In my dental practice I had a potential new patient call for an appointment and then said, “since I’m over 55 I’ll be getting the senior discount.” I explained that I don’t offer a senior discount. He got quite upset and demanded one and wanted to know why I didn’t have a senior discount. I explained that just because he was older my overhead didn’t change and that I offered a fair price to everyone. He kept demanding and I kept refusing until he said to “just cancel my appointment.” I replied that I had done so even before he asked.
I have given away a lot of dentistry over the years to many needy and/or nice people, but a surefire way to not get a discount is to tell me that I owe it to you just because AARP has brainwashed their members into thinking they shouldn’t ever have to pay full price just because they are over 55.
It really depends on the manfacturer, the nature of the product and their arrangement with the retailer.
Some cables we sell have a lfe time guarentee with across the counter exchange. Once a month or so we return the defective ones to the manufacturer and they replace them. Great for us and the customer.
Other items like electronics have a repair or replace warranty from the manufacturer and they want to deal with it. The paperwork says "DO NOT RETURN TO RESELLER< {me} CALL THIS NUMBER FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE AND WARRANTY ISSUES.
Another thing is that we need to make sure the customer is returning it because it is defective rather than because they are done using it, or are to lazt to read the instructions and figure it out.
Return policies have changed because the % of bad customers who liked to rent for free , use something for a week and then return it, got to high.
We get asked that all the time. There;s the senior discount, the miltary discount, the profesional musician discount, the student discount etc etc. Every now and then I honor the nice smile and big tits discount. More often it’s because someone knew how to ask in a polite manner. If someone is trying to work in a budjert and we’re pretty close we tend to work with them.
When I worked in a college town we offered a 10% discount for a student or a staff ID. Problems arose when somoene would come in, negotiate a lower price and then throw down thier ID expecting an additional 10% off the negotiated price. I’d point out that the discount for ID was 10% off the marked price , not a negotiated price and they could have whichever was cheaper, but not both.
Some were annoyed with that very simple and clearly printed concept.
Absolutely nothing wrong with some friendly polite negotiating. Accept the answer you get and make your decision about whether you want the offered price.
Sometimes I have to try and not laugh or say “Are you serious?”
A young lady picked up a plastic waste basket that had swivel top marked $3.00
How much is this?
Just like the tag says , it’s $3.
I’ll give you a dolllar for it.
It’s $3
I know your store negotiates on price.
It’s…3…dollars.
She walked away in disgust.
One young couple made a significant purchase, big screen, surround sound, a few other items, so I gave them a nice discount on the package. Then when we get to the register he says, “wait you said that was tax included” {10% at the time}
No I didn’t. I have to charge you sales tax. It’s the law. I’ve given you a nice discount, I can’t go another 10%.
No YOU SAID it was tax included.
You no sir there comes a time whe you should say, thanks for the good deal and pay the bill, rather than insist I said something I know I never said. So pay up or walk away and the discounts are gone.
Funny, it reminds me of a story I heard i which a high end guitar was on closeout for half it’s original price. A customer kept coming in and trying to negotiate an even lower price. Was told several times, no it’s already a fantastic deal and half it’s original price, but next week he’d be back trying again to get it for less. One day the salesman, manager, or whomever was sick of it, so when he offered a lower price he handed the guy the guitar, walked a few paces away and said , “toss it to me”
“What?”
“toss it to me”
When the customer tossed it he stepped aside and let the guitar crash to the floor. “Now you can have it for that price”
Isn’t it funny how perception works. I’ve used the “we give everyone a good deal” thing lots, but still, if someone is paying what everyone else pays their percepton is it isn’t a good deal. Odd. I’ve had a few men admit that not paying the marked price is just a thing with them. One nice guy buying a guitar for his son asked, “Can you give me $5 off the package so I feel better about not paying the marked price”
“Since you were so upfront and honest , sure”
Anyone else get the missionaries? With them it’s either one of two things:
:rolleyes: I’m a missionary/doing god’s work/a good Christian can I have some of the price knocked down?
or -
:rolleyes: You know, I could get that done for a dollar in Nigeria.
Oh, really? Why don’t you just buy a plane ticket and go to Nigeria to get it done, then? Welcome to America, where our overhead is vastly more expensive than Nigeria.
Of course, the mere fact I find proselytizing and missionary work offensive probably doesn’t help my opinion of them at all.
I used to work for Domino’s Pizza in the evenings, after I spent the day as a teacher. On the occasion that we had a snow day, I would go straight there to work, since all the at-home people would find out they didn’t have anything to eat at their house.
On one of those snow days, across-the-street businesses that usually walked over for their pizza would ask for delivery instead. When I delivered to one and they didn’t tip (I didn’t say anything to the customer), I returned to the store and griped a bit about it. When my manager overheard me, he reached in his pocket, gave me $3 to make up for the no-tip, then edited that business’s customer record in our database. In the manager’s comments, he wrote “Give no over-the-phone specials. All prices to be regular prices.”
About 13 or 14 years ago, we adopted an orphan feral kitten. Momcat had been killed, this was the only surviving kitten, and he wasn’t weaned yet. Within a month or so, I believe that kitten cost us about $300, and he hadn’t been socialized, tested, or fixed yet. Now, of course, he’s perfectly fine, he got neutered as soon as possible, and he loves my daughter (who was the one who did most of his bottle feeding) very much. But that “free” kitten that we picked up in a field was pretty damned expensive.
Hijack: I used to handle food ordering for a university department function. Payment was handled by invoice basically – I would order a dozen pizzas, and hand the delivery guy a purchasing authorization form thingy. All actual handling of money happened somewhere far away from me; presumably somebody in administration would cut a check to the pizza store at some point.
Anyways, I always felt uneasy because I couldn’t figure out a way to give a tip in this system. (But I didn’t feel nearly so bad that I was willing to pay $20-$40 per week out of my own pocket!) Still, the usual delivery guys seemed happy enough with the situation. I always guessed that since we were paying full list price for every pizza (mostly “expensive” specialty pizzas), the store manager worked something out with the delivery guy. Is that anything like standard practice?
The “details” seem to be rather fuzzy. First you gave the example of someone trying to return a defective item six weeks after buying it. Then you said your store will “usually” handle returns made within 30 days. You also asked what a poster thought was a “reasonable” time period for making a return. So it was unclear to me at what point you think it’s on the consumer to deal with the manufacturer, instead of your store handling it.
Hint: have a clearly stated, prominently posted return policy and stick to it. Customers can decide whether what’s acceptable, as opposed to dealing with the whims of the clerks/manager.
Yes, if there’s one thing a person whose livelihood depends on positive customer and employee reviews hates, it’s getting more business as a result of someone giving them accolades in a public forum.
What you describe wouldn’t be foreign here in the United States, but it isn’t something the law requires. Most major retailers that I’ve seen have very generous return policies for defective equipment. But it is up to the retailer, while it isn’t hard and fast from what I’ve seen the smaller the chain (down to mom & pop stores) the less likely they are to be generous on refunds and the more likely you will have to use the manufacturer warranty as your first option.
That being said, it really depends on the item for me if I try to return to the retailer or go through the manufacturer. Like another poster here, I had a problem with a large (already wall mounted) LCD tv I bought about six months prior. It was a Samsung, I could have returned it under the return policy to the big box store where I purchased it. However, the Samsung warranty service actually sends a certified Samsung tech who comes to your house, fixes it at your home, remounts it for you and etc. That’s much more convenient for me than actually hauling it back to the store and having them do an exchange.
For appliances there is also often the concern that big box retailers change their inventory all the time, so the specific appliance you had may not be available any longer, in which case you’d have to accept store credit. That may be exactly what you want (especially if the previous brand/model failed you), but if you actually really liked the model you owned and just want a working one, the manufacturer is much more likely to be able to satisfy you there.
But anytime something small is broken, I take it right back to the retailer. I used to get a lot of defective DVDs from Wal-Mart, it’s a very painless process to come in with the disc and case and tell them “this doesn’t work”, they just nod and tell you to go get a new copy and they’ll scan you out.
I know at one point if you bought major appliances (like washer and dryer, oven etc) from Sears, they’d actually send guys out to fix it for you if it broke. I don’t know if Sears does this anymore as my memory of that is back from when they were a major retailer / going concern instead of a mismanaged hedge fund property.
I’m unsure as to why the store breaking the guitar and forgoing any profit on it was preferable to telling the guy no further discount. Given that the guitar was not moving it couldn’t have been that great a price. I can definitely see the guy thinking that the store would rather take a minimal profit or even a bit of a loss to get the guitar out the door and free up space for new inventory.
Some store owners or managers are quirky … the was a music store owner I knew (he’s retired now) who loved interacting with local heros and celebrities, but was very uneven in his attitude toward the average walk in customer, and his staff were even worse. They often acted like they didn’t need any new customers. Once I remember him getting annoyed by a customer’s demand for a bigger discount, and ironically made the customer this offer: “I’ll give you any one item in the store at my cost … any item.” Strangely, the customer got some sort of unsettled feeling and basically walked out of the store, why I don’t know. I asked the owner, “Why would you make an offer like that, you have a lot of very expensive and profitable pieces of gear in here?” He said, “I don’t like that guy’s attitude, and I gambled that he’s walk out. If he hadn’t, I would have kept my word.”
I can’t explain the motive for such an action, any more than I could guess why a manager would allegedly damage a high end instrument to make a point (what point?)
