I used to work at the headquarters of a group of shoe designer/manufacturers. We had a “company store” there. It was actually just a little booth with an employee there to take orders from the employees. We got everything right at wholesale. That is a pretty big savings on shoes I’ll tell you. People, especially women because one of these was a kids shoe brand, would load up for family, friends and whoever else. I don’t think anyone ever told us the official policy but I think it would be pretty obvious what is happening when one person orders twenty pairs a month.
I think this is one of those cases where a liberal view of ethics comes into play. The companies know that the discounts will sometimes be used for someone else and they don’t care. They would care if you use the discount to set up a retail store in your house. There isn’t a clear line between right and wrong. People should be able to figure it out on their own and not play amateur lawyer with the theoretical situations.
That’s probably it. Thinking on it, I’ve taken advantage of other offers in other ways, just not my staff discount the times I’ve had them. I don’t think anything of borrowing my friend’s discount cards when shopping, nor lending them mine.
I didn’t mean to imply that anyone else was dishonest I Am The Walrus, just that… well I wasn’t trying to disparage others! More disparaging myself, precisely BECAUSE I feel so guilty about it. That’s what I mean by too honest. It makes me uncomfortable, and I have this voice in me saying it is dishonest since it’s against policy (heck, I feel guilty if I find more than small change on the ground and I pocket it since no one is looking for it and it’s hardly identifiable, it’s very easy to make me feel guilty even if you don’t mean to… I’ve been working on that.). I work there, I get the benefits of it. My friends don’t work there, they don’t get the benefits of MY job (just like I don’t get the benefits of their jobs). Savings cards we flip between people, it was paid for (sometimes communally) so we’ll all take the savings.
It’s hardly illegal but to my feelings it borders on stealing directly from the company since I may as well be pocketing those few dollars… but at the same time I’m willing to dance around that. For example, while working at Tim Horton’s I had no problem taking or letting others take donuts from back of the store when I was going to throw them out anyway after I cleaned out the case (which is a complete waste)… but I wouldn’t hand out donuts to anyone who came up to the counter unless they paid for them, even my friends or family, despite my being allowed to eat donuts for free each shift.
What can I say, I’m hardly innocent but I have a line where I feel it’s not right, others have their own line and they generally vary. It’s not a matter of being more honest or dishonest than someone else. Go ahead and use your friend’s discounts. If you’re comfortable with that and it works for you go right ahead. In DiosaBellissima’s case (and I haven’t read that thread) where higher ups were aware of and okay with it, I also say go ahead…
But I don’t feel comfortable with it, so I won’t share my discount with you and I won’t ask you to share your discount with me.
If you’re shopping as a customer, this is fine. But if you’re shopping on an employee discount, you’re operating under a different set of rules.
For example, I get an employee discount. Use of this discount is subject to certain terms, including specifically that it is only to be used by me for my own purchases, or by my wife and dependent children. I can use it for gift-giving, but I cannot use it to purchase and re-sell products for my own profit, and I cannot use it to purchase items for my friends and have them reimburse me at my cost.
Failing to *agree *does not make you dishonest. Taking *actions *that violate the implicit agreement, on the other hand, does. Whether the restrictions are reasonable or not is beside the point – the discount is offered to you subject to those conditions. You either abide by them or you do not, but you don’t get to both violate the conditions of the employment agreement *and *call yourself honest.
Bear in mind that the company is not trying to restrict your behavior with regard to purchases you make as a customer, only the ones you make as an employee using your discount. If you get something (the discount), you have to give something (your agreement not to use that discount outside the rules).
I’d say it depends on what the company says. After all, they’re the ones “gifting” their employees, aren’t they?
The electronics factory where Dad used to work offered a discount for employees and another for “buying through employees” (part of the difference was a commision for the employee). There were times when the “sales through employees” were significant, for example when VCRs got invented: that little town in Northern Spain had one in 90% of houses before Madrid got one in 5% By the time Madrid was up to one in 50% of houses, we were buying the second one…
At some point they decided it was worth more to them to just get rid of the “sales through employees” and set a cap instead. Each person can buy up to X large-items/year and up to Y small-items/year. Nobody thinks that someone who bought 3 flatscreen TVs in July was redoing his flat…
Ford’s AXZ plan is in place to encourage employees extend their discounts to friends and family. Anyone can ask a Ford employee for an X-plan PIN and the employee can give them one. The X-plan has no restrictions on who you are in relation to the employee.
Ford is so desperate for people to buy their cars that most companies slightly affiliated with them are able to give all of their employees X-plan discounts. I had a friend who worked at Goodyear, he got the plan. Another friend worked at a truck outfitting shop and she got it too.
Seems to me that in Ford’s case they are happy to extend discounts to just get people using their products.
Anecdote: I worked at a grocery store until the summer of my senior year in HS. I was in charge of buying a bunch of soda for a group that summer (after I’d quit the store). I rolled up to the grocery store and asked my former manager if I could use his employee discount to buy all my soda and he was happy to oblige. He even let me use one of the stockroom carts for loading all those cases up.
I worked at a retail store that gave a 20% employee discount on almost all purchases (they later increased it to 25%.) On many items I believe that the retail markup was well over 50%, maybe over 75%, so the store still makes a tidy profit regardless of discounts.
Seriously, for those who might feel that this is unethical, don’t for a second worry that you’re cheating the company or stealing in any way! No business would continue this practice if they were not making a profit from it.
(For clarification, I had to be present to use the discount, so any friends/family who wanted to use it had to take me with them. I did not give discounts to random strangers or anything!)
Sorry, missed my window-to-edit.
My company offers an employee discount on certain items that we generally sell with a large margin. I mean, a huge margin, relative to the rest of the stuff we stock. The discount doesn’t put a significant dent in the margin, either, but if you choose your items carefully, you can realize some substantial savings as a consumer.
You’d figure that in an organization with policies and procedures for everything - including what kind of shoes white-collar employees are supposed to wear on “casual” Fridays - they’d have mentioned that we’re not supposed to spread the discount around.
What they did instead was hand me a half-dozen loyalty cards when I got hired. My folks and the in-laws each got one.
My experience at Best Buy was that immediate family could enjoy the discount if you were with them, and if you were with friends, YOU had to hand over the method of payment (ie, credit/debit card in YOUR name, check written from YOUR account, cash out of YOUR hand). Naturally, whether you pocketed a return from said friends once you were outside the store was no one’s business. Now their policy is “employee only, no family at all” for their discount (which policy I believe they timed strategically, to eliminate 2006 Christmas season buying at a discount by family members). They knew to the penny how much the discount cut into profits, and as a manager, I was often asked to “politely and diplomatically” let my employees know when our store was losing too much profit to the discount in a given month, and ask them to WAIT to buy until the next month. Yeah, Best Buy WAS my least favorite job of all time, why do you ask?
Borders hasn’t limited their employee discount usage per month YET, but I do know that with their free Rewards Card, a customer must now ASK for the perks that are due them, we are no longer allowed to “check and see if they are entitled to a discount, have money in their Rewards account to spend, etc.” If the customer cannot keep track of his/her own discount entitlement, they simply don’t get the discount. Clearly, profits were suffering from employees offering the extra customer service to buyers.
Er, well, the floor staff is supposed to be reminding the customers when they’re helping them to be sure to use their rewards/discounts/etc. And you were NEVER supposed to offer it at the register. I don’t quite understand the logic, but it’s definitely floor staff responsible for that and not the cashier.
What if you’re buying solely because of the discount you’re getting, io.e., you wouldn’t shop there at all if your friend didn’t have the discount? Doesn’t it drive business?
I have a really hard time seeing where selling more things is bad for the company.
They certainly send you enough damned emails to remind you. This actually reminded me that I never got my discount for the holiday season, since the Borders employee couldn’t figure out how to do it. I didn’t feel like holding up the line for $1, but what a crock!
What if they were going to sell out of that item at full price if it hadn’t been sold at a discount?
Some sales are better than others. There is even such a thing as a bad sale, though I would hope employee discounts are too conservative to encroach upon that territory.
Where the company policy limits use to the individual or specifically identifies others such as a spouse or child then using it to purchase for friends or any others is, at best, unethical.
Where the policy specifies a maximum amount then I’d say it’s open season up to whatever the limit is.
By the time Madrid was up to one in 50% of houses, we were buying the second one…