That one always pissed me off. Sometimes it was just a rent for free issue. I need a wood chipper for this weekend only so rather than rent one, I’ll buy one form Sears, use it all weekend , then return it and expect a full refund. And oh, when they tell me about their new restocking fee and why they had to have it, I’ll throw a major hissy because my dignity isn’t worth $30 bucks. Getting my way is.
It’s also a great exmple of how the less than honest have a real affect on the honest. The honest customer that would never pull that shit still has to pay the restocking fee.
Partly it’s a matter of inconvenience. I don’t want to have to make two seperate trips to the store.
And, despite what some here have said, I’m a fundamentally honest person. I don’t agree with the store’s rules but I don’t feel that gives me the right to break those rules. I was trying to get what I wanted honesly and openly not by subterfuge.
I meant why didn’t you just return them as soon as the clerk said, “oh, by the way, these will totally be cheaper next week” - or ask him to void the transaction, or whatever?
I had already bought them at 33% off when I was told of the upcoming sale so I had #2 covered. So I figured I could either return them that day or wait and return them next week when the new sale started. (I confirmed that I could return them next week.)
So I figured either way I’m going to have to come back next week to get them for 50% off. But what happens if I return them today and then it turns out the clerk was wrong and they don’t go on sale for half price? Or what happens if something comes up and I can’t come back next week? Or if I return them today maybe somebody else will buy them before I come back. If I can’t buy them for 50% off, I’d still rather have them for 33% off than not have them at all. So I’ll wait until next week to return them in case there’s a problem - that way I’ll be sure to have them regardless.
See, the “rent it for free” policy of being able to return something post-use, within a certain amount of time, no-strings-attached, always seemed to me to be based on the philosophy that a certain percentage of people will decide, after getting the thing home, that their lives are so much easier/better with the wood chipper than without-- even if they came in fully intending to use it and return it. Like the magazine subscriptions where you get 3 months before they bill you. After reading something for three months, maybe you’ll decide you love it, whereas, if you had to pay upfront and make a concrete commitment to cost, you’d never even consider it.
Try being a retailer who ends up with mountains of “took it for our trip to Florida” camcorders, “Junior’s 1st birthday” digital cameras, “Road trip to the Grand Canyon” radar detectors, and “Superbowl party” big screen tvs.
You’d be suprised at how fast it gets real ugly.
I think they assume people won’t buy it unless they are actually thinking about keeping it, and in that case , a smaller % will return it. We’re talking about people buying it that never had any intention of keeping it but planned to use it, lessoning it’s value, and then return it for a full refund. They’ve basically disregarded the stores profit margin so they can get somethng for free.
I think a fair arrangement is the restocking fee.
“I’m not sure I need one. I’d like to try it and see if I like it.”
“Okay, there’s a small restocking fee if you return it used, but then you’ll know you don’t really want one and you didn’t spend all that money on something you don’t really want.”
Like say, renting one for a weekend to see if you want to own one.
The reason stores changed their return policies is because the % of people signing on to the rent for free program kept rising. It got to be socially acceptable over time instead of seen as dishonest.
People never consider that or if they do they just don’t care. They think "They’re a big company they can afford it, and never consider that 1000 other assholes are using the same reason. You’ll see certain products get targetted at certain times.
I saw some college students get caught by the restocking fee on the laptop they had bought just to do a term paper. They were mad, we were dancing. “Take that cheap ass cocksuckers”
One clerk that was fed up told a customer that brought back a camcorder that he could only return it if he returned all the tapes he had bought as well. It wasn’t true but he walked away with the camcorder.
I’ve faced idiocy similar to what the OP experienced at Babies R Us. Their prices are generally not great, but they do have good sales. Numerous times I’ve brought an unopened item with the sales receipt within the full-price exchange period and asked to get the price difference back. Sometimes the returns clerk will happily do it. Sometimes they don’t want to, but after explaining to them that I can simply return it for the original price and buy it again they do the adjustment.
And several times they’ve refuse. So I do what I said I would–I return the item for the price I bought it for. They’ve never stopped me from buying it again. Why would they? They have the sale because they want to move that product. I think the problem is more likely to be a lazy or ignorant employee than store policy.
Don’t fight them on the price adjustment. Return the product. Make them fight you on buying it again. What kind of manager would stop a customer from buying an item? Not one who wants to keep his job.
I remember people trying to game the system with Black Friday ads. They’d get the ad ahead of time (can usually be found on-line a week previous) and buy the doorbuster item at full price.
On Black Friday they’d wander in around noon after the doorbuster items had been long gone since 6 a.m. and want their price match. I’d kindly show them the disclaimer in the ad stating “sales prices not valid on previous purchases”.
“AHA!” they’d say “then let me return it and I’ll just buy it again.”
They became pretty disgusted with me when I told them they were free to return it but it would not be available to re-purchase until the next day once the sale was off again.
I’m not so sure it is idiocy on their part. Sure, they’ve might lose you as a customer if you have to return it and then go find it and buy it again, but stores that do the price adjustments may lose me, or at least the ability to attract me with their ads. One too many times, I’ve arrived the morning the sale was to start and found the store out of stock. Eventually,an employee told me I should come the day before the sale starts - they were out of stock because people who get the Sunday circular on Saturday bought out all they had and would return later for the price adjustment. I still go to some of the stores where that happened- but I certainly don’t make a special trip because something is on sale . And that’s the real purpose of advertising a sale- to get someone to the store who wasn’t coming anyway and hopefully sell them non-sale items. ( I don’t just go on Saturday because for all I know other newspaper carriers deliver the circulars before Saturday and the store is sold out by Friday)
Most companies I worked for was very careful not to release Black Friday’s add until just before the day. Then I noticed a shift to things not being put out for sale until late afternoon. A lot of the sales were only from opening until noon so if they came back after noon with a return they couldn’t get the sale price anyway.
One trick I noticed is that many companies had mail in rebates for a couple of months before a permenant price drop. Especially in technolgy. So a hard drive, that was $70 might have a $30 mail in rebate before the price droped to $40.
Customers would find out who was already selling it for $40, come in and want us to match that price according to our policy, so that they could also use our $30 mail in and get it for $10. Nice try if it works, but usually we would say, ours is already price matched with the rebate, and not do the discount. Occasionally somebody would want to stand around and argue the point, or act like we just screwed them out of $30 because their master plan didn’t work.
Although it’s not illiegal to be sold out it’s baaad to be caught that way. If it’s a hot item stores should hold some back until the sale starts. Especially if they have run into this problem several times.
We would have people get the ad on Saturday and come in on Saturday and want to buy it for Sunday’s sale price. When they found out they couldn’t they were pissed at us.
It clearly says “Sale Starts Sunday” and it’s a very common practice.
Yeah but I didn’t notice that before I drove 30 minutes to get here.
I realize that and I’m sorry.
Sometimes it was late in the day and we’d cut them a breal. The problem is once you start making exceptions then people think they can do it all the time and it’s some kind of unwritten policy.
ONe of my favs was the lady who showed up to buy a computer when we first opened. We had just recieved notice that the ad was an error and the price was $50 below the real sale price, {which was pretty good} Since I hadn’t posted the correction yet I gave her the advertised price. She got an excellent deal.
She called a couple of hours later and asked me if she got any extra discount because we had made a mistake. {you know., like at the grocery store}
No Maam , You got a great deal and an extra discount but there’s nothing else.
Couldn’t you ask your manager?
I could but I’m sure there’s nothing else
Well please check for me
I tell my manager I’m asking him and we both laugh.
I call her back to tell her there’s no additional discount.
Well I can still return it then can’t I?
Yes Maam you can. You got it for $50 less than an already excellent sale price , but if you’d like to return it and start over, that’s up to you. In fact I have a customer that would love to have it at at the advertised sale price so they’d appreciate it if you did.