Rain checks

[Starfire]

I'm sure that anyone who works in a grocery store can relate to what I'm talking about. I seriously hate those horrible things with a passion! I just don't get why customers have to be so petty about saving a couple cents on an already super-cheap item. The worst part is having one of those idiots come into my line, and demand for rain checks for 5 different items. I have to write out 5 completely separate checks, then on top of that have to ring up all their items, while in the meantime my line's backed up.

What really irks me is when customers try to cheat me and ask for extra items that go above the limits we put in our ad. Um, hello people? We can't give you a check for 20 boxes of really popular cereal! How else is everyone else going to get what they want? People are seriously so selfish and cheap it's ridiculous. I'm all about saving a buck where you can, but to throw fits over us not having the item you want? That's kind of your fault for procrastinating and waiting until the last day of our ad, when we're obviously going to be out of stuff.

And what probably aggravates me most about rain checks is that 90% of the time, customers never wind up using them anyways. And 5% of the 10% they DO wind up using them, they've been expired for months (we still have to accept them though, so why do we even bother having an expiration date at all?) So I'm basically forced to write them out all day for no reason. Thanks a lot...

I guess I've just never understood why we need to do this at all in the first place. When I go into a store and they happen to be out of what I'm looking for, I don't get upset about it. I just figure, "Oh well, maybe next time," and leave. Our store is spoiling these demanding people, and it pisses me off. Why do people have to be so nit-picky about everything? >

[sevendaysky]

Re: items that are out... There's a drink that I'm quite honestly addicted to. Walmart carries it. There's one about 1/2 a mile down the road from me, and one about five miles away in the opposite direction. The further store always has it in stock, closer store has... problems. It's a relatively popular drink, so you would think they would keep an eye on it and bring things in as they get low... not so much. They regularly go two weeks without restocking, and I visit twice a week for groceries and other things. One memorable time they went TWO MONTHS without it, while the other store had no problems keeping it in stock, even though I was surely not the only person trekking the extra distance to get this drink. I complained to the store manager, and so far they've been good about keeping at least one or two packs on the shelf when I stop in for it. I don't really think it was a distribution issue, likely ordering or stocking problem. Sometimes it does take a customer complaint to remind the managers that the whole point of selling something is to actually HAVE IT so it can be bought.

Rain checks, I've never asked for though since the things I look for (other than the specific drink) can either wait or be substituted for. I don't fault people for asking - unless they're asking for 20 at sale price. Really, if you want THAT MANY boxes, set up a standing order with the manager. A local grocery store doesn't carry X brand sausage, but my dad has a standing order to purchase a case through them every few months. They get it in, Dad comes, buys it, leaves, it never gets on the shelves but the store still gets some profit for handling the transaction so they're OK with it. Can't hurt to ask if you're buying that many of something in one go.

[sirwired]

Re: items that are out... There's a drink that I'm quite honestly addicted to. Walmart carries it. There's one about 1/2 a mile down the road from me, and one about five miles away in the opposite direction. The further store always has it in stock, closer store has... problems.

Depending on the drink, stocking may not be under control of the store. About 1/4 of a typical grocery store is stocked by vendors, not the store themselves. This includes soda (or anything sold by a soda bottler or distributor), snack foods, alcoholic beverages, bakery, periodicals, tobacco, some parts of meat and dairy, and some frozen foods. The store leases shelf space to the vendors, who in turn can put whatever products they choose on those shelves. I believe the store gets a certain fixed cut of every unit sold, and the vendor determines pricing. (As in, any sales (and the ads for vendor products) are generally paid for by the vendor, not the store.)

Perhaps the closer store has a different delivery guy, and he's the one not stocking properly.

[EvilEmpryss]

They still make rain checks?

[Starfire]

They still make rain checks?

Unfortunately yes... Apparently by law we have to.

[Ironclad Alibi]

They still make rain checks?

These days, shouldn't it be rain credits or rain debits?

[MoonCat]

Depending on the drink, stocking may not be under control of the store. About 1/4 of a typical grocery store is stocked by vendors, not the store themselves. This includes soda (or anything sold by a soda bottler or distributor), snack foods, alcoholic beverages, bakery, periodicals, tobacco, some parts of meat and dairy, and some frozen foods. The store leases shelf space to the vendors, who in turn can put whatever products they choose on those shelves. I believe the store gets a certain fixed cut of every unit sold, and the vendor determines pricing. (As in, any sales (and the ads for vendor products) are generally paid for by the vendor, not the store.)

Perhaps the closer store has a different delivery guy, and he's the one not stocking properly.

That bright light you see is the lightbulb going off over my head This is stuff I never knew. Thanks!

[JettGirl]

I get rainchecks for half price detergent, I'd rather pay $16 for 4 than $42, plus my local grocery store is terrible at having reasonable stock on hand for the weekly sales. Sometimes they sell out after 2 hours of being open, only to not restock for the rest of the week.

But for anything less than half price, wouldn't even dream of getting a raincheck.

[Kagato]

I'm a little surprised that you have to do rainchecks on discounted items to be perfectly honest...

Granted this is here in New Zealand, but here where I live, under normal circumstances you can get rainchecks on most things unless they are marked as clearance stock and they are getting rid of the last of their inventory, but if something is on special, they are usually permitted to put on the advertisment "Limited Stock, NO RAINCHECKS"

[Teefies2]

And then there's the other end of the rain check spectrum....

I had an elderly lady (a regular) the other day who wanted to buy our toilet paper that was on sale. We were out at that moment, so she got a rain check. Two days later, after the truck had delivered more, she came in to buy it. At this point, it was still on sale. She was INSISTING on using her rain check! I kept telling her "no don't use the rain check, it's still on sale at that price". She kept telling me she got the rain check so she could USE it for that item! After about 10 minutes, she finally grasped the concept - "don't use the rain check now, it's already on sale at that price - use the rain check when it's NOT on sale!"

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Depending on the drink, stocking may not be under control of the store. About 1/4 of a typical grocery store is stocked by vendors, not the store themselves. This includes soda (or anything sold by a soda bottler or distributor), snack foods, alcoholic beverages, bakery, periodicals, tobacco, some parts of meat and dairy, and some frozen foods. The store leases shelf space to the vendors, who in turn can put whatever products they choose on those shelves. I believe the store gets a certain fixed cut of every unit sold, and the vendor determines pricing. (As in, any sales (and the ads for vendor products) are generally paid for by the vendor, not the store.)

Perhaps the closer store has a different delivery guy, and he's the one not stocking properly.

And occasionally, they bring in obscene amounts of stuff and tell you a cock-and-bull story to stick you with it.

Case in point: Last week I was asked to scan outs in the pharmacy department. Things were going well until I got to the diabetic section. There were a couple blood glucose monitors that weren't on the shelf and apparently were out of stock.

I scanned the label for the first one. Scanner said we had 12 on hand, but no backstock location..
I scanned the label for the second monitor. Scanner said we had 12 on hand, but no backstock location.
For shits and giggles, I scanned a third monitor that had two on the shelf. Scanner said we had 14 on hand, but no backstock location.

So apparently there are 36 blood glucose monitors floating around someplace in the store unaccounted for, and we ned to try and find them before telling management to write them off. They are rather pricey, after all.

I asked the pharmacist if the monitors were being kept behind the counter, since they do keep a few diabetic supplies back there. He told me they were not.

I went to the receiving clerk with the SKUs for the blood glucose monitors and asked her to do some checking around. She printed off a purchase order that showed the monitors had been delivered to us at the end of November, and she had checked them in, stocked them, and apparently taken the excess to backstock.

So now either these blood glucose monitors are sitting on a shelf someplace unlocated and I need to tear apart the backroom to find them, or thieves ran off with them. Either scenario is bad.

I went back to the pharmacist and the story came out: The rep for either a pharmacy vendor or the blood glucose monitor company took it upon herself to order these monitors for the store, claiming she had buyers lined up for them. When they didn't sell, the pharmacist had them sent back--but did this is such a way that they didn't come off our inventory.

So now my manager has to hunt down an RA or something else giving us permission to ship those monitors back. Otherwise we have to eat their cost.

Unfortunately yes... Apparently by law we have to.

Either your area has some weird laws, or your company wants to smooch some customer ass and doesn't want to admit they're smooching customer ass.

About half our ad items each week are specifically signed "no rainchecks" even though we expect to get more in. If these items are sold out, the customer is SOL.

Then again, our rainchecks are of dubious benefit. The registers can print them out, with no handwriting by a cashier or service desk person needed, but the customer has to either visit the store repeatedly to find their item, or call to see if it came in.

[Earl_Grey]

I'm a little surprised that you have to do rainchecks on discounted items to be perfectly honest...

Granted this is here in New Zealand, but here where I live, under normal circumstances you can get rainchecks on most things unless they are marked as clearance stock and they are getting rid of the last of their inventory, but if something is on special, they are usually permitted to put on the advertisment "Limited Stock, NO RAINCHECKS"

This. In the UK all of our sales have 'subject to availability' written into the small print. If we don't have something in stock, you're out of luck.

[mhkohne]

So now my manager has to hunt down an RA or something else giving us permission to ship those monitors back. Otherwise we have to eat their cost.

Can they come out of the paycheck of the guy that shipped them back? Seems only fair that if he messed it up, he should pay for it.

Either your area has some weird laws, or your company wants to smooch some customer ass and doesn't want to admit they're smooching customer ass.

Might be some kind of anti-fraud statute. SC's like to yell bait-n-switch all the time, but it was fairly common at one point. Some localities may have dealt with it by simply forcing the stores to honor the price later, thereby reducing the motivation to try to pull something.

[EricKei]

I'm a little surprised that you have to do rainchecks on discounted items to be perfectly honest...

I have almost only ever seen rainchecks ON discounted items, specifically -- So that someone can (theoretically) come back in a week or two and pick up items that are no longer on sale, for the sale price. There is still no guarantee of availability (after all, if it's sold out once, it must be popular), however, and anything on Clearance doesn't count.

[Dreamstalker]

We were out at that moment, so she got a rain check. Two days later, after the truck had delivered more, she came in to buy it. At this point, it was still on sale. She was INSISTING on using her rain check! I kept telling her "no don't use the rain check, it's still on sale at that price".

I get this a lot. Usually, when the item is part of another sale, it's actually cheaper than it would be with the raincheck...hey, if they want to pay more, I'm not stopping em Current sales override rainchecks, and as far as I'm aware there's no way to override that (not that I'd want to; that bit of knowledge would bring even more scammers out I'm sure).

Rainchecks need to go into the drawer when used, so if a customer gets one that specifies 6 of that item and they only want 3, a new one needs to be written at the register. Which requires a manager, which is in short supply when you need one. The easiest thing to do would be to just have signs that all raincheck transactions must be done at the service desk...not only does that make sense, I'm worried that manager P may decide to get revenge if I send a nutcase her way.

What I really can't stand is when whoever wrote the raincheck did not include the number...even more fun if it's from another store for an item we don't actually carry and the SC wants to substitute (er, NO).