If a person buys a perishable item like nutritional supplements from a brick and mortar store, starts using them but then finds that the same product can be had cheaper online (same brand, product, amount, etc), are there any store rules against buying the product online, taking the receipt from the store bought product and taking both items (the store bought receipt and the online bought item) into the store and returning it to get your money back that you spent on the store bought item?
I’ve heard stores like walmart will let you return items bought from other stores. Is this generally against company policy or do they not care?
Technically I think by using the receipt you are representing that the item you have (that you are trying to return) is the same as on the recipt. This isn’t strictly the case. If the item is perishable - one could argue the store is being damaged by having less of fresh period - or whatever you would call it. In your case - it might actually be the opposite.
Where I worked in retail (we didn’t deal with perishables) - we would not have known - or really cared - unless you told us. I would probably still have done it even if told - and I suspect ~50% of the people I worked with would have done the same.
With a perishable item - there are concerns of product tampering and the like. I would be much less likely to personally do it. What if the other company left a pallet of these supplements out in the sun all day? Granted you could do that as well, but - just seems kind of wrong.
Walmart will let you make x number of returns under x amount inn x days with no receipt. If you use that - there is no way anyone can say you are doing anything wrong. I have done that before (not for Walmart). I’ve said before that I don’t even know 100% that it was purchased there - and have gotten a gift card or something to use on something else. None of them were perishable.
Doesn’t really answer your question, but my 2 cents.
Stores are free to set whatever return policies they want, including no returns at all. You can’t really answer this question with a blanket statement. Further, this is more a question of ethics than store policy because I’ve never heard of a store with an explicit policy to cover the situation you’re describing.
If you take a product to the store with a receipt from that store, for the exact same product in the same (or even better) condition as what you bought, then it is indistinguishable for all practical intents and purposes from returning the item that was bought there. Nobody will care.
What is certainly shady is buying something then trying to return it to a *different *store without a receipt, although some stores will indeed take returns without a receipt, and some will even do so knowing that product may not have been bought there.