Let me ask you guys something. If you went to the cleaners, and a sign in the window said “Five suits pressed for $10,” and you brought in two suits to be pressed, and he just took them and didn’t say a word, but when you came back to pick them up he charged you $20, would you walk away happy?
Would you rationalize that he probably wanted to get a lot of practice pressing suits, and was willing to pay for the privilege? Or would you, just possibly, think that he knew that not many people have five suits that need pressing at the same time, and that when they see that sign in the window, they are not likely to notice the very small price list on the wall that says pressing one suit is $10?
I don’t know if this is the case but it may be that the store had a deal with the soda company for some sort of deal if they increase the volume of sales regardless of the price in which case the grocery store didn’t get their incentive by just selling 2 or 3 cases.
Labor cost for pressing suits is different. Again, freight and storage in warehouses cost money. This was a volume deal that benefited the manufacturer, retailer and warehouse. The margin is tight. The cashier should have told him about the deal in perfect world but maybe she had her own things to think about.
It seems to me clear that it wasn’t age discrimination since it is plainly obvious from TonySinclair’s comments that he would have exactly mimicked the mistake of the father.
Yes. This is it, except it isn’t regardless of price. Both the retailer the manufacturer agree that they will cut each other a deal. Manufacturers save on freight, retailers promote it and they move more product. Freight is less costly and at the end of the day everyone makes the same amont of money, or a little more, and everyone is happy.
I’d begin by asking the dry cleaner, “How much for two?”.
Because the sign does NOT indicate how much for two. It ONLY specifies a special price for the pressing of FIVE suits.
This much seems plain, clear and self evident to any adult.
As someone already tried to explain to you, the soda companies set the prices, and the retailers don’t have the leeway to do it in your favour. (As they can, should they desire, with other items in their store!) You seem blind to this and determined to uselessly vent your spleen to someone who has zero say over these prices or how they are charged.
This is about as foolish as screaming at the waitress over the price of your burger! You should def reconsider your position. You are mistaken, as a great majority are trying to tell you!
I guess in this circumstance I wouldn’t be upset at the store or at my dad. I see both types of sales here, so I’ve learned to ask. It doesn’t bother me which type they use, because the store has the right to choose whichever they like, I just want to know before I choose my quantity.
Candy bars? I’ll just buy more so I get the sale price, they get eaten pretty quickly. Pop? Probably not. I don’t drink that much of it.
If the dry cleaners had that sign in the window, I would definitely ask. That’s an awfully low price and I’d want to be sure I was understanding the ad correctly.
But I have to say I don’t see how any of this is age or disability discrimination. It’s a misunderstanding.
FWIW, I find it kind of scammy to have a sign stating $11 for 4 if the individual price is $2.75. It’s crap like that that would make me switch to another store. Guess retailers can’t win.
I would assume that the deal only applies if I bring in five suits because that’s what the sign on the window says. If the sign had said “Three suits for $6,” I would assume that the deal only applies if I bring six suits, and that I would get charged more per suit if I brought only two.
I honestly don’t understand TonySinclair’s take on this. I don’t mean this as an insult – I legitimately am curious why someone would think that a sign saying X items for Y price means anything else than what it says.
My parents used to run a mom-and-pop retail shop, and the only reason to run these types of deals was move inventory by selling items at a discount if the buyer bought multiple amounts. To me it wouldn’t have made any sense to put up a sign saying “Four for $11” if they we were selling it for the same price individually. Studies do show that people fall for these tricks, but to me (much like Eyebrows says) this is borderline scammy and dishonest. I never assume that these “buy four for $11” signs mean anything other than what they say.
Of course, what I meant to say is that if a sign said three suits for $6, I would assume the deal applied only if I brought three suits (not six as I incorrectly posted originally).
It varies by store, but most of the time when I see “X for $Y” I understand that you need to purchase X items to get the discount. The concept of a bulk discount wouldn’t exist if you could get the same discount without buying bulk.
I’m sorry you feel that you or your dad were taken advantage of.
Just curious, what would you assume if you brought in 6 suits?
Twice the 3 suit price?
$6 for the first three suits and regular price for the next 3?
Regular price for all six because you didn’t bring in exactly 3?
Yeah, yeah, I know that you should always ask. But you mentioned making an assumption. What is your assumption in this case?
As others have pointed out in this thread, it depends on the store. Your interpretation is not “standard” by any means. Kroger does generally allow the discount for fewer items than the specified number—but not always; I do recall instances in which Kroger has required the purchase of some minimum number, but they use different wording for those cases (such as “$1 off when you buy 5”). I always check carefully before making any assumptions, and watch closely as items are rung up. You didn’t, so that’s on you.
As for BOGO sales, I have never seen one where you could just buy one item at half price. Never. Oh, I’m sure it’s happened somewhere, but that certainly isn’t “standard” either.
Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.
I suggest that your time would have been better spent discussing this with the store manager, instead of making your dad feel bad and then running to the Dope to complain.
Because I have been buying things in stores for over 50 years, in a couple dozen states and a dozen countries, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen a case like this.
Of course I’ve seen cases where you pay less per item if you buy in bulk; that’s extremely common. But in those cases, it was always clearly marked as X dollars each, 4 for Y dollars, in the same size type for both prices, or sometimes the bulk deal was in smaller type. If that wasn’t the case, then the unit price was the same as the bulk price.
And I have never, ever seen a case before where it costs less than half as much to buy 4 as to buy 2.
A local bakery chain has this “twofer” offer. Other twofers work as “take two and the cheapest one is free”, but this one is a literal twofer: a bar is 1€, two identical bars are 1€. If you take two different bars, it’s 2€. Take two pairs of identical bars, 2€.
I don’t eat a lot of bread, by the time I went to start on a second identical bar it would be stale. So, I’m not the kind of customer that’s attracted by their specific offer. Lots of families are, though (specially those with [del]werewol[/del]teenagers).
Every single supermarket in the area has two-packs of 2L Coca-cola bottles which come out to less than buying 2 individual 2L Coke bottles. Every customer understands that if you do buy the individual bottles you’ll be paying the price marked for individual bottles, not the price marked for the paired bottles. I’ve seen the cashier at a supermarket point it out and the customer say “yes I know, but they’re easier to load into and out of the cart this way”. The customer chose to pay a couple of pennies more because she values her back more than she values those few pennies.
Different offers have different targets, and the terms of the offer are exactly what they are, not what some customer or other would like it to be.
I have- and since I know it can mean either “buy one at full price and get the second one free”** or ** " you can buy one at half-price" ,if it matters to me , I ask. Just like I check if there is a limit on something priced at “4 for $11” rather than assuming I can buy 12 for $33, even though I probably wouldn’t check if the ad/sign listed the first item as half price or the second as $2.75 each.