coupons for a different store. And customers scammingpeople for the obvious. Unreal you have to put up with that lol!!

[PhotoChick]

Unreal. Accepting coupons for a different store.

That one I understand. From what I remember the Best Buy Bucks were usually less than $5. So customer comes in, asks to use the coupon and buys a $20 movie. So minimum thats $15 going into CC's pocket. And more likely they'll be looking at movies (or CDs or whatever) and as they browse find a whole bunch that they want to buy. Thats $95 for the 5 movies they just picked out and it only cost you a $5 discount.

[BookstoreEscapee]

See, that's what I love about BN...sorry, we don't price match. But the website is less. You'll have to order it online and pay up front then. Oh. We can do that for you, if you like. Shipping is 3.95 for one book and .99 for every book after that. (actually, over $25 gets you free shipping, same deal on the website).

Bed, Bath, & Beyond and Linens n Things take each other's coupons. Though last I checked, they'll take their own even if they're expired, but the competitor coupons can't be expired. (That could have changed since the last time I used a coupon there.)

[Gurndigarn]

Unreal. Accepting coupons for a different store. And customers scammingpeople for the obvious. Unreal you have to put up with that lol!!

Not unreal. It's a decent marketing scheme, actually. It's kind of like price matching, but you don't have to deal with as many scams, tantrums, or idiots because you've got the information in front of you in black and white (/red /blue /etc.)

Worrying about personal printers is another matter, but that would require thought effort on the customer's part, so it's still not as bad.

[AFpheonix]

My chain doesn't price match, either. I always tell people what other pharmacies are typically cheaper.... but they're usually not open at that point in the evening

[Imogene]

I loved it at Chesterfield when people would come in and say "WalMart has this movie cheaper. Do you price match?"
"No, definitely not."
"You just lost a customer."
"And you're going to lose roughly half the movie. WalMart censors their movies, we don't."

[gregmaddux17]

<Mr Snippy was here!>

I don't understand the problem with buying 4 cans and then coming back at a later time to buy more.

[gregmaddux17]

I've found that the Wendy's restaurant in my area accepts McDonald's coupons in order to steal their business. Its obviously better for a business to accept a rival's coupon rather than get no business at all.

[HYHYBT]

On the Best Buy Bucks, you don't have to worry about counterfeits because, like the Monopoly stamps, they're thick, waxy paper with glue on one side. Nothing you'd ever get from a home printer. Most of them were only $1, and there were (strict and sometimes very strange) limits on how many you could use for what so even if they're not actually good at your store you wouldn't lose much. I still wonder why they'd specifically exclude Maytag washers (I think that was the brand), or for that matter why someone buying a washing machine would bother with a $1 coupon...

I've only very rarely been offered coupons from competitors, but we do take them... provided it's at least similar to something we sell, of course: Free ice cream cone or fries? no problem. Free Whopper? If they'll accept a Big 'n' Tasty instead, no problem. Free bowl of chili? Wendy's is over there ___/^.

[Ciarrai]

"And you're going to lose roughly half the movie. WalMart censors their movies, we don't."

Really? I didn't know that. They just cut out parts of the movie and sell them as if they were the original? Sorry for the questions, but I'm completely flabbergasted by that.

[AFpheonix]

They bleep out music, too. Yay for Big Brother.....

[computergeekett]

We get customers like this all the time. They want it the same as a competitor and cheaper but expect to get more for the service than they would normally. It doesn't help when a customer gets hold of one of the head monkeys in our HQ.. they always seem to bend over like cheap date in fear of losing that $5 sale.